Silvas
Well-known member
Hello
It´s been 2 years since i joined this forum, looking for advice on building a couple more serious pieces of gear. Now, after all this time, i´m very proud to present to you the fruits of my labor. Well, it´s nothing special, basically a couple GSSL comps, a green pre, and my own Fetboy version...and i´m very proud to be the first serious pro-audio DIYer from my country. Of course, working in the top recording studio in Colombia has been really useful when it comes to testing !
I´ts been quite difficult, since getting parts here in Colombia is very hard. Some parts i used are local but almost anything is imported from USA. All the metal work is done locally, and it was an extreme pain in the ass, i had to learn Corel to do the blueprints and the laser engraving for the front panels, and after some expensive trial and error i ended up with a really decent 1.5mm aluminium (front 3mm) 1RU box, never been done here before. For my Fetboy version i learned eagle and cooked my own boards at home. For the green, i used v1 boards plus the meter boards from peterc, also home etched.
It´s been an incredibly difficult and long way, but also an incredibly educative experience. The amounts of knowledge i gained in the process has been invaluable and helpful in my everyday work. I want to give a really big THANK YOU to all the nice people on this forum, especially Jakob for giving me a couple of wonderful compressors that i use and love everyday on top productions and for answering some questions, and peterc for all his help on the green.
Now, some details :
I built 4 GSSL comps, 2 for myself and the other 2 for studio´s use. All my fellow engineers love these things so much that i´m building a few more for them. On the ssl i used a variable scale led meter, with 5-10-20dB range, which i can calibrate within 10% error margin on any of the scales, i love this acuraccy when using the 5dB scale for light buss compression. The switches are grayhill, which i get here for cheap, 10 positions, programmable, but 36 degree index....as you can see these are hardwired to the control board. The trafo is custom made, but planning on using a toroid someday, anyway, noise performance is excellent.
The green, well, nothing special with it, i used some opa2134 and opa2227 samples i got from TI on 2 channels. PSU is Keith´s but the trafo is defective and haven´t changed it yet. However, i tested the pre side by side with a John hardy M1 and i can say that the green is a really nice clean pre.
The Fetboy, i used my own PSU and audio boards here, in the inside pic it´s using a provisional input trafo that i later changed for a big peerless trafo i ripped off a 1950´s ampex tape machine. All the dakaware knobs and the power switch are also rescued from that machine. The box is a generic project box coupled to a leftover PSU panel from our beloved Neve 8058. I took the color sample from the console itself. I left trimmers for the FETs, so i can make any FET perform well in the circuit, with a little component tweaking. I´ve changed FET´s many times, trimmed them and nice sound everytime. Key resistors are mounted on pins for easy tweaking. The PSU is based on Vintagedesign´s PSU but layout is all mine. I also left trimmers here for fine tuning the audio and phantom voltages. The sound? well, this pre is amazing, esp. as a DI, but the trafo is kinda dark and fat, i love it on miked bass, vocals, brass...i even used it on outside kick mic with a FET47, but had to put an inline -20 pad in front of the pre. The -14 pad wasn´t enough. I also compared this pre with the hardy and besides the color, it is an amazing pre.
I must have signed over a hundred times on paper to get a nice signature for the front panels !
And the last pic, well, that´s what i like to call "the DIY projects of my lifetime...!" you be the judges.
Thank you all !
[/img]
It´s been 2 years since i joined this forum, looking for advice on building a couple more serious pieces of gear. Now, after all this time, i´m very proud to present to you the fruits of my labor. Well, it´s nothing special, basically a couple GSSL comps, a green pre, and my own Fetboy version...and i´m very proud to be the first serious pro-audio DIYer from my country. Of course, working in the top recording studio in Colombia has been really useful when it comes to testing !
I´ts been quite difficult, since getting parts here in Colombia is very hard. Some parts i used are local but almost anything is imported from USA. All the metal work is done locally, and it was an extreme pain in the ass, i had to learn Corel to do the blueprints and the laser engraving for the front panels, and after some expensive trial and error i ended up with a really decent 1.5mm aluminium (front 3mm) 1RU box, never been done here before. For my Fetboy version i learned eagle and cooked my own boards at home. For the green, i used v1 boards plus the meter boards from peterc, also home etched.
It´s been an incredibly difficult and long way, but also an incredibly educative experience. The amounts of knowledge i gained in the process has been invaluable and helpful in my everyday work. I want to give a really big THANK YOU to all the nice people on this forum, especially Jakob for giving me a couple of wonderful compressors that i use and love everyday on top productions and for answering some questions, and peterc for all his help on the green.
Now, some details :
I built 4 GSSL comps, 2 for myself and the other 2 for studio´s use. All my fellow engineers love these things so much that i´m building a few more for them. On the ssl i used a variable scale led meter, with 5-10-20dB range, which i can calibrate within 10% error margin on any of the scales, i love this acuraccy when using the 5dB scale for light buss compression. The switches are grayhill, which i get here for cheap, 10 positions, programmable, but 36 degree index....as you can see these are hardwired to the control board. The trafo is custom made, but planning on using a toroid someday, anyway, noise performance is excellent.
The green, well, nothing special with it, i used some opa2134 and opa2227 samples i got from TI on 2 channels. PSU is Keith´s but the trafo is defective and haven´t changed it yet. However, i tested the pre side by side with a John hardy M1 and i can say that the green is a really nice clean pre.
The Fetboy, i used my own PSU and audio boards here, in the inside pic it´s using a provisional input trafo that i later changed for a big peerless trafo i ripped off a 1950´s ampex tape machine. All the dakaware knobs and the power switch are also rescued from that machine. The box is a generic project box coupled to a leftover PSU panel from our beloved Neve 8058. I took the color sample from the console itself. I left trimmers for the FETs, so i can make any FET perform well in the circuit, with a little component tweaking. I´ve changed FET´s many times, trimmed them and nice sound everytime. Key resistors are mounted on pins for easy tweaking. The PSU is based on Vintagedesign´s PSU but layout is all mine. I also left trimmers here for fine tuning the audio and phantom voltages. The sound? well, this pre is amazing, esp. as a DI, but the trafo is kinda dark and fat, i love it on miked bass, vocals, brass...i even used it on outside kick mic with a FET47, but had to put an inline -20 pad in front of the pre. The -14 pad wasn´t enough. I also compared this pre with the hardy and besides the color, it is an amazing pre.
I must have signed over a hundred times on paper to get a nice signature for the front panels !
And the last pic, well, that´s what i like to call "the DIY projects of my lifetime...!" you be the judges.
Thank you all !
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