Wiring-a-PA-DIY

jensenmann · Sep 10, 2005

My band decided to buy a new board. So everything around the desk had to be rewired. Of corse noone except me (yes, I´m the bassplayer) has solderingskills. No question it was my job to do all the necessary wiring.

The Amprack got all new wires, PA out and mains in are on a panel at the rear with no need to open the back. Inputs and monitor outs are on a new patchpanel at the front. The ins are 5pin XLRs for having less plugging-action.

The outboardrack grew a little. I added some gear from my studio. Yes I have built too many compressors ( :guinness: to Jakob). All wiring goes via Siemens Messerleiste multipin to the desk. It´s an oldschool multipin but the most reliable I know.

The Siemens socket is heavily fixed with scews and the cables are all fixed with cablesockets(sp???). I don´t want that any road can do a harm to this.

Since we always have the board on stage there is no other multicore involved. Monitoring is 2 way wedges and 2 way in-ear. Everything can be connected in one minute. That´s pretty much better than before (wiring everthing seperately). It took me twoo week to do all this work and a lot of Neuer Wein (new vine directly form vineyard) has been involved.
:guinness:

Milkmansound · Sep 10, 2005

how are you liking that new A+H board? Does it sound similar to the older versions?

jensenmann · Sep 10, 2005

I never used it before. It arrived brandnew two weeks ago. The only thing I did was testing the wiring and outboard with CD-signals. I´m not a special fan of A+H boards (this was very positive spoken :wink: ). But in this case it was exactly what I wanted featurewise: 24mic, 2stereo, 4grp, 6aux, 4matrix, fair price and seperate PCBs for each channel! It will not be used heavily and not too many miles on the road. A+H quality will suffice. I play bass in this band. So I don´t have to fight with A+H EQs at the show. We set it at the soundcheck and then forget it (no mixengineer, we do it ourselves - ähem, I do it :roll: ).
What I heared right now was pretty clean, the EQ is one of the hefty types. I´d compare it to a Mid*s Venice. And that´s not really bad.
:guinness:

Milkmansound · Sep 10, 2005

yeah, its not unlike the Venice I suppose. I have the older G2000 - which also has the vertically mounted PCB's, and its such pleasure to work on. I recently replaced all of the mono faders and there was lots and lots of room. Also, there was not 1 surface mount IC or part in there, so if a channel goes down, its that much better to work with.

Have you opened your new one yet? I wonder if they put surface mount components into the new design?

Yeah, the EQ is hefty - you can really carve something out with it if you wish, and its a lot less sterile sounding than the mackie stuff. My board has a nice chunky sound to it which I really like, its almost as if its slow or something, everything gets smoothed out especially at the top.

The thing that sucks the big one on my GL2000 is the PSU - it generates serious heat. A+H had problems with the original PSU and redesigned it with a fan, but for some reason mine had a problem in the fan circuit and I had to repair it to get the fan to run.

Also, there is a grounding problem when I use it in certain environments - the grounds are all part of the ribbon cable that runs along the bottom of the PCB's. I was told by another live engineer that if I remove those grounds, and run a seperate ground for each channel to one spot on the chassis that I can eliminate the problem - but thats a lot work man!

jensenmann · Sep 10, 2005

The PSU is on board, switching type (I guess because it has no mainsvoltage switch). The heatproblem is solved with an internal fan.
I didn´t open it yet and hopfully don´t have to the next thirty years.
Most cheaper boards tend to have ribboncables for busses and ground. This is always a good starting point for mods. I´m soon gonna do thais at my Tascam M3700.
:guinness:

Now its barbecue time