SSL 9k - background

[SSLtech]

Andy,

I'm just about to take a flight to the UK, (booked it 10 minutes ago!) -I'll try to photocopy a set for you. (there's ten volumes to the 9K set... a full shelf's worth!!! -I can only manage a fraction before I go into excess baggage!) and I'll get my mum to mail them on to you.

what the 9k dynamics section looked like. Although it was my design I don't remember it at all! Was it like the 4k but using an MDAC instead of a VCA?

The 9K used a VCA and peak/RMS detection, both were SSMxxxx ICs from memory, though I can't remember more without digging into the shelf of Oxford's finest publications!

Neve also used only +16V, -16V and -15V for the recall. Fets were switched from -16VL (Logic) and so they also may possibly have had the punch-through, though nobody ever complained...

I noticed that Neve always fed their gates through 1Meg gate feed resistance, SSL used 10Meg typically... -I often wondered whether there was a reason or effect for different gate feed resistances... but I'm a tech, not a researcher! :wink:

Keith

 

[Andy Millar]

[quote author="SSLtech"]The 9K used a VCA and peak/RMS detection, both were SSMxxxx ICs from memory, though I can't remember more without digging into the shelf of Oxford's finest publications![/quote]

There's a glimmer of memory there! Nobody could decide which of rms or peak sounded better :razz:

I noticed that Neve always fed their gates through 1Meg gate feed resistance, SSL used 10Meg typically... -I often wondered whether there was a reason or effect for different gate feed resistances... but I'm a tech, not a researcher!

The problem with JFETS is the lack of isolation between the gate and the channel - when switched on there's a diode junction between them (is there an emoticon for 'sorry about egg sucking lessons'?!), we usually used brute force drive and dragged the gate to one extreme or the other, so the 10M was neccesary to stop massive gate drive feedthrough into the channel. I know Neve took much more care over their gate drive, so they may well have only just turned their FETs on which would solve this problem. Didn't stop SSL selling more desks than Neve though :twisted:

In the nine years I was at SSL I don't think we ever saw a circuit for a Neve desk, the closest we came was obtaining one EQ section (when we were scouting round for ideas for the G series) which we never actually powered up and I think is still in my loft somewhere.

Philosophical point - it's actually very hard for manufacturer's to move best practice on, because you're all so worried about losing your secrets. So ideas never get shared. So actually the guys like you are in a much better position to see the best bits of everybody's design. That's what makes this forum so great!

 

[SSLtech]

Ah. -I never thought about the junction effect. -I usually look at it from the spanner's point of view rather than the nut being turned!

I'll try to copy some Neve schems if you like... they can be mailed with the 9k set if you like.

I think I'm going to take a train ride down there, and pose as a policeman, distracting you with a plausible ruse while my trusty assistant sneaks inside your house, makes his way up to your loft and sees what else you have hidden up there which might be of interest! :wink:

There are many things that make this forums great, and some great people too!

Keef

 

[Andy Millar]

My wife read that and thought it was a brilliant idea - for some reason she has difficulty with the concept of keeping crate loads of electronic junk 'because it'll come in useful one day'. Just like our disagreement over whether the sentance 'too many guitars' makes sense!

 

[Learner]

[quote author="SSLtech"]

The 9000 series used SSM2142s for the fader reverse switching,

[/quote]


What is fader reverse switching?

Turn the fader up to attenuate and down to amplify?? :shock:

 

[SSLtech]

No, there are two faders on each strip; a large VCA and a small non-vca (in simple terms... on the 9K either large or small or even both can be VCA or non-vca... but on the E/G -sans ultimation- the small was a 'real' audio fader, the large was a VCA fader.

The fader reverse allowed the two faders to reverse (or swap) functions.

The BBC and a couple of other broadcast organisations used to wire faders upside down on live-to-air consoles, but that's another story!

Keith

 

[Learner]

[quote author="SSLtech"]No, there are two faders on each strip; a large VCA and a small non-vca (in simple terms... on the 9K either large or small or even both can be VCA or non-vca... but on the E/G -sans ultimation- the small was a 'real' audio fader, the large was a VCA fader.

The fader reverse allowed the two faders to reverse (or swap) functions.

Keith[/quote]

Just out of curiosity, what was the origin of 2 faders on each channel strip??

Was it meant to be a new feature added for a specific console and has been kepted since then? Having never used such a feature to know what can it be used for, can you give an example of how the 2 faders can be used to do?

Thanks for the education Keith! :thumb:

 

[jrmintz]

The faders in one channel strip are usually used one for the send to tape (or wherever) and one for monitoring. On an older style split console the inputs would usually be to the left and the tape returns, or jukebox, would be to the right. On an SSL E series the small fader would usually be the tape send, but you can reverse the function if you want to. I'm not sure why you would want to other than personal preference. The beauty of having the big faders as the monitors is that if someone sits down in front of the console and starts pushing faders around, and it happens all the time, you don't lose your levels to tape.

 

[SSLtech]

Yep. -What Seth said.

Basically, it's like Mackie 8-buses and all other twin-path/in-line topologies, one ("input") path goes to tape when you're recording, and the second ("monitor") monitors.

The twin-path "in-line" topology allows monitor paths to "borrow" EQ or dynamics from the channel path, so that if you recorded something (for example) a little duller than you wished you had, you can "borrow" the EQ to temporarily 'fix' the issue without having to suffer the 'slings and arrows of outrageous producers' whining in your ear that "it sounds a little dull" every time you playback or overdub...

There are other advantages: Your monitor mix on the large faders while you record automatically gets transferred to a quick"rough-mix" when you switch to mix... -your FX sends from the large faders automatically get transferred too, (as long as it's an SSL where the sends follow the fader and not the path...with a Neve you have to hit 4 x "sends-from-monitor/sends-from-channel" buttons to hit on EVERY module... Teee-deee-yus!!!) -Your EQ settings get Total-Recalled even for monitor mixes (to keep 'producerus grumpius maximus' happy when he comes back next week) and a few other shortcuts to make life easier.

BAD practice: -relying on this every session, or switching between tunes on an ablum project, with the same settings left in. -You end up unwittingly dulling off what you're sending to tape, because you forgot that you have a brightening EQ later in the chain, and maybe you're sending from input strip 12 to monitor strip 4 or whatever...

Basically it's handy for emergencies, but if you rely on it, you send up sending garbage to tape, which will NEVER sound listenable without correction.

It's for this exact reason that I DETEST, LOATHE, DESPISE, HATE the Neve V-series center section which allows you to put the left side of the console in record and the right side in mix, or vice-versa -whichever you choose. -People often end up using 2 sets of EQ working against each other, because they use one side of the board for input and the other side for monitor. It also takes a 120-input VR60 (for example) and forces people to only use 60 of the inputs. -Brilliant. (-Not!)

In addition, using the console in mix for the "monitoring half" means that you cannot switch to monitor the bus output. You can therefore not work in "overdub" mode (which most people do NOT understand anyhow) and you can NOT generate mixed-cue headphone mixes for the artist. ("Supercue" in SSL terminology.)

I used to get called into control rooms to try and explain that to clients all the time: -"Why is the overdub bus (sic) not working???" -Because it affects monitor, and you're not using any of the monitor inputs.

I had one Los-Angelean engineer (with a single single grammy-nominated project, a colossal ego and a thousand enemies) tell me that I needed to go back and read the manual about how to use the console. -He even stated the basis for this conclusion, which was the fact that he'd mixed four albums on Neve consoles. -I held my tongue, because he thought that I'd only ever been a tech and knew nothing of my engineering background, butby that point I'd mixed about forty albums on various V-series by then, I'd teched maybe 7 or 8 V-series installations and I knew how they worked as well as some of the people that built the friggin' things.

-He's now out of a job, and we keep getting calls from people that he owes money to.

I'm still here. :twisted:

So the moral of the story is: -I make a great friend, but a terrible enemy! :evil:

:wink:

Keef

 

[Svart]

this has stoked my interest greatly.. any chance i could get a copy of some schemos too? I have a few bits of the 9k EQ which I have studied as well as some of the intermediate stages and their associated servos.

There was also a VERY cunning use of a 5534 that managed to pass signal despite both of its + and - inputs being tied to the negative power rail... -Anyone here smart enough to figure out how?

got a schemo of this? I have an idea..

also, the ssm2412 are obsolete and no stock is to be found...

I also forget what JFET model is in my console, but are there any suggestions for good ones..also available ones? 2n2457?

 

[Learner]

Hi Seth and Keith,
Thank you both for the clarification.

:grin: :thumb:


[quote author="SSLtech"]
There are other advantages: Your monitor mix on the large faders while you record automatically gets transferred to a quick"rough-mix" when you switch to mix... -your FX sends from the large faders automatically get transferred too, (as long as it's an SSL where the sends follow the fader and not the path...with a Neve you have to hit 4 x "sends-from-monitor/sends-from-channel" buttons to hit on EVERY module... Teee-deee-yus!!!)[/quote]

Hey man,
I guess what's meant to be a flexible feature can also be a draw back as well?

There are so many approaches to customise features to accomodate your needs, I guess its a science of its own to design a signal flow to suit your personal preference.

At the same time, its interesting to see the approach of various designers/audio engineers and hear their argument about what features are important to them. :grin:

 

[SSLtech]

Well, it's not even really that much of a personal preference thing; most of the engineers that liked the Neves will freely confess that the Neve V series was an attempt to bite into the market that SSL had carved out.

The trouble was, SSL had made "the perfect" user-assistive console, which did lots of stuff for you. Record-in-Mix is an example of a five-button step which can get the board AND TAPE MACHINE completely set up to acommodate the most irritataing request from vocalists who want to repair that 3rd verse when you were just about to finish the mix. Press [record] and [mix] together, then press [ready tape] and [arm] on the I/O module, press the [direct] button, and the console has done everything for you as follows:

*Switched the tape machine from repro to sync,
*Left all of the modules in mix apart from the module you're punching in on,
*Switched that module from line input to mic input,
*Routed the module to the same tape send, to avoid disturbing other channels,
*Kept all of the mix levels the same, and disabled VCA-to-monitor on all the channels excpt your chosen punch-channel (which is now configured to 'record' mode)
*Kept all of the reverb sends from your mix, -even on the punch-in channel.

Neve decided that this was to much work, and had built a topology which did not allow for such user conveniences to be so readily incorporated.

I know from personally rejecting several advances from Neve back in the early 1980's, and later from trying to get some annoying 'features' of the console addressed, that they were just NOT interested in user input. You were supposed to work the way the console which they have sold you was built to work. If that was over-complicated, then "tough". -Neves sounded better at the time, which was why you bought one. SSLs were far more user convenient and actually had a comprehensive automation system (Neve never built a working, comprehensive automation system, the had to have someone else do it for them. Neve never built a working, reliable machine control system, you had to buy a 3rd-party synchroniser and wrestly to make it talk to your -usually 4th party- automation system)

No, I'd say that the only console that was user-friendly was the SSL. The Neves (and several people on this forum will attest that I've helped them with Neve 81xx, 82xx and V-series installations) may very well have sounded better than the early E -and even arguably some G-series, (though at that point it's a matter of taste) but the Neves absolutely and indisputably NEVER made a console that was even close to being as user-friendly.

The SSL even has a patch-free audio-subgroup capability... -If you're bouncing from 8 tracks (like 9 through 16) down to 2, (say 3 and 4) and you want a stereo compression on them, you can do it patch-free by simple pressing [subgroup] and [direct] on modules 3 & 4, then raising the channel faders to 0dB. Insert the EQ and compression (stereo linked as you wish) to taste, and -voila!

Colin Sanders' original structure made almost anything possible, and I know from experience that while I was on one day talking to Neve about how to try and evolve their consoles into something more user-friendly and being given the "you shouldn't want to work that way, you should do this" line of defence, SSL were -at teh same time- listening, evolving and developing, with a view to making their consoles do what the users wanted.

Keith

 

[SSLtech]

[quote author="Svart"]I also forget what JFET model is in my console, but are there any suggestions for good ones..also available ones? 2n2457?[/quote]
Really, -don't sweat it too much, anything that goes from Hi-Z- 'off' to a good Lo-Z "on" should work fine.

J111 and J112 are usually used in combination as series and shunt legs.

Keith

 

[synthetic]

This place is cool. More "Behind the Music: SSL" stories, please. I'd love to hear some good installation and service stories, too.

 

[Learner]

Hey Keith,
Just outta curiosity, what are some of the most interesting piece of outboard that you have come accross?

eg. interesting fun features/techniques implemented in an outboard gear that generates an unique sounding character or does this generally happens only when you connect/combine several pieces of outboard in series?

What are some of the most useful filter to you when you mixdown a track, SVF/bi quad? Track using graphic/bandpass filters?

Any interesting ICs that you might looking into implement in a piece of outboard?

:grin:

Anyone with any thoughts are welcome to speak what's on their mind! :thumb:

Hope I am not hijackin the thread..... :?

 

[Andy Millar]

[quote author="Learner"]
What are some of the most useful filter to you when you mixdown a track, SVF/bi quad? Track using graphic/bandpass filters?
[/quote]

Re State Variable vs Biquad vs Wein Bridge (SSL style), if the filter's implemented right it shouldn't make any difference. A two pole filter is a two pole filter is a two pole filter. Except that it is very difficult to make a state variable that isn't either noisy or prone to overlaod (depending on how the designer has set the gain).

There is a lot talked about different types of filters having different phase responses, this will only happen if the designer's had to stick extra capacitance on to stop the thing oscillating, or not put big enough LF decouplers on. Analogue filters are simple beasts and the phase response follows the frequency response unless they've done something really weird. Of course digital filters are much more dangerous!

We had this argument a lot when developing the G eq, in the end we had to do blind listening tests with identically set up filters to prove that - in our case - SV vs wein bridge simply doesn't matter. What it can affect is the 'law' of the controls, and it's amazing how much that can appear to affect the sound (when all it's really affecting is how quickly you can get the right sound). The real secret is the bigger the knob the better!

And of course it's really difficult to truly compare apples with apples, there are so many things which can affect the 'feel' of an eq.

 

[jrmintz]

What it can affect is the 'law' of the controls, and it's amazing how much that can appear to affect the sound (when all it's really affecting is how quickly you can get the right sound). The real secret is the bigger the knob the better!

That sensation is really hard to fight even if intellectually you know it's happening. Perception is really weird.

 

[SSLtech]

Werd.

The AAD EQ's that we built were State-Variable. WE made versions that had identical control ranges to the SSL (so that the front panel markings correctly indicated the active frequency, boost etc) and others that matched Neve and Amek scalings. -Same filter design... -TOTALLY different feeling.

Then we made some in outboard boxes with a different layout. -Completely different user interaction with the device.

Take a Focusrite ISA110 and put little knobs on it. You'll find out really fast that Andy speaks the truth!

Keith

 

[Svart]

:shock:

I don't like big knobs at all.

they make something feel like a waste of space.

 

[CJ]

OK, but don't run the talent off.

Look what we did to poor John Hall.
We could have got a lot of killer stuff from him, but everybody ganged up on his plastic fader distortion thing and that was that.
:?