Racking Soundcraft preamps?

[mingus2112]

My friend has a Soundcraft mixer. I BELIEVE it is a 400b. I could be mistaken, but i'm pretty sure on this one. Anyhow. . .is it worth the cost of parts to rack any of the channel strips in this? It's been sitting in a corner, broken, for a couple years. A few channels are fubar and the master section his haywire. I'm not suggesting that this is a good thing to go out and buy these strips just to rack them. . .but is it worth the cost (rack chasis, power supply, etc) to rack these up? Does anybody dig the sound of these at all?

-James

[bluesman]

Its probably not worth the trouble & expence, even the best Soundcraft pre's sound good, but nothing spectacular. How much will you spend for a power supply? How much for the rack enclosure? Are the channel strips old enough to benefit from re-capping? Personally, I would only go to the trouble & expence of racking a "SPECTACULAR" sounding pre. I recently re-built & racked up some Yamaha PM1000 channel strips. These may not be world class, but they sound pretty spectacular to me.....and they sure kick the crap outta my Soundcraft Spirit pre's, especially for drums. You might be dollars & sense ahead to consider the Groove Tubes Brick......Guitar Center sold me one for $350.00 including tax & I have seen them go for $220 or so on Ebay. I love the Brick! It has that sparkly sound that makes vocals shine & makes my Soundcraft sound dull & lifeless by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I'm not about to get rid of my Soundcraft, I have just discovered how much the pre matters in the overall picture & have started using a few outboard pre's on critical sounds where headroom & characture matter most.

[Kyle]

I don't think that racking these as stand alone pre's would be worth the time/money but You could use the power supply and build a box to hold a few of the channel strips as is. You could easily tie these channels into a mic/line input and use the ribbons and connecotrs to tie into a few 1/4 inch patch points (that work has already been done for you) and you would have a few extra pre's if needed them. I think the pre's and EQ's in these things are totally decent. It would be like a mini tracking console.

Then again it all depends on what you need.

[Milkmansound]

if you are capable of doing this yourself, then yeah - go for it! I have racked some non spectacular pres in the past and they have their uses - mostly the EQ.

take the PSU from the dead mixer if its seperate, and grab 4 channels and get a 4U case and chop them down and stuff the thing together. I would lose the whole aux send section - there is probably a trace that you will need to cut to reduce noise. If you are just doing 4 channels, you can also replace some IC's cuase the PSU will be able to handle that. My guess is that you will get at least some use out of the thing - at the very least, they can do light duty.

[slochldrnplayin]

IF you can rack them yourself then go for it. It's just another pre to add to your collection. Once they have power and you get them working, then experiment with other IC's to get different sounds out of the pre/eq. I don't think you would get much out of them if you tried to sell them on ebay, but if you have the parts and time I would go for it just to have them around as an option. I have a couple different flavors of Soundcraft racked up and I do use them from time to time.