Hey guys,
so I recently got a really beautiful old Spectra Sonics 8 channel, 4 bus, mono mixer…
It's got 2 101 cards per channel, Triad a67j's on the inputs, the 2 band selectable Spectra Sonics 500 EQ's, 10K pots for faders, 4 position aux/buss selector, phase, phantom, a -10/-20 pad and the 3 position gain that all the old SS consoles/strips
So i had initially wanted to just add a stereo buss to it so I could sum drums from larger mixes and to use it as a small mixer in conjunction with my tape machine. I primarily do 8 track recordings, so it seemed perfect…
It made the trip from LA ok, and showed up in good shape, but from the looks of it, someone got into it to maybe repair a dead channel (or 3) and its all full of, bad wiring, inconstancies and weird little things. It has a few dead channels, and the aux/ buss routing doesn't seem to work, so since I have to take it apart, I am thinking about adding a few things to make it a little more useful in the studio.
From what I have read about the 101 cards, the EQ's are usually used in the feedback loop of the 101's - and in by doing so it sets the gain of that amp stage - in a few of the channels on the mixer - the eq is tied to between the + output of the first 101 card and the feedback return… the strange thing is that it actually sounds a little better that way, not sure why yet - might be that the other channels that have the 101's and the eq's hooked up correctly are sick in other ways…
So at this point I am just starting to plan out what I'd like to do, I definitely would like to add insert points, and balanced ones if possible, I'd like to make a stereo buss, with insert points and faders and a Control room Pot.
Id also like to fix the aux section, and maybe even add an insert point there for kicks!
here is a flow chart of what Im thinking for the input channels…
my proposed changes are in the outlined boxes...
So I wanted to come to you guys to get some advice on the insert points:
my question is this - in the literature for the 101 cards it says that they don't need to be matched impedance wise - but I was thinking that I would still add transformers there just because at that point it would be easy to maintain a balanced signal… so I would do 10k:10k on the send and 600:600 on the in?
does any body know how the old SS's did this? I know they had balanced inserts…
my second question at this point is about faders…
From the looks for the SS docs I can get my hands on, it seems like they have used 600R, 2.4K and 10K faders in different designs, this design has a 10K "fader" - is there any reason to stick with 10K? Bill from SS said they switched to the 2.4K to improve the noise response, is there any reason I couldn't go with 600R faders?
alright - thanks fella's - I'll attach some ore photos so you guys can see what were working with…
so I recently got a really beautiful old Spectra Sonics 8 channel, 4 bus, mono mixer…
It's got 2 101 cards per channel, Triad a67j's on the inputs, the 2 band selectable Spectra Sonics 500 EQ's, 10K pots for faders, 4 position aux/buss selector, phase, phantom, a -10/-20 pad and the 3 position gain that all the old SS consoles/strips
So i had initially wanted to just add a stereo buss to it so I could sum drums from larger mixes and to use it as a small mixer in conjunction with my tape machine. I primarily do 8 track recordings, so it seemed perfect…
It made the trip from LA ok, and showed up in good shape, but from the looks of it, someone got into it to maybe repair a dead channel (or 3) and its all full of, bad wiring, inconstancies and weird little things. It has a few dead channels, and the aux/ buss routing doesn't seem to work, so since I have to take it apart, I am thinking about adding a few things to make it a little more useful in the studio.
From what I have read about the 101 cards, the EQ's are usually used in the feedback loop of the 101's - and in by doing so it sets the gain of that amp stage - in a few of the channels on the mixer - the eq is tied to between the + output of the first 101 card and the feedback return… the strange thing is that it actually sounds a little better that way, not sure why yet - might be that the other channels that have the 101's and the eq's hooked up correctly are sick in other ways…
So at this point I am just starting to plan out what I'd like to do, I definitely would like to add insert points, and balanced ones if possible, I'd like to make a stereo buss, with insert points and faders and a Control room Pot.
Id also like to fix the aux section, and maybe even add an insert point there for kicks!
here is a flow chart of what Im thinking for the input channels…
my proposed changes are in the outlined boxes...
So I wanted to come to you guys to get some advice on the insert points:
my question is this - in the literature for the 101 cards it says that they don't need to be matched impedance wise - but I was thinking that I would still add transformers there just because at that point it would be easy to maintain a balanced signal… so I would do 10k:10k on the send and 600:600 on the in?
does any body know how the old SS's did this? I know they had balanced inserts…
my second question at this point is about faders…
From the looks for the SS docs I can get my hands on, it seems like they have used 600R, 2.4K and 10K faders in different designs, this design has a 10K "fader" - is there any reason to stick with 10K? Bill from SS said they switched to the 2.4K to improve the noise response, is there any reason I couldn't go with 600R faders?
alright - thanks fella's - I'll attach some ore photos so you guys can see what were working with…
