This first little bit here is just some background. If you'd like to get right to the point of this post, feel free to skip down to the next paragraph.
After spending the better part of this week visiting my friend in Minnesota and spending a bunch of time over at his school, the Institute of Production and Recording, I have decided that I need a console.
I got to spend a few hours in studio 2 messing around with their SSL 4040 console and various outboard compressors and EQs. I also had the chance to record live, with a band, to tape on a 24 track Studer. Something I never thought I'd get to do any time soon. Until then I had only worked ITB and I was amazed at the difference in sound. I love it. It took me a whole 2 minutes to get a snare drum sounding kinda sorta similar to what probably 15 minutes of tweaking with plugins would get me. I have never been that satisfied with the sound of a drum. I can't even really describe the sound. It was just.. exactly how I wanted it. All the gear responded exactly how I thought it should. I come from the world of guitar where I can sit in front of my amp and mess around with PHYSICAL knobs and buttons to get my sound. Not a mouse and keyboard. A console just feels right to me.
So, on to my point.
I need to have that sound/feel at home. It would also be great if I could experience the joy of building it myself.
This is my idea:
I would like to make a modular console that would basically work the same as all the 500 series stuff, except not entirely. I want the dynamics and EQ section to be bigger. More spread out. I got to play around with a few 500 series comps at the school and I hated how small and close together all the knobs are. Same goes for the EQs. I would still like to use the same card edge connectors, only with bigger PCBs and faceplates for those sections. A way to switch the EQ and dynamics section around without having to physically take them out and switch them would also be sweet.
As far as the preamp sections, I would prefer to do those in 200 series format.
Aside from the preamp, EQ, and dynamics the rest of it would be laid out like your average console. Faders at the bottom with mute and solo buttons, pan knobs, auxilary sends, a few busses, and probably a mix buss compressor (gssl? why not).
In total I would probably start out with 8-10 channels and 4 busses with the option to expand later on.
On top of all this, I'd like to be able to connect it to my HD I/O via DB25
I'm aware this isn't a terribly specific description of what I want. Truth is, my knowledge of electronics is pretty minimal. However, I'm not asking any of you to design anything for me. I simply have two questions (and maybe a couple follow up questions, depending on the answers it get):
1. Has anything with all these features already been done?
2. If not, is this at all plausible? Forget the amount of time it'll take a noob such as myself to actually design, build, and assemble something like this. Time is not important to me. I have a job making a decent amount of money where I have A LOT of free time and I'm not in a huge hurry to have it done.
After spending the better part of this week visiting my friend in Minnesota and spending a bunch of time over at his school, the Institute of Production and Recording, I have decided that I need a console.
I got to spend a few hours in studio 2 messing around with their SSL 4040 console and various outboard compressors and EQs. I also had the chance to record live, with a band, to tape on a 24 track Studer. Something I never thought I'd get to do any time soon. Until then I had only worked ITB and I was amazed at the difference in sound. I love it. It took me a whole 2 minutes to get a snare drum sounding kinda sorta similar to what probably 15 minutes of tweaking with plugins would get me. I have never been that satisfied with the sound of a drum. I can't even really describe the sound. It was just.. exactly how I wanted it. All the gear responded exactly how I thought it should. I come from the world of guitar where I can sit in front of my amp and mess around with PHYSICAL knobs and buttons to get my sound. Not a mouse and keyboard. A console just feels right to me.
So, on to my point.
I need to have that sound/feel at home. It would also be great if I could experience the joy of building it myself.
This is my idea:
I would like to make a modular console that would basically work the same as all the 500 series stuff, except not entirely. I want the dynamics and EQ section to be bigger. More spread out. I got to play around with a few 500 series comps at the school and I hated how small and close together all the knobs are. Same goes for the EQs. I would still like to use the same card edge connectors, only with bigger PCBs and faceplates for those sections. A way to switch the EQ and dynamics section around without having to physically take them out and switch them would also be sweet.
As far as the preamp sections, I would prefer to do those in 200 series format.
Aside from the preamp, EQ, and dynamics the rest of it would be laid out like your average console. Faders at the bottom with mute and solo buttons, pan knobs, auxilary sends, a few busses, and probably a mix buss compressor (gssl? why not).
In total I would probably start out with 8-10 channels and 4 busses with the option to expand later on.
On top of all this, I'd like to be able to connect it to my HD I/O via DB25
I'm aware this isn't a terribly specific description of what I want. Truth is, my knowledge of electronics is pretty minimal. However, I'm not asking any of you to design anything for me. I simply have two questions (and maybe a couple follow up questions, depending on the answers it get):
1. Has anything with all these features already been done?
2. If not, is this at all plausible? Forget the amount of time it'll take a noob such as myself to actually design, build, and assemble something like this. Time is not important to me. I have a job making a decent amount of money where I have A LOT of free time and I'm not in a huge hurry to have it done.