jimmarchi1's forum posts 8022

Now THAT looks useful.

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

Free is about what I spent on the old tascam 133 I use for this purpose. Although I spent a few bucks on some tape loops for when I'm not syncing to smpte and I'm just printing a track. Thanks. Seems faster if it sounds right.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I've been over this ad nauseam on this forum. Almost every boutique overdrive is based on an older design. There are only a handful of topologies and some riffs of those topologies.

In a word... no

I wouldn't stress about solid state gear, particularly solid state that doesn'tneed to drive a speaker directly, ie a power amp. It has much smaller voltages and lower current draw than tube circuits. There aren't a lot of places that radiate large amounts if heat. Just a few power supply spots like voltage regulator ICs. They just get warm to the touch and those parts have a really long life in a proper circuit. When a pedal or rack unit breaks on the road its usually a jack lifting of its solder pad. If your rig stays wired this is highly unlikely.

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

That does sound like a lot of mustangs that are provably very similar.

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.

Given the grainy videos and cameraperson-shooting-from-the-pit concert photos that serve as evidence here, it's unlikely most users would have enough visual evidence to make a distinction between an original run Mustang, vs a 90's MIJ, 10's MIM, etc.

But when the evidence is something like a vintage guitar magazine article they get really specific so it would be cool to be able to select the appropriate metadata.

I experimented with that loosely in the item name when I was merging duplicate fender amplifiers. I'm all for it.

EDIT: but the 200+ views on this thread

Say what Pken?! 200?!

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?

The fizmo has this 'what if we had kept going with the 80s color aesthetic?' thing I love!

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?

Sometimes I wish all my gear looked like my juno6 and poly6 though... with ultra cheesy 80s lettering everywhere! Okay not really. But I gotta be honest that owning both if those 6 voices is sometimes just about looking at their dated yet fun cosmetics. The juno particularly has a look that promises hours of fun.

I do like the giant knob on modern monitor controllers though. Knobs are too small these days... it's like they got lame and lame every 10 years.

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.

but I think the industry is big enough now to accommodate more than the vintage avionics/radio broadcast/serious medical tech look that has dominated gear up to this point, right?

As long as the same thought went into the guts... to be fair I own some broadcast gear that's literally hideous. It wasnt appealing even in the 60s!

Ever notice that gear has been getting more and more garish cosmetically? Everything I grew up with was like grey or black or bare steel may with a cheery blue strip to draw attention to the meter but yeah.... what's up with these loud colors?

We're tentatively rescheduled for next month assuming the studio is available. I would just as soon talk them into booking a more professional place and get these dates lockedin or at least look around to see if one of the nicer places in dc has discounted time due to covid cancellations since we dont officially have a booking with this projectstudio anymore. .. at least this joint has an iso booth. A lack of budget for a nice facility keeps me from doing more tracking and 'producing'. I gotta really like you and wanna do your record and hang out all day every weekend for weeks on end.

This might be a stretch, but maybe a modding section when adding gear. Like so and so adds their JCM800 but can tick modded and write what mod to be displayed on their page but also maybe total collection of users with modded units under the individual items list. goes with guitars, add what pickups you put into it or what you did to it cosmetically? idk. Ill just take my 3 points thank you.

I likee!

Isn't any compact non-powered mixer of BiG SiX's size, at least one made in the last 20-30 years, going to have a switching power supply?

Anyway I'm pretty sure SSL would give me a linear supply for 3k, right?

It's an external supply like a bigger desk. Or at least part of the supply like mu topaz. They imply it right in the sound on sound article, "It also does a good job of protecting the on/off switch and external PSU connector from accidentally being knocked." So at least part of the supply is external although it might be mainly a transformer since when the whole supply is external it's common practice to use a locking or screw down style connector if some type. But any sort of external part of the supply implies its linear. There ya go. Maybe I'm wrong , but I don't think so.

Edit: Now the plot thickens... if you look at the back of the model12 it has a 15v in socket (on what appears to be a scew down or twist lock barrel connector no less) which means part of the PSU is external. I cant tell how many connections there are but it only says +/- 15v lets assume what you read is what you get.... Of course typically you would have more than the positive negative rails on a fully external supply so presumably at least the 48v phantom must be generated inside the mixer if mu assumptionis correct. It's hard to be sure with pic I have available. On big6's rear panel I see a sturdy 4 pin connector with a guide pin which would be pos/negative 18v rails (ssl and many other 5532 based mixers including my own use 18v rails), a 48v phantom power line and a ground line. Some of the voltage regulation may be inside the mixer but obviously you're at least getting an external transformer with dual 18v taps and a 48v tap and maybe some dc rectification which is better done off board if the mixer... all of it is, heat and noise concerns you know.

And now that I'm not tired I'll work up an explanation of linear power supplies that makes sense. My tracking sessions got cancelled due to omicron infections and bad weather and being home with my son can be pretty exhausting... lil bugger never sleeps.

Isn't any compact non-powered mixer of BiG SiX's size, at least one made in the last 20-30 years, going to have a switching power supply?

More like the last 15 to 20... as far as I'm aware switching supplies were only brought into audio through amplifiers... the big solid state power amps, the 1000+ watt deals? You can't make a linear supply for that amp that fits in a reasonable form factor without melting the audio circuit... companies like crown had to address some of the drawbacks of switching supplies like noise bleeding back into the circuit and such. Anyway I'm pretty sure SSL would give me a linear supply for 3k, right? I'm outside my area of expertise here and could be talking out my ass on all points.

All this talk about parts had me reading John Hardy's application notes on the 990 DOA pdf and man does he have a great looking summing amp design he just gives away to the world.... I suspect that the audient 8024 heritage with 990s uses that for the new mix bus. I really want to try one of those desks.... they seem to have considered everything I would want and gave me most of it... all for the small cost of a year's day job salary once you pile on some options...

Thinking about this junk always lures me back in the box to fiddle with projects I already did analig but as I pile up the plugins starting to get disillusioned... on paper a good 32bit float dsp summing engine should be perfect but it's not what we're used to. To quote my best friend 'as soon as you bring the tracks up on a desk it sounds more like a record.'

https://www.hairballaudio.com/blog/resources/diy-resources/yes-you-can-read-a-schematic

https://www.instructables.com/HOW-TO-READ-CIRCUIT-DIAGRAMS/

All of these cheaper mixers are probably using switch mode supplies which have gotten a lot better for audio vis a vis noise but I'm still a proponent of the less efficient linear supply for something like a mixer. You could probably make a super beefy switch mode supply but it will likely start to negate the space, heat and cost savings... although I am not a PSU guru. I know the least about them out of all the things you need in a mixer.the common wisdom is that great transient response needs a linear supply... it was not uncommon in the age of analog FOH desks for folks 2 boot strap supplies together to have twice the power reserve when they were lucky enough to have a spare.

In a properly designed power supply for anything sudio you have these parts called filter caps. They do a couple jobs but in a console you want higher voltage than required. Thus is a bigger capacitor in a linear supply so you need more board space for those parts. Also, if they're electrolytics and probably they should be then they can get pricey even in bulk. In something like this there are ICs in the power section that are voltage regulators. You want good regulators. Over spec. They can burn out.

I'm by no means a master of PSU design but I know enough about linear dc supplies from designing guitar gear to tell you a supply that provides stable voltage rails, dissipates heat well and doesn't leak noise into the audio path can get pricey. It's the most expensive part of the whole jam

I just finished that onyx thread and I was surprised to read the opamps selected... not the usual stuff and perhaps this explains why Mackies are such a cut below.... I wonder what's in the tascam? The japanese were known all through the 80s to eschew the ubiquitous 5534 and tl071... it was a mixed bag of stuff. The ramsa I sold tom was full of jrc4558s, the tubescreamer chips! But the implementation was pretty good and the desk sounded nice as long as you were conscious of the low headroom although there were a lot of shades of dirt before you hard clipped that bad boy.... on the other hand tascam tended to pick amps that few studio engineers liked the sound of in tascam circuits whereas yamaha could be downright classy when they went from discrete to IC....and Sony? They owned MCI

I would NOT attempt any mods on something like the 1640i unless it was a popular and time-tested mod that didn't increase the risk of me burning down my apartment... the whole unit, now with an external PSU mind you, gets hotter than it used to? huh? no thank you... anyway, the part about his tech being disgusted with the 1640i power supply was the interesting/relevant part.

High voltage caps, a nice torroid AC-DC transformer? They go a long way. Although what the tech wound up doing sounds like it was poorly regulated if it was cooking the ICs!

Jim Williams is great. He was very helpful years back in walking me through how I need to go about fixing the #$%^ed pots on my LXP-1 & 5.

I love Jim. Hes a gent. If he weren't so far away I would gave him go over my topaz. I haven't talked to him in ages. I hope hes still alive.

This is true, it can't sit atop Equipboard's list of recommended mixer-faces if they don't have a review unit.

Something in the Tascam Model12 range would probably get the "great for most of us" nod, but this is EB, gotta have a high-end alternative, right?

I really have trouble calling a lot of these little things mixers in the sense of mixing a record... I have no idea what I would recommend in affordable current gear to mix a record these days.... does anyone make an in line purpose built recording mixer that's less money than a car now? The Mackie sr24 8bus was the guy in the day. Its day is done. Before that you could consider maybe some of those tascam m series desks even though they didn't always sound great and lacked headroom... studiomaster maybe had an inline desk.... I forget. There was stuff in the 4 figures realm.

tINY can be pretty insightful on gearslutz with all things mixer... basically when it comes to cheapies the guy to look for is Jim Williams. If Jim posts then it's a practical idea to modify the the thing. He doesn't get involved in discussions about gear that it would be less trouble to just replace. It's not that the gear cant be improved but depending on the construction method, pcb quality and trace durability Jim will just stay out of it because he knows it's too big a hassle. He also believes in IC swaps that I'm not sure about.... but if he's not chiming in it's a project he would decline from a prospective client.

I think this merits a blind head-to-head between the Model12 and the BigSix. Someone needs to be bold enough to do it.

You know, I think @michael needs to get ahold of SSL and propose thisshoit out. If their product is 3k worth if sound quality then everyone should be allowed to hear it and SSL should put their money where their mouth us with a demo unit so we can put it up against an onyx, tascam and the soundcraft equivalent...

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!

Yup... but he included exceptions and Neve would fall in there as would the Jensen 990 and GML discrete opamps. I mean it's like 60 bucks an amp for a 990. Purpose made specialty items designed to outperformed an IC in a handful of very specific audio applications.

Yes. Discrete component opamps purpose designed for the specific job they're doing and a power supply robust enough to feed those power hungry class A circuits without mushing out on the transients. Also being purpose built for their jobs and transformer coupled the neve amps are running at low impedance which will improve bandwidth and are so stable that they're passing frequencies dogs can hear without oscillation. Also being class A they're incapable of producing crossover distortion.

edit: Theres also some stuff on the SSL mix bus that on paper is an improvement on say the trident version of a ne5532 virtual ground sum amp. Theres an extra transistor array on an ic (an LMsomethingorother it escapes me now) that's not really audio specific. It can be used for audio but I dont have a good opinion of it. Then again o think it fronted the jensen 990 opamp used in the john hardy m1 and Jensen's dual servo pre and those are some of the finest preamps known. I digress. In fact it's probably not the same part in big6 because it's now obsolete... more modern chips will reduce that bottleneck... neotek and others did something similar but used discrete transistor pairs in a common emitter amp to minimize the effect of loose tolerances. They usually used nice bipolar transistors for that impedance matching job in front of the ne5532 that had a long pro audio and hifi track record. SSL kinda cheaped out although the chip they chose may have been the best part at the time if you didn't want to eat up a bunch of pcb real estate. Im not sure what was available in the early 80s. Neotek are a lot less crowded being less complicated in the routing department. A lot of 4000 ieners swap those ICs when the desk is being serviced. Additionally there are tons of VCAs in the signal path of an SSL for automation and dynamics processing. No one ever credited a VCA with improving the audio entering it lol

One thing that occurs to me as a drawback of the tascam model mixers is their power supply which seems to be a modern switch mode affair and that is not the ideal way to provide reliable power to a mixer of any size.... I'm sure SSL gives you a bug, well regulated PSU. Basically any logical power supply upgrade will improve transient response as far as the audio path will allow (some caps seem to be faster than others for example, sluggish signal caps will create a bottleneck that no amount of reserve power will push the large transients thru) and will also tend to improve bass clarity.

Also, the tascam may be surface mount devices. You can get all of these ICs as SMDs now. I'm kinda suspicious of surface mount for right now.... I don't know how to service those pcbs and I'm not sure that i trust the durability of a construction method that's geared toward making consumer electronics more affordable.

Disclaimer: I'm by no means an electrical engineer or even an expert studio maintenance tech.

Done.

This? https://equipboard.com/items/ibanez-igc10-capo-for-electric-acoustic-guitar

Looks like we already had it?