Paracelsus
New member
Greetings All!
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I have been building pedals and a ridiculous rack synth for a few years and self-studying recording and mixing — mostly through trial and error. Your threads helped me so much with that, so I thank you! Hopefully someday I can repay the favors.
My experience building (and attempting to design) synths and pedals got me thinking I could probably learn a lot from the repair of old analog gear and building DIY outboard gear designs to learn mixing and recording from the inside!
My educational background is in chemical physics and my day job these days involves developing maritime survey instrumentation at a startup, so I think I’m pretty handy with a soldering iron and schematics/PCBs in KiCAD. There’s always more new skills to learn from my elders and wisers though!
If you don’t want to read about my fairly anemic home studio setup, please by all means skip to the end!
*****
I have a pretty basic beginner-level setup I built up with what I could find during the early part of the pandemic. I use it mostly to record my own vocals, synths, and guitars. Right now, the rig consists of:
*Focusrite Scarlett Solo Gen. 3 ( upgrading that one soon before going too nuts with additional outboard stuff… thinking of moving to a Scarlett 18i20.)
*A 2014 Mac Mini retrofitted with dual SSDs. I run an open source recording server application called Jamulus configured to record my friend and I playing in real time (he’s 1000 miles away in Nevada!)
*2x 1989 Alesis Quadraverbs
*A cheap Mackie Mix8 desktop mixer.
*AudioTechnica AT2020 dynamic mic for vocals. I like it. Can’t beat the quality for the price.
*An El Cheapo Shure PG58 mic that I use for acoustic guitars. Planning to upgrade to SM57s for this.
*Audio Technica m40x monitor headphones (I’ve had the same pair basically forever and I really like them.)
*Presonus Eris bookshelf monitors. So far so good. Nothing fancy.
*A ridiculous mostly-DIY guitar pedalboard arranged for space sounds and death metal.
*A few guitars with varying numbers of strings. Nothing fancy.
*A 9U Eurorack case consisting of mostly DIY modules fitted inside three lightly-modified Moog 104HP extruded skiffs — with high density filtering busboards (of my own design).
*A few desktop synths, but my favorites are the DIY PreenFM3 I built and a Polyend Tracker (that I definitely did not build)!
********
I have a few gear projects in the works for which I’m currently choosing and sourcing parts:
*Gyraf’s 19” DIY Calrec PQ1549 with a panel from Pusherman
*2x 19” Gyraf Gyratec IX vacuum tube 2-channel preamps — one with Lundahls and one with OEPs — both using the recommended ECC82/12AU7 tubes.
*Gyraf’s 19” G1176PD DIY with a Pusherman panel (I’m very excited for this one!)
*Type 4000 GSSL Bus Mixer with a 19” Pusherman panel using THAT2180Bs (looks like DBX202Cs are magical unicorn pixie dust these days…)
*I impulse-bought a grungy DOD 1642 mixing console from 1993 with the intention of using it as a sub-mixer for my synthesizers, but it needs a thorough cleaning — and a power supply. >.<
The *real* project will be building another PSU and checking the unit over before throwing it in my signal chain!
*****
TL;DR, I’m excited to start engaging with the community and learning from you all!
-J. Radler (Paracelsus)
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I have been building pedals and a ridiculous rack synth for a few years and self-studying recording and mixing — mostly through trial and error. Your threads helped me so much with that, so I thank you! Hopefully someday I can repay the favors.
My experience building (and attempting to design) synths and pedals got me thinking I could probably learn a lot from the repair of old analog gear and building DIY outboard gear designs to learn mixing and recording from the inside!
My educational background is in chemical physics and my day job these days involves developing maritime survey instrumentation at a startup, so I think I’m pretty handy with a soldering iron and schematics/PCBs in KiCAD. There’s always more new skills to learn from my elders and wisers though!
If you don’t want to read about my fairly anemic home studio setup, please by all means skip to the end!
*****
I have a pretty basic beginner-level setup I built up with what I could find during the early part of the pandemic. I use it mostly to record my own vocals, synths, and guitars. Right now, the rig consists of:
*Focusrite Scarlett Solo Gen. 3 ( upgrading that one soon before going too nuts with additional outboard stuff… thinking of moving to a Scarlett 18i20.)
*A 2014 Mac Mini retrofitted with dual SSDs. I run an open source recording server application called Jamulus configured to record my friend and I playing in real time (he’s 1000 miles away in Nevada!)
*2x 1989 Alesis Quadraverbs
*A cheap Mackie Mix8 desktop mixer.
*AudioTechnica AT2020 dynamic mic for vocals. I like it. Can’t beat the quality for the price.
*An El Cheapo Shure PG58 mic that I use for acoustic guitars. Planning to upgrade to SM57s for this.
*Audio Technica m40x monitor headphones (I’ve had the same pair basically forever and I really like them.)
*Presonus Eris bookshelf monitors. So far so good. Nothing fancy.
*A ridiculous mostly-DIY guitar pedalboard arranged for space sounds and death metal.
*A few guitars with varying numbers of strings. Nothing fancy.
*A 9U Eurorack case consisting of mostly DIY modules fitted inside three lightly-modified Moog 104HP extruded skiffs — with high density filtering busboards (of my own design).
*A few desktop synths, but my favorites are the DIY PreenFM3 I built and a Polyend Tracker (that I definitely did not build)!
********
I have a few gear projects in the works for which I’m currently choosing and sourcing parts:
*Gyraf’s 19” DIY Calrec PQ1549 with a panel from Pusherman
*2x 19” Gyraf Gyratec IX vacuum tube 2-channel preamps — one with Lundahls and one with OEPs — both using the recommended ECC82/12AU7 tubes.
*Gyraf’s 19” G1176PD DIY with a Pusherman panel (I’m very excited for this one!)
*Type 4000 GSSL Bus Mixer with a 19” Pusherman panel using THAT2180Bs (looks like DBX202Cs are magical unicorn pixie dust these days…)
*I impulse-bought a grungy DOD 1642 mixing console from 1993 with the intention of using it as a sub-mixer for my synthesizers, but it needs a thorough cleaning — and a power supply. >.<
The *real* project will be building another PSU and checking the unit over before throwing it in my signal chain!
*****
TL;DR, I’m excited to start engaging with the community and learning from you all!
-J. Radler (Paracelsus)
