ultimate diy mixdown gear project?

[cannikin]

As a side note...

You'd be better off building 2, 4, or 6 channels of something and investing the rest of the $$ into really nice converters, apogee, Mytek, Lavry, Prism.

the gear you build will not solve all your needs.

Its a slippery slope...

built some nice gear, bought nice gear, but than realize your converters weren't capturing the sound of the nice gear.. dropped more cash on converters... 15 grand later on the credit card... you have a nice studio but....

 

[tripledot]

you guys have seen many horrible mistakes and mis-builds, i'm sure. i understand you don't wanna see somebody put off by a hirrible first experience. i value this feedback.

i've spent the last 6 hours trying to source several tricky components to no avail, so a rethink is definitely in order

i'm a stubborn bastard, but my worry is that when i come to mixdown that killer track and i *need* at least 6 channels of calrec for that tight drum sound or whatever, i won't have it, and tracking it part-by-part just won't give me the mix i want..

but then my rational side says i'll never get the mix i want, and even if i do, i won't know it when i hear it. so who cares anyway?

if anyone's still reading this post, can you recommend a reasonable complement of varied eqs? (as for pres, i record only synths, and for vocals i use a borrowed brick or TL mic pre from a studio up the road, so i'm not too worried) - i just want a variety of solid-sounding eqs with warmth, dirt and a degree of sterility on tap! i want the impossible!


i'll get back to you after some more thinking, and see if i can persuade the aforementioned studio to part with his original urei as well..


many many thanks!

chris

 

[kiira]

[quote author="tripledot"]panasonics for the caps

i thought i'd go the whole hog with resistors too - 0.1% tolerances all round

[/quote]

Hi Chris, just to keep costs in perspective, I count 97 resisters in a calrec from the schematic. A cheap IRC .1% resister from Mouser is about a dollar so your resisters alone for your 24 calrec project would be like $2300! What is that about 1000 pounds?

I can build stuff really cheap like my LA-2a cost me something like $150 - but that's one project at a time, shopping at hamfests and adapting $5 rack cases meant for other things and all... you couldn't do that if you were building 24 of something.

Kiira

 

[Mbira]

A couple of things I have learned from DIY:

1) you will NOT save money
2) It will take two to five times as long as you thought it would have.
3) You will quickly become addicted and want many different flavors in your studio than just 8 or 24 of the same thing).
4) You will love your DIY
5) No one else will understand except those people here...

Good luck with whatever you do and HAVE FUN!!!

 

[soundguy]

do yourself a big giant huge favor and build ONE and make it work and make it sound good.

THEN

see if you like the way it sounds.

If you decide you want 23 more, you now have a working prototype which will make stuff the boards faster and you have a working unit with voltages to troubleshoot the boards you screw up which most likely you'll have to deal with.

By building one first all the way through you can really shave off massive hours if you actually build many down the line. The first one is always brutal in comparison to the units you'll build identical to it. By building one you can just focus on stuffing one board and seeing it through and making it work right the first time.

I cant reccomend doing that enough.

It will also give you have an idea of how long it will take you to build.

have you heard about that new trident mixer?

dave

 

[Guest]

Chris
What problems did you have sourcing Calrec parts...
I had no problems at all...
Take the rest with a pinch of salt - I am a 40 year old electronics newbie - but I have been here a year - and am now starting to grasp the basics (just).
But I do have a year of building and mistakes - the only thing I can offer to you if you want it - is the potential mistakes building a Calrec..

The thing with the calrec is to be really really careful about the footprint of the non-electrolytical capacitors..
As time has gone by - I realised I bought just bought capacitors that matched the BoM.
But I didn't pay much attention to the footprint and then the datasheets of what I bought.
In addition I just bought any cermaic capacitors and didn't do the searches on what type to buy (e.g. get those C0G/NPO ones and not the first hit on RS components web site.)
In addition the quality of the non electrolytic capacitors...

Metalwork - I have enjoyed teaching myself and made a load of mistakes - I originally though I could just get some alumunium sheet and cut it and attach it (same sort of thing you are doing)
But - jesus... what a nightmare - I don;t have an expensive metal folding bench press... and how do you cut 1.6mm aluminum sheet - jigsaw - yep that'll work - one bade per 30cm cut - and forget about a straight line..
tin snips - yep - that worked for about 5cm....
Then cutting holes... I bought hole saw cutter thing - what crap, buy a step drill bit and a cheap bench drill press (£30 from Machine mart) and by those QLOK chassis punches in Neutrik sizes..

And how to label of the front panel... what a bloody nightmare - transfer letters from letraset (I have given up on), Front panel Express (don;t do the 8 1/2/ inch size I want) - so I am going down the black and white laminate false front panel idea at the moment (same as the UA610..)

Oh - and Molex connectors fit perfectly into the PCB - but make sure your hook up wire and your Molex Crimp terminals are the same size (another mistake of mine) - otherwise the crimp terminals just fall off
And Rapid do a cheap Molex Crimp terminal Crimper - about a tenner I think...

 

[Guest]

Chris - you really are going down the same route as I am...
I want to get rid of my mixers (and eventually all the rest of the gear in the studio...)

My next project is a monitor controller (probably Franks one over at SoS forums ... or Kev's Factory DIY one, when it arrives) - then I will stop using the monitor controller section of my mixer (all of two buttons!!).
To be quite honest I wish I started with this one...

 

[cuelist]

[quote author="tripledot"]i thought i'd go the whole hog with resistors too - 0.1% tolerances all round[/quote]

It is pointless to spend so much money on 0.1% tolerance resistors. Even 5% is good enough in most cases. Consider that other components have much looser tolerances, potentiometers typically +/-20%, film capacitors are 5-10%.

 

[smallbutfine]

:shock: you think about a VERY ambitous project...
Since i'm relatively new to audio diy i just can say that motivation will be much better if you start to make a couple of stereo units and use them to decide your further concept...
I do so and minimally overthought my concept three times for now :grin: .
And the later concepts are mostly better than the first :wink: .

But a cool idea, anyway... :thumb: