Cult DIY project: need your input

[iangomes]

motorized knobs using midi for auto-recall would be cool

 

[TomWaterman]

All good.

However...
Tape Stimulators are commercial shipping products.  And there are plug ins. 
Mixing platform.  We already can make passive mixers and patch everything we need together.
Studio Speakers.  What?  There a million kits and designs already out there which are excellent.
Plate Reverb.  Already shipping in parts/kits, designs are out there.  What would Igor add to that?
A/D D/A.  Sure.  But there are already excellent stock products shipping.  Plus kits and designs for audiophiles are out there. Nothing new.
VCA bus Comp.  Igor did say the GSSL needs a redesign.  But again, this is not new.  Just tweaked.

There are commercial products and plugins for nearly everything so we may as we not bother! ;-)

Passive summers are a whole world easier than a mixing system with proper routing etc.

I wasn't aware of any DIY speakers that are designed purely as a studio monitor? Any links?

Regarding the AD/DA, I see many audiophile DACs but not many ADs. And none which seem to go to AES in a modular system. I would imagine an IJR ADDA system would be more affordable than something like a Lynx Aurora and sound as good.

-T

 

[tmuikku]

Digital stuff:
I recall Igor has some programming skills(and possibly many others too), so how about some universal software/hardwarecontroller combo thingy that could rather easily be applied to any analog gear? Toss in motorized knobs or anything controllable, connect cable from controller (hub style?), calibrate, assign from DAW.

Remote software to iPhone to control anything in your DAW. Could be usefull when hustling alone. That motion/direction sensing stuff in iPhone could be used to make crazy stuff with effects / synths.

Motorized knobs... univeral software... iPhone integration.  Cool.  But, man.  You're talking on the wrong forum, my friend.  We'd need an Apple developer (or two) onboard.

I knew that, made the point just to feed peoples imagination (someone mentioned remotecontrols). I don't have that much experience on studio work and audio circuits to really contribute on analog gear. If one wants to make completely new stuff one has to be creative and think without constraints, right?

Off Topic: In fact anybody can make software for iPh*ne, distribute it via itunes (or whatever the apple online store is called) and take what ever price on it (few percent goes to apple) or give it free. The device seems to be great platform for remote controlling software based stuff. I don't own any Ap*le products, seems to be cool platform though. I do programming for living and might do something like this on iPh*ne (if I can afford one some day).

More Off Topic: If I'll take this imagination feeding really far: Material science is taking big leaps nowadays and materials with unorthodox electromagnetical properties are found almost every week. Those might yield some unexpected new electrical components which could lead to new kind of audio circuits too. Who knows. Such new stuff isn't going to be on consumer products in a while, but some day someone perhaps makes a pioneer product I believe. Computer interfaces and processing power is also going to change big time in near future (byebye mouse and keyboard and small displays).

Back to the point:
Nothing beats good ol' knobs and faders and analog audio though, at least not yet. And I hate computers, just need them almost everyday, and they are handy. Sooo, carry on everyone, this interesting read  8)

 

[fantomas]

Something like the Inward Connections vac rac tube limiter could be nice too

 

[Igor]

No signs from Igor...

He probably ran away

lol

Yes, I am on very tough timetable these days-it is good time to let you give more input...
Just passed on reply's, wow, a lot of water, BUT there's some really good ideas...
Have to sleep on this.
I am not programmer, my friend doing this stuff. He's cool in Assembler and some DSP, but not PC/Mac/etc stuff.
If there's guys who familar with USB, plug-ins
and can _finnish_ the job, without taking it for halfyear, possible to think about automated
expandable mixer... Without too much options, but excellent sounding one.
If no, or in addition to, there's some cool pure analog options as well...

Just mind, this has to be cult project, repeatable, and very usefull.

 

[3nity]

Something like this wouldnt work??

 

[desol]

No signs from Igor...

...possible to think about automated expandable mixer... Without too much options, but excellent sounding one.

I'm 100% for this idea. Pretty much the only thing that i DO want.

Let me be the first..

line only
phase
variable high-pass
3 x aux
insert
pan, mute, solo
master section, aux returns(integrate with CRM)
all balanced
expandable in 8 x blocks to 32.
Automation cool (but not really necessary for me, anyway)

Excellent sound quality. Supply your own faders...

Hook up all your outboard...build up at your own pace.

? (too much options)

 

[AudioHammer]

I'm 100% for this idea. Pretty much the only thing that i DO want.

Let me be the first..

line only
phase
variable high-pass
3 x aux
insert
pan, mute, solo
master section, aux returns(integrate with CRM)
all balanced
expandable in 8 x blocks to 32.
Automation cool (but not really necessary for me, anyway)

Excellent sound quality. Supply your own faders...

Hook up all your outboard...build up at your own pace. 

+1 on this idea.  I need something like this right now.

I vote do not use automation on the modular mixer. USB automation is a headache to implement.

I know how to write firmware for implementing USB on uController / uProcessors as well as Audio DSP plug-ins.  I have written audio FW and DSP code for Eventide, Ensoniq, and Apple iPod and similar products for 16 years.  But to complete a mixer automation effort on a part-time basis in less than six months would be very difficult to do.  ???

AudioHammer

 

[gevermil]

amen :-\

 

[iangomes]

a mixer? meh... :'(

 

[tommypiper]

Yeah.  You guys, you know, you can buy a mixer.  A pretty good analog mixer these days is not expensive, relatively speaking.  A friend of mine here is rechipping and recapping a Ghost, which will apparently sound awesome.  There are cheaper ones that still sound great too...  There are already DIY passive summer mixers.  I don't quite see why we need to DIY something like this when they are so readily available, at every imaginable level, and relatively easy to mod. 

We need something special.  Something not seen elsewhere.  As Igor says, "cult."  And as he says, "repeatable."  I think that means not crazy complicated, or complex to build.

 

[desol]

Yeah.  You guys, you know, you can buy a mixer. 

We need something special.  Something not seen elsewhere.  As Igor says, "cult."  And as he says, "repeatable."  I think that means not crazy complicated, or complex to build.

Fair enough.    How about this: A new compressor, eq.

On one half of the panel, you get a compressor(something really nasty) for smashing the living daylights out of things with an automated shelving eq for automating hp/lp effects while compressing. Then on the other half of the frontpanel, you get a 3x3 lcd screen with a selector switch by which you can read out, the 50 most common pick up lines, 50 awesome cocktail recipes AND space invaders. 


8)


I still kinda like 8 channel, super hi-fi variable phase unit for drums/bass di/effects...etc...but we could go on all day like this.

 

[radiance]

, the 50 most common pick up lines, 50 awesome cocktail recipes AND space invaders. 

& GALAGA please ....

 

[doubleroger]

I still kinda like 8 channel, super hi-fi variable phase unit for drums/bass di/effects...etc...but we could go on all day like this.

I can't really think of any situation where I would use 8 of them at the same time. 4 would already be a lot, I think. Plus you could maybe even house them in a 1U rack.

 

[desol]

I still kinda like 8 channel, super hi-fi variable phase unit for drums/bass di/effects...etc...but we could go on all day like this.

I can't really think of any situation where I would use 8 of them at the same time. 4 would already be a lot, I think. Plus you could maybe even house them in a 1U rack.

Call it six, and you have yourself a deal. jk..guys. There's alot of good ideas here. I guess only Igor can decide.

Main point was just multichannel, variable phase unit...which seems useful...yet never done. I don't know...
Carry on...

Cheers.

 

[Arno]

Maybe we should leave all this audio stuff behind and make a nice touchscreen pong box with total recall

We can also do pacman if you want to get vintage colour/harmonic distortion


and flying vehicle automation offcourse




;D ;D ;D

 

[Hammond]

+1 on the modular mixer for me ;D

 

[mOBiTh]

A modular mixer really would be very cool - I'm at the early stages of planning what I want (probably something like a 12-16 line mixer with pan and eq, direct outs and possibly an 8-buss undercarriage that I can expand on later. Tube output stages would be nice too) .

Not sure it quite fits the brief though. I still reckon we're looking at a stand alone signal processor if we're looking for something that everyone is gonna want.

I'm maybe slightly biased though as I (virtually) never use mics and only use a computer for talking to you lot

 

[mcfarlane_audio]

maybe some kind of analysis thing instead of all this good cool stuff, i ahvent seen a cool good afforadble rta ever i think

so maybe a box with led vu led ppms and an rta, and phase?

just trying to think outside the box

i would use one of these every day all day long

 

[sysexguy]

Another cool idea would be an analog gain control with a digital sidechain. AFAIK Guyatone does this with some of their guitar pedals and possibly the anamod varimu works this way(???) but the idea isn't in extensive application in recording (unless I'm mistaken). The concept is to keep the actual signal path i) analog ii) audiophile, minimal signal path etc. A signal is tapped off, converted to digital where is is manipulated in DSP and the result is used to key the gain element of the analog signal. Applications include complex sidechain EQ, time constants, compressed sidechain, and radical attack and release controls that can be frequency or dynamically related.

Andy