Why are SSL consoles/mixers so expensive? Are the PCBs sprinkled with fairy dust?

Sony NY had a custom desk made from all GML amps with no corners cut. Then they closed the NY office and here it sits because no one can afford it!

The desk is only worth what people are willing to pay, and no more. What are they asking?

You'd have to write them... there's no way anyone will be willing to buy it. I doubt they're asking less than a million bucks and once installed how do you get support if there are issues in a few years? The guy who conceived it is dead and the guy who built most of it can't be long for this world. Its sadly worth nothing sitting there. It's just sitting with the power supply caps drying out :(

If I won the lottery (which probably would entail playing) I would buy it without even hearing it in action just to own a 1 off and hope the schematicsare good.

That was fast, rebooked for presidents day weekend. Which is good as the band gets over a month of extra rehearsals in and I can duck down to check in. A little preproduction goes a long way! We can really build the enthusiasm up too. That really comes through on a band record. It does haul me I was schedules to be working this weekend and I'm not. I could do a trash godz but I'm just not that jazzed right now as their enthusiasm for my work hasn't been so hot... they seem to want more extreme dirt and nastiness like it's going to cover the loose jam format. I just think they should go back and edit the choice sections for me. The original drummer would do that and I had more fun doing those mixes... mixing continuously for 1 to 3 hours is really draining and quality suffers die to ear fatigue and why do that if theres a 50% nonsense ratio?

On to linear power supplies!

A linear power supply is exactly what it sounds like, distinct circuit block s in order getting the audio circuits exactly what they need.

So we need DC for audio and for solid state we need 2 figure voltages. We're going to ignore current concerns here as they're fairly low and assuming you're not underfused or misregulated will take care of themselves. Ohms law states that current (amperage) is directly proportional to current and inversely proportional to resistance but we're going to just think of power demands and assume we have really negligible resistance, okay? Steady voltage is needed to steadily supply current demands and a reserve is needed to overcome whatever resistance and quickly adapt to fast changes in power consumption in any amplifier circuit fed an irregular signal with spikes and dips from audio to radio to microwaves for your cell phone. So step 1 is a transformer. Wall voltage is at least 100v worldwide so we need a step down transformer. We need 2 voltage rails for parts and in a desk 48v for phantom. That's 3 windings, 2 matched windings and a 3rd smaller winding. Let's ignore the phantom from now on, that's telephone tech and we can skip it as it doesn't impact the rest of the circuit being an ingenious bell labs idea.

So let's use 18v as our supply voltage. We now have 2 18v AC lines from our transformer but we need DC in opposite polarity to provide 36v of swing to our circuits. To do that we need to be build a pair of opposite polarity full wave rectifiers from silicon diodes, 2 to 4 in parallel per line depending on the diode selected. Each side is in opposite polarity looping the unwanted half of the signal to the other pair. This is a form of diode bridge like neve used for his compressor detection circuit. It turns our 60hz sine wave into a 120hz golden arches all positive or all negative. Niw in this wave we lack constant voltage, its averaging like 75% of what we want. The dips are called DC ripple. We gotta eliminate that. This is where the filter ir smoothing caps come in. Basically these capacitors store up voltage and let it out in a steady stream. We need big ones to have good power reserves to avoid ripple appearing at the regulator when large gain swings from our amps (like drum hits) demand a lit of power. At least double the rectified voltage is a good idea....

Okay, any questions so far?

That was fast, rebooked for presidents day weekend. Which is good as the band gets over a month of extra rehearsals in and I can duck down to check in. A little preproduction goes a long way! We can really build the enthusiasm up too. That really comes through on a band record. It does haul me I was schedules to be working this weekend and I'm not. I could do a trash godz but I'm just not that jazzed right now as their enthusiasm for my work hasn't been so hot... they seem to want more extreme dirt and nastiness like it's going to cover the loose jam format. I just think they should go back and edit the choice sections for me. The original drummer would do that and I had more fun doing those mixes... mixing continuously for 1 to 3 hours is really draining and quality suffers die to ear fatigue and why do that if theres a 50% nonsense ratio?

If the joy ain't there, the joy ain't there. It sounds like you've got plenty of alternate outlets for your talents.

On to linear power supplies! ...

Okay, any questions so far?

This info is great, but I'm not sure where you're headed with this lesson in linear power supply design. Is this the info those of us reading are going to use to repair any pro/vintage gear we may have that uses a linear power supply? Is this what we need to know in order to pop open a mixer and decide whether or not the power supply is a good one?

Yes to 1 and yes to 2.... and doesn't it bother you not knowing how your studio works on the n intimate, almost romantic level?

Yes to 1 and yes to 2.... and doesn't it bother you not knowing how your studio works on the n intimate, almost romantic level?

I think a little mystery helps the romance, lol.

If I'm going this deep on my studio, I'd have to start at the top: decompile my DAW :D

EDIT: but the 200+ views on this thread can't just be you and me. Where do the other folks checking in want this thread to go? ... anyone? Is there anyone out there? Hello?

EDIT: but the 200+ views on this thread

Say what Pken?! 200?!

EDIT: but the 200+ views on this thread

Say what Pken?! 200?!

Oops, 300 now.

But these are some very quiet people slipping in to read. Very quiet...

I'm really wondering how they're counting views because I may have driven it up with edits and the fact that I'm in my phone browser and every time I reopen chrome its probably reloading. I've basically left this page up for days with other tabs open so maybe its me.

I'm really wondering how they're counting views because I may have driven it up with edits and the fact that I'm in my phone browser and every time I reopen chrome its probably reloading. I've basically left this page up for days with other tabs open so maybe its me.

Jim, are you... are you stalking this thread?...

(I kid, I bet my # of views matches yours)

But seriously, this thread has been open on my phone browser continuously so every time I open chrome it reloads it.

Earlier in the thread, you had proposed the Admins do a mixerface buyer's guide that covered everything from stuff that goes for a few hundred, all the way up to the SSL BigSix. I like that idea.

It seems like the mixerface category has grown to the point where a buyer's guide would be handy for the internet to have... and since most buyer's guides out there don't differentiate between mixers and mixerfaces, it might be a real opportunity to put something unique out there.

Your thoughts?

Sorry for the late reply. I owed an editorial article to a non-music website and was really deep in it with my editor. It was really worth the extra effort though.

Yeah, Equipboard needs to do a shoot out and develop an objective guide, I agree. With the caveat that some if these companies can be unresponsive to non-print publications. Maybe if we were more of a YouTube influencer type of website but we just don't have that in place yet. I think we will have a hard time acquiring demo units.

Sorry for the late reply...

Forums = never having to say you're sorry, but I appreciate where you're coming from.

Yeah, Equipboard needs to do a shoot out and develop an objective guide, I agree. With the caveat that some if these companies can be unresponsive to non-print publications. Maybe if we were more of a YouTube influencer type of website but we just don't have that in place yet. I think we will have a hard time acquiring demo units.

Just tell them your name is Andrew Huang.

Haha

Seriously though, dealing with a conglomerate like Tascam or Harmon (owners of soundcraft) is really admin turf. I never have luck even getting replies from these huge companies. I'm not sure how good SSL will be about talking to a freelance writer either. I forget who owns them now but it's not Peter Gabriel anymore. Mackie probably doesn't care about us although they might if we agreed to include a behringer product like the direct knockoff xenyx line. It seems like they're kinda backing off those at behringer though, trying to move out of the cheap seats sonically but at an affordable cost now that they iwn Klatk and Midas.

Haha

Seriously though, dealing with a conglomerate like Tascam or Harmon (owners of soundcraft) is really admin turf.

In my experience, individual brands don't need corporate's approval to loan or comp gear for review. You need a Director-level sign-off from the Marketing department of Tascam, at most, as their parent corp TEAC absolutely does not care. You're convincing a Marketing Coordinator that Equipboard is a worthy-enough entity to justify dipping into the inventory that is set aside for such things. Someone has to print a shipping label, someone has to add the SKU to a spreadsheet and account for the approx $150-$200 expense (Tascam's cost for the Model12), and someone then has to work with Equipboard to ensure a review-outcome that is as favorable as possible to Tascam's interests. It's gonna be roughly this formula for all the products, regardless of whether or not they are part of a public entity.

I 100% agree that it's Admin territory, as sending non-employee proxies just looks terrible. And yeah, I can see how EB's social/industry footprint, relative to top YTers, might present a challenge, but you never know. To sweeten the pot, perhaps the Admins could work through a YTer that has the necessary pull? Like they sponsor a segment for a YTer or 2 to do a similar gear overview, in exchange for that YTer agreeing to pass gear onto EB so EB can develop it's own content from that same comp'd gear? Each Marketing dept. would have to agree to release the gear for the dual purpose... could get complicated... IDK.

It's really just a matter of getting a response. I got fed up trying to deal with these companies. It's not that I think the parent companies exert control but they're not necessarily employing musicians in the marketing dept like at say novation. If Michael wants to take a stab at it, why not? I got fed up with sending emails into a void very quickly and only talk to manufacturers who I've already had social media contact with.

It's really just a matter of getting a response. I got fed up trying to deal with these companies. It's not that I think the parent companies exert control but they're not necessarily employing musicians in the marketing dept like at say novation.

I recall you've built up relationships with some of these small/cool companies by doing development-phase testing & feedback, patch creation, etc -- which is awesome -- reflects well on both parties. But those are YOUR valuable relationships -- If you hit them up for gear to review on EB's behalf, you're cashing in some of the good will you've built up with those folks, no? And even if you yourself could get through Marketing's front door with some of these bigger folks, it just doesn't make a ton of sense to have a non-employee attempt that... that's my 2 cents, anyway.

Well equipboard got me started befriending synth manufacturers. The fact that I stopped writing reviews is due to a few factors but mainly because thorough reviews don't seem to get a lot of hits but are very time consuming. The roundups do a lot better. Setting aside the way the top 5s aree aggregated (which isn't hands on apart from a handful of roundups written by Michael and Giullio) I just don't feel comfortable with that type of writing.

When I write a review of a complex piece of gear its thorough enough that it can also be a user guide. If I convinced you to buy it I also walked you through it well enough that you can use it more than superficially right out of the gate. I really like reviews like that. You get an idea that a good review isn't superficial in any way. Sound on sound has been known to get that in depth and I really like that. People don't really read those anymore. In fact even on YouTube I've noticed that the 'no talking' sound demo videos seem to be the most popular anymore, but while that whets my appetite I want a walkthrough so I know if I'm in for any frustrations.

I'm just rambling now, but you know, music has really caught up to mainstream culture in its shallow approach to content.

If the contacts sending you gear were all forged through EB, then all my previous assumptions are moot. I'm sorry I was so off-base on those points.

Are you saying the "no talking" style YT demos are falling out of favor, or do you still see them as dominating?

I generally prefer a no-talker over a video that takes several minutes to get down to business, but meaty, thoughtful Loopop style gear reviews are great.

If the contacts sending you gear were all forged through EB, then all my previous assumptions are moot. I'm sorry I was so off-base on those points.

Not all

Are you saying the "no talking" style YT demos are falling out of favor, or do you still see them as dominating?

No far from it

I generally prefer a no-talker over a video that takes several minutes to get down to business, but meaty, thoughtful Loopop style gear reviews are great.

I kinda want a no talker intro with a walkthrough if there are finer points