jcb-
if you search back, Ive posted a lot about the mixer Im building. Its completely simple, uses 312 and 325 cards, passive summing, each channel has a pan pot, a level pot, a pad, mic/line select, buss mute and phantom power. I spent months deciding on the transformers Id used, too long thinking about the buss and everything gets messy when you put it in a box. There isnt anything simple about building a mixer and its really best to approach it from a custom basis, as if you do the wiring point to point, its gonna be all custom anyway. Figure out what you need and design the block diagram, that should take you a few weeks. Once you have a block that you are happy with, put amplifiers in the blocks and figure what kind of amps you want and do it in baby steps. Discussing universal features is folley IMO, start with a block and make the block work, then add the active elements then make your features list. At the end of the day, I didnt do boo special with my mixer and its just like a million other mixers but it took me forever to figure out how to implement things and fit it into a small box. Just remember when looking att commercial examples, many features put on a commercial box are to sell it, not really to make it sound good or easy to use. My box is no frills, designed to sound good and nothing else. NYDave is really right in so many ways, build it to solve whatever problem you need solved, sticking with any kind of standard platform is either gonna leave you with a bunch of features you dont need or not having a bunch of features you do need. If you dont put mic pres in it then obviously you dont need phantom feeds to each channel, you wont necessarily have input transformers, soo many options.
dave
