Matta’s ‘small’ collection of DIY toys…

[matta]

I’m sure many of you have seen these bits and bobs over the course of the past 2 years but I decide to put them all in one place as it makes it easier to control and I’ll have Dr Pat add it to the ‘DIY Gallery’ META.

I’ve done a couple others but these are just some personal highlights.

Here is my first ever-DIY project, I nicknamed it the ‘Ghetto Box’ and it contained 2 of Peter C’s Green Pres and a Mono Calrec Eq. I threw it together with little thought to metal work which included badly and oversized holes drilled all over the place and I had to use washers to cover up some of the oversized holes.

Prior to tackling this I'd not so much as soldered a cable, let alone BUILT something electrical!

I then stepped up a notch and tried my hand at the GSSL and bought an old medical rack at a surplus place, sans lid and used the lazertran method of labelling and made a more ‘upmarket’ front panel design.

I got to the point where I decided that since I was spending all this money on building these projects that to spent a little more and design a custom panel wouldn’t kill me, it also made/makes looking at the items easier on the eye and absolved me from the metal working which I loathed (and still do!).

I then decided to try my hands at building one of Jakob’s G1176’s on MNATS PCB’s and was bold enough to try this out using an electric blue anodised aluminium, for fun I gave it the moniker ‘711 FET Compressor’.

Then came the rack job… I picked up a pair of the Spectra Sonics 101 mic pre cards from a fellow Forum member and decided to rack them up. Being the cheap person I am I decided that I’d try get another 2 pres in the same rack and embarked on building a pair of Fabio’s FETboys based on Tape Op design Scott Hampton offered up. So based on the names I birthed it the ‘Spectratone’

This pic is fairly old and as I later found, trying to stuff 4 pres into a rack with a large power trafo, esp. high gain ones can result in a couple sonic abnormalities, such as the ever present HUM. The transformer is not in it’s own box far away from the pres and all is happy is PREland.

Over time my addiction got worse and I had to start selling off some pieces to start paying for others and the Ghetto Rack was the first to go to fund the racks, parts and cases for the above projects.

I really missed my Green Pres and decided to build a few more, 4 to be exact, based on Peter C’s original V1 boards,, sans lowcut and metering circuits. 2 channels used WIMA poly caps and NE5532’s and the other 2 were EPCOS and OPA2604, for a slight sonic variations… sadly this rack was recently sold to make way for OTHER parts for the following bits and bobs.

Somewhere in all of this Joe Malone and I discussed me building a couple of his Animal Pres for a couple local studios and so I had a few racks made to house them and the results were the following.

I’d dreamt of owning a pair of Neve’s and over the course of 6 months I finally did. I pieced together a pair using Fabio BA283AV board, Greg Hotrod mod PCB (designed by JLM) and reused an old ART Compressor rack, making it a VERY tight squeezed.

Again the pics are fairly old and revisions have taken place. The Power switch is now on the REAR of the case (the front is still there for decoration), the torrid is outside of the box and the green lamp has been replaced with a blue LED.

After seeing RogerFoote’s LED board I had an idea to do a REV of my GSSL using an LED meter ALA DBX/Distressor and also ‘modded’ the original Gyraf design and added a dedicated PSU and the Ashton Buss Comp was board.

I took a few months sabbatical from DIY as I waited for fund to regenerate and along the way started to collect parts for my my long awaited Series 2 Levelling Amplifier based on the LA-2A build using the Drip Electronics V1 PCB .

I went with a fiery red to match the equally eccentric electric blue 711 compressor.

I’m currently working on a pair of Fabio’s R312 API styled pres which I hope to complete over the next month or 2 and then will be on another DIY hiatus until the funds are replenished and then it will most prob be time to tackle a G9.

Cheers

Matt

 

[kato]

A post like this calls for a greg stein face. :wink:

Seriously, this is some badass work. Your diy collection is droolworthy, and inspiring. My soldering iron is twitching.

Now when are you going to build some more greens?

 

[fucanay]

Great work on all that stuff Matt. I've done things much like you, without selling stuff off to finance more. Maybe everyone should have a thread like this once they have a few pieces. It's good to remember what you've accomplished.

Matt

 

[Silvas]

SOOOO AMAZING TOYS !

They look great, so sad you had to sell a few

 

[drpat]

Nice work Matta :thumb: added to the META...

 

[Ptownkid]

screw you matta :wink:

 

[originalmusician]

[quote author="Ptownkid"]screw you matta :wink:[/quote]

Ditto! BTW, Matta. I liked the guitar sound so much on the green pre test you did, that I built a couple channels for myself. Now stop posting that stuff because you are seriously bankrupting me over here :grin:

 

[matta]

Now when are you going to build some more greens?

Well not sure. I have 12 different pres now, 10 of which are DIY goodies, will prob do some Greens when I get a bit more cash and am over the slump of the studio costs.

Great work on all that stuff Matt. I've done things much like you, without selling stuff off to finance more.[/quote

Thanks Matt, yeah it is sad I had to sell them, but there is no way I could have afforded to do it any other way. The good news is that the 3 pieces I sold (Ghetto Box, V1 GSSL and 4 Channel Greens all went local studios upgrading their sound and gear. It was hardly financially profitable as I sold them at cost of build, but it did allow me to move on with other DIY projects.

They look great, so sad you had to sell a few

Thanks Silvas, I’ll make up for it one day :thumb:

Nice work Matta Heck Yeah! added to the META...

Thanks Dr. Pat :thumb:

Now stop posting that stuff because you are seriously bankrupting me over here

Hah hah, I did that to myself along time ago! The Mrs has a deal that music pays for music, so that is a good way to slow down… it will be a while till I tackle another NEW project!

Matt

 

[Lowfreq]

Sheesh :shock:
I swear when I first signed onto this forum, Matta was asking some of the same basic questions I was, and apologizing for being such a newbie.

Look at him now!! :green:

I've got some catching up to do.

 

[matta]

[quote author="Lowfreq"]Sheesh :shock:
I swear when I first signed onto this forum, Matta was asking some of the same basic questions I was, and apologizing for being such a newbie.[/quote]


Hah hah!!! INDEED! I think one of my first posts was 'Does a cap have a polarity!'.

I've come along way over 2 years, from knowing nothing to having a keen grasp of the basics of electronics and to that end I'm sharing the love by teach others, either through this Forum or the class of audio students I've taken on.

I'm teaching a class of 13 students at a local community college a course on 'basic audio electronics', all of them are audio engineering students who want to grow their skills in audio, it has been very rewarding thus far.

Cheers

Matt