Finished!!! NEVE 1272 Hot Rod

[bluezplaya]

Here is my latest build. It has been a long time coming and it is finally finished! :green: The Neve 1272 Hot Rod’s with Marinair 31267’s and JLM 1:1:1 output transformers. The stuffing of the boards was fairly quick and wasn’t too much of a headache. I just had to piece things together as they came in the mail. I first got the 283 cards and started building a BOM. Once the parts were in from Mouser, I stuffed the cards. I won the 2n3055’s on an Ebay auction and waited for those to arrive. I found a spare pair of the hot rod boards from Peter C (thank you, sir! :thumb: ) and had to wait 3 weeks or so for them to arrive from Johannesburg. I then ordered the output transformers and Go Between’s from Joe at JLM (and waited a week or so). Surprisingly, I found the Marinairs on Ebay just minutes after they went up for auction…it was meant to be.

I ordered the case from Circuit Specialists, which is a Yahoo web store. I won’t order from them again :? . The product looks fine and works fine but I’m used to Par Metal and their steel is heavy duty compared to these cases. They’re a bit flimsy. The front panel and bottom I drilled myself with an 18v cordless drill. For the back panel I had to visit the ole’ man; he’s got a nice stand up drill press and I needed a 7/8” bit for the XLR. The front panel is painted with good ole’ Ace Hardware spray enamel.

The layout I designed in Front Panel Designer and just printed out as a template to center punch the holes. I would like to order another front panel from them but for right now this is fine. I just need to label everything neatly. Anyone have any suggestions for labeling?

I would have to say that this is probably my best build because it gets better with practice. I took more time with this than any others I have built and am glad of the results. I went the extra mile with wiring and also the placement of the boards and trannies. I left the other side open for adding two more pre’s in the future.

The biggest bitch about this was troubleshooting the grounding :shock: . Everyone seems to have a method for grounding Neve and so I just tried to take a little bit from everyone’s perspective. At first, I was getting some fair signal, and so the day after I finished the build I tracked a snare drum on a session for a friend but it had kind of a grainy sound. I brought it home and started fooling with it and had no signal, then the resistors on the Hot Rod boards and the also the PSU were smoking. Problem after problem….

To make a long story even longer, I found that the output transformers being connected to the TRS ground (pin 1) was somehow shorting and torching the 10R on the PSU :shock: . I reworked the output grounding. I also found a suggestion on a thread from the Geoff Tanner site about the 31267 wiring. So I wired primary as 8 and 10, and secondary as 3 and 5.

So now that my Neve cherry has been popped, I’ll be tracking vocals for my friend tomorrow. I hope to God they don’t ask me to build them a couple of channels.

Many thanks to anyone who helped me on some questions and also to those who designed, fabbed, sold to me, etc….Joe Malone, Greg, Fabio, Peter C., Guavatone, Madriaanse, etc. :green: :guinness: :guinness: :guinness:

Peace, Adam

 

[Lowfreq]

Nice!!! :thumb: :thumb: There's a fair bit of work in that.

If you get a chance, use that pre to track some big fat kick drum. It's found a permanent spot there for me.

I also popped my Neve cherry not too long ago........................

 

[madriaanse]

NICE!!!!!!! :thumb:

M.

 

[Greg]

Yea, thems dope!

You like how they sound?

 

[guavatone]

Sweet!

Don't take this the wrong way, but I guessing that pacifier on your bench calmed u down during the distress on the HR build thread.


Love the Helix Felix! :wink:

 

[bluezplaya]

Lowfreq wrote:

Nice!!! There's a fair bit of work in that. If you get a chance, use that pre to track some big fat kick drum.

Yes there WAS a fair bit of work in this. I was happy to take it with me this morning to my friend's studio and track kick and snare. FAT bottom and a nice, wide, vintage snare sound


Greg wrote:

Yea, thems dope! You like how they sound?

Does a bear shit in the woods?


Guavatone wrote

Don't take this the wrong way, but I guessing that pacifier on your bench calmed u down during the distress on the HR build thread.

Actually that thing belongs to my 17-month-old daughter. I really wasn't too distressed about the troubleshooting of this thing, just pissed that I had to keep bugging you all for help.

Here is my next build :

I also have an SSL to troubleshoot and one of my PM2000 channel strips. Any volunteers to help?! :green: :green: :green:

That should get me caught up,
Adam

 

[Greg]

Glad you like them. These are very good preamps IMO.

I used my Hotrods the past couple nights for the first time in many months. Mysteriously, I loaned them to a friend to check out and he was always too busy to give them back... hmmmm...

One tip, when transporting these, make sure the BA283AVs don't slip out of the edgecards. It happened to me once and could have been baaaaaad.

 

[bluezplaya]

Greg, these are great preamps. I should be tracking some female and male vocals today, and some acoustic guitar. Can't wait :grin: . I do notice that mine are SUPER sensitive with chassis ground noise. I think because the input transformers are mounted and screwed to the bottom of the chassis so when I turn the input switch there is a small "crackle" if I turn it kind of hard. Or if I tap on the side of the chassis it will shake the transformers a little and crackle then too.

:roll:

 

[dissonantstring]

hi bluezplaya,
nice build! your front panel paint job is very nice. man, i don't think i could make it that nice with spray paint. :shock:

i'm glad you got everything working. i was following the HR build thread because i'll be tackling a quad channel next with Gregs HR boards so i was very interested in all the issues you were having and i'm glad everything worked out after all your hard work! :guinness:

i really like the L-brackets you used to mount the edge connectors.
would you mind sharing the part number and where you got them?

kind regards,
grant

 

[bluezplaya]

Grant, the part number is Digikey 621K-ND. It is a 4-40 threaded bracket, about 0.26 each. I went to my local Ace Hardware and got size 4-40 threaded screws for it. This will do the trick.

In fact, the "paint job" was from a can of Ace spray paint (Ace is the place) :grin: . I tried to go with as close as the Neve blue as I could find. I still would love to get some red Marconi type knobs for it. :roll:

I too would like a quad channel so i left room in mine for the other two channels in the future. I won't be using Hot Rod boards for channels 3 and 4, however. I have a pair of M's EZ1290 boards that fit it all on one board. I have another pair of the 31267's, just need 2 more JLM 1:1:1 trannies...$...$...$...and on, and on, and on....

Adam
:guinness:

 

[dissonantstring]

thanks for the DK part number Adam!
very much appreciated.
i noticed that you had the channels to one side, but wasn't sure if you
did that with the intention of adding more channels or because you
just wanted some friendly distance from the PSU section.

I still would love to get some red Marconi type knobs for it. :roll:

me too. :sad:
cheers,
grant

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Nice one, Adam. I love my 1272s, too. One thing related to what Greg mentioned about the 283s falling out of the connectors--looks like you have pretty low clearance between the bottom of the 283s and the chassis. Do you have something under there (fish paper, maybe) to prevent shorting to the chassis? Maybe adding a short standoff under your little L-brackets to raise the connector and board a bit would be prudent.

Cheers,
A P