DIY Modular Mixer

[abbey road d enfer]

Very nice build! Congrats.
You sem to have overcome most of the obstacles that abut DIYers.
For the members' education:
How have you designed the metal work (CAD, pen andpaper, twine and chewing gum )?
Did you do the metalwork yourself or have a pro doing it for you?
What software and what fab for the PCB's?
Did you have to order thousands of pots or have you found a supplier that has them available at a price that's less than an eye and a kidney?

 

[pahstah]

Thank you Abbey.
It's been a great effort, brain and time consuming, and it's been expensive considering all the mistakes that I've made. and it's not finished yet... I need to design the panels to cover the top and the bottom.
For the design of the lateral panels I used e-machine shop, then i exported the dxf to front panel design and made the holes, and then sent the files to schaeffer. for the rectangular panels I designed them directly in FPD.
For pcb I used Kicad ( the learning curve is not too steep but only now, after two years of using it and many pcbs designs made, I feel  confident), I then sent the gerber to real-pcb. I'm very satisfied with the results.

 

[pahstah]

About the pots: I've chosen a supplier that has them along with the dedicated  knobs ( these are concentric knobs ) at a reasonable price. these are alpha concentric post and have a nice feeling when you rotate them.  The panpots are clarostat that i bought from Jeff Steiger of CAPI. those were expensive but the pcb has holes for a cheaper but very good alternate stereo pot with center detent. So, if there will be interest in this project, it will be easy to source the panpots.

about the extrusions: these are the most difficult parts of the project, and had me scratching my head for a long time before I found the right ones, and still they were 60TE, 84TE or 1 meter long.
in order to have different lengths I should have made  order in hundreds.. so I adapted my design around those lengths.
So I used the 84te long extrusions wich is about 11x 500 series wide ideal for 8 input channels plus three master channel in the flat part of the mixer and a three space  wide control room module.
and the 60te long extrusions for the 8 input channel expander. with this configurations you are limited to 2 stereo submaster and one master module... enough for a small mixer.
...BUT...
If you want more submaster channels in mono and additional slots in the Double500 portion of the mixer, you can use the 60te extrusions like this: two 60te wide modules for 16 input channels and one 60te wide module for 8 submaster mono modules and one  master module, the control room module and you have 10 500 series spaces left in the sloping part of the mixer.

 

[pahstah]

One more thing: I used one big front panel to hold all the channel modules together because it is way cheaper than have one front panel for every module, but this is only for the proto because I didn't wanted to have 8 single front panels made, only to later find that they had mistakes. obviously the ideal solution is to have one front panel for module, since it's way way easier to insert or remove the channel  this way.
As you can see in the picture, I've used a motherboard pcb instead of ribbon cable for the buses, this creates some problems during the insertion of eight modules held togheter by a single front panel..
Compromises as usual...

Paolo

 

[pahstah]

One big problem that i encountered during this build has been the need of different standards between metric and imperial hardware, for example i had to source screws from digikey to use with faders and with L brakets. The output transformer had holes too small for a 3mm screw to fit into, i had to find 2,5 mm screws....wich are nearly unobtainable in Italy...
Many parts had to be sourced from different suppliers, for example i didn't find a supplier for e-switches in europe so i had to use digikey, but digikey didn't had that1646... And so on ... But I think everyone in this forum encountered such problems before.

 

[pahstah]

hi everybody,
I've uploaded a rough mix of a puremix contest song redone on my diy console. check it out at:

https://soundcloud.com/paolo-stabellini/gearfest-puremix-contest-oh-baby-console

and a video:

https://youtu.be/T8X_4ZyNqs4

Paolo

 

[pahstah]

Now i'm working on a mic pre to go with the mixer channel. I've kept the space for another pcb to be placed along with the channel pcb.

 

[clister01]

This is AMAZING. Great work... when it's all said and done it would be incredible if you can share all the files for the boards and metal work. An eight channel version would be perfect for me and I suspect more than a few others.

Really one of the best builds I've seen on here...

 

[pahstah]

Hi Clister01,

thank you for your words.

two years ago I was looking at Jeff Steiger's mixer project hoping that he could sell parts for a complete mixer project because I'm a big fan of his work.
But then I decided to go my own way mainly because I had this idea of a double high 500 series module and this needed a specific system to be inserted into.
Now I'm near completion for the mixer part, and in the meantime i've designed the two Double500 modules you see in the pictures: the 1073 and the aphelios. the project can become a system, if the interest is high enough, and i can envision other designers, much more skilled than me, create their own double500 modules.

I'm also thinking about doing a single bay version with the mic pre inserted along with the channel as you see in the picture, but we'll see..

I'm not sure yet what to do with this project, it will surely be used by me for my session, but i'm also thinking about selling pcbs and metalwork for other diy'ers to create their own mixer.

But before all that, I must verify that everything works as it should.

what do you think?

Paolo

 

[tmuikku]

Jeah why not if you get the design road tested and measure good there shall be buyers, me included

 

[pahstah]

Jeah why not if you get the design road tested and measure good there shall be buyers, me included

I know that there's a lot of interest in projects regarding mixers/consoles, and I think that this project has the potentiality to satisfiy the needs of many recording enginers and enthusiasts, bear in mind though that this is a  very expensive project, not as expensive as buying a console with the same features, but still expensive. So it can remain just an interest, and nothing more.

 

[tmuikku]

indeed its expensive, but the routing module for example is versatile enough but still seems to be rather simple in construction. also you've got provision for chip amps and possibility to skip at least some transformers.

many projects here that are too simple to be usable, or too complicated or just not happening past the feature list and front panel drawings

anyway, great read and inspiration, thanks! the more i look the pictures the more clever things i find, you've done loads of thinking. it looks more of a ready product than prototype. next i need to read what capi rele are  8)

 

[pahstah]

indeed its expensive, but the routing module for example is versatile enough but still seems to be rather simple in construction. also you've got provision for chip amps and possibility to skip at least some transformers.

many projects here that are too simple to be usable, or too complicated or just not happening past the feature list and front panel drawings

anyway, great read and inspiration, thanks! the more i look the pictures the more clever things i find, you've done loads of thinking. it looks more of a ready product than prototype. next i need to read what capi rele are  8)

the routing module gave some headache because of the small space i was putting it into. i had to find the way to put two subgroups in a single 500 series space width along with two auxes and the provision for a switchable insert for the groups. the pcbs space was very small, that's because i decided at the begin of the project that this would have been a small portable mixer, so i had to scrap the transformers ( but there's the possibility to use them if you want with some additional cabling outside the pcbs ) and use a stereo fader instead o two mono faders wich is not ideal i think.
the metalwork obviously was the most frustrating of the lot but i think i managed to solve all the issues i had.

 

[pahstah]

This is the neve 1073 in double500 format

 

[pahstah]

Troubleshooting control room module

 

[pahstah]

Ooops...!

 

[pahstah]

coming together nicely..

 

[pahstah]

I think I will do a rack version for double500 modules

 

[Whoops]

What a great ideia and build!!!

Congrats

 

[pahstah]

Thank you whoops!