| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
joel hamilton
TOMB Moderator
Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 8863
Location: NYC/Brooklyn
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
weatherbox
re-cappin' neve
Joined: 18 Nov 2005
Posts: 756
Location: arlington, va
|
 Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 1:22 pm Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
  |
|
| joel hamilton wrote: | It will be cool to have NS10's 43 feet apart... |
It is a critical step towards knowing how your mixes will sound coming from two early '90s Hondas stopped at opposite sides of an intersection with their windows down tuned to the same radio station, after all. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
drumsound
on a wing and a prayer
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 5802
Location: Bloomington IL
|
| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 8:37 pm Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
| weatherbox wrote: | | joel hamilton wrote: | | It will be cool to have NS10's 43 feet apart... |
It is a critical step towards knowing how your mixes will sound coming from two early '90s Hondas stopped at opposite sides of an intersection with their windows down tuned to the same radio station, after all. |
_________________
Tony
Oxide Lounge Recording
Follow me on TWITTER!
WWRTBD? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
joel hamilton
TOMB Moderator
Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 8863
Location: NYC/Brooklyn
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
b3groover
deaf.
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 1973
Location: michigan
|
| Posted: Thu May 08, 2008 11:02 pm Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
| cgarges wrote: |
Did my last session on the old console tonight.
|
What's the old console?
_________________
www.organissimo.org
organissimo - Dedicated (new CD)
"This shitty room is making your next hit record, bitch!" |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cgarges
zen recordist
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 10632
Location: Charlotte, NC
|
| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 1:13 am Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
| b3groover wrote: | | What's the old console? |
Soundcraft Ghost with Optofile automation. It's for sale, by the way.
So, by the time I got to the shop today, Rob had fixed all the issues we'd found so far except for the dead VU meter. I got into some more wiring stuff and we talked about a simple improvement on each channel for being able to remove individual modules without pulling on the knobs, similar to the modern Neve and SSL scheme. We also decided it would be best to check out reconfiguring the modules in the bucket at this point, which is something I wanted to do. The console is ten feet long and that puts the majority of the work area WAY left of the center of the room. The aux and master modules pretty much need to stay in place (after channel 24), unless we get into the major hassle of moving motherboards around, which we're NOT going to do.
After taking some measurements and considering a couple of different layouts, I decided to skip the first 8 channels, drop modules 1-16 into place starting at #9, then the master section, then the rest of the channels. This will require a little bit of patchbay re-wiring (basically to get the tape machine outputs to show up normalled to the line ins of what used to be channels 9-32) and then just a re-labeling of the channels in the bay.
We swapped modules around and dropped them into place. (I actually have blank filler panels that cover the empty channels, too.) Here's the new channel configuration with the work area in the center of the console and writing areas on either side of the 36 channels:
We started testing stuff and found that there was no routing to busses 1-8 happening because the buss assigns all route back to the corresponding channels in the bucket for amplification. That's a real bummer because 1-8 are the busses that give you access to the subgroups. Hmmmmmmmmm...
So Rob and I spent a good while trying to figure out the easiest solution. While not easy, we decided to open up the bottom of the console and make buss wire extensions that we could resolder to the new channel positions. I found a few feet of spare Mogami 24-pair, so that we could number the extensions appropriately. We also had to drop some buss bar wire into a couple of spots on the master section motherboard to solder the extensions to those channels, as it was never intended to accept buss routing on channels 25-28. It can now.
Here's the bottom of the console, opened:
Here's Rob double-checking a few things up-top:
We did two channels and tested them before I had to go to my gig tonight. They worked perfectly. It's going to be a ton of work, but I'm excited that we got it happening.
The Channel 24 LED meter isn't working, so we'll have to see what's up with that. I'm still impressed that out of 36 channels in an 18 year-old console, we only found like five or six faults.
So, finishing up those buss extensions is on-tap for tomorrow and will probably take up the majority of the day. I'll probably do some cable prep at home over the weekend and I should have a big box from Redco showing up on Saturday, along with some extra ELCO connectors and a tons of extra pins. (Thanks, Tony!)
It's starting to shape up.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
_________________
www.chrisgarges.com
www.oldhousestudio.com
Bunky Moon, The Public Good
Playing drums with Mitch Easter
Last edited by cgarges on Mon May 12, 2008 10:51 pm; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
heylow
george martin
Joined: 02 May 2003
Posts: 1265
Location: The Dreadful Midwest
|
| Posted: Fri May 09, 2008 5:49 am Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
Man, Chris.....
That's a really great looking piece of hardware! It's still so unbelievable that so little was wrong with that thing. I dig the blow by blow updates, btw!
The best part of something like this is knowing you could totally get wiped out, own nothing but that bucket, and you'd still totally be able to park that thing on the curb and live in it.
Awesome.
[dt]
_________________
..::David Tomaloff::..
..::[dt] on MySpace::..
..::Liontamer's Blues::.. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
drumsound
on a wing and a prayer
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 5802
Location: Bloomington IL
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cgarges
zen recordist
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 10632
Location: Charlotte, NC
|
| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 12:13 am Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
| heylow wrote: | | The best part of something like this is knowing you could totally get wiped out, own nothing but that bucket, and you'd still totally be able to park that thing on the curb and live in it. |
Well, that would be the case if it were officially mine and not the studio's, but you do have a good point.
Today, the plan was to finish up the buss re-wiring, but Rob was feeling a bit "less than good" and didn't want to spend all day under the console (I don't blame him) so he did channels one and two to check the subgroup routing on that mod and everything worked just fine. I finished prepping all the extension cables to finish that project, though, so at least that much is done.
Here's the existing buss wiring:
Here are the extensions we're doing (they'll get neatened-up, of course):
I also did a bit more patchbay planning and discovered that with one change I made a couple of days ago, it was freeing up some of the patchbay wiring I thought I was going to have to do. We're still installing a bunch of extra XLR jacks on the bottom panel (mostly for AES I/Os for a few pieces of gear), so I figured all that out and did most of the wiring for those, prior to riveting them into the bottom of the bucket. We thought it would be easier to solder the cables to them before riveting them into the bucket, then soldering the cables to the various patchbay points later, as opposed to riveting them in place, THEN having to solder inside the bucket, amongst the existing patchbay cables down inside there.
I'll do some outboard cable prep this weekend at home and Rob might finish up the buss wiring this weekend. If he doesn't, we'll get to it Monday. If he does, we'll be riveting XLR connectors to the bottom panel.
Here's the basic layout of the new channel configuration:
Channels 1-16:
Channels 17-36:
The whole thing:
I couldn't be happier with how this is going.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
_________________
www.chrisgarges.com
www.oldhousestudio.com
Bunky Moon, The Public Good
Playing drums with Mitch Easter
Last edited by cgarges on Sun May 11, 2008 2:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
KennyLusk
deaf.
Joined: 22 Sep 2004
Posts: 1959
Location: Mesa, AZ, USA
|
| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 11:25 am Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
Chris, what kind of oscillators do I see on the shelf in the background there?
_________________
"The mushroom states its own position very clearly. It says, "I require the nervous system of a mammal. Do you have one handy?" Terrence McKenna |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
drumsound
on a wing and a prayer
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 5802
Location: Bloomington IL
|
| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:31 pm Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
| KennyLusk wrote: | | Chris, what kind of oscillators do I see on the shelf in the background there? |
Those pictures are fromthe tech shop. They are probably osciliscopes.
_________________
Tony
Oxide Lounge Recording
Follow me on TWITTER!
WWRTBD? |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
KennyLusk
deaf.
Joined: 22 Sep 2004
Posts: 1959
Location: Mesa, AZ, USA
|
| Posted: Sat May 10, 2008 3:15 pm Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
| drumsound wrote: | | KennyLusk wrote: | | Chris, what kind of oscillators do I see on the shelf in the background there? |
Those pictures are fromthe tech shop. They are probably osciliscopes. |
My bad, I meant "oscilloscopes", what models are they?
_________________
"The mushroom states its own position very clearly. It says, "I require the nervous system of a mammal. Do you have one handy?" Terrence McKenna |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
cgarges
zen recordist
Joined: 16 Jun 2003
Posts: 10632
Location: Charlotte, NC
|
| Posted: Sun May 11, 2008 2:14 am Post subject: Re: ***The Eagle Has Landed!!!!!!!! |
|
|
| KennyLusk wrote: | | drumsound wrote: | | KennyLusk wrote: | | Chris, what kind of oscillators do I see on the shelf in the background there? |
Those pictures are fromthe tech shop. They are probably osciliscopes. |
My bad, I meant "oscilloscopes", what models are they? |
Yeah, those are at Rob's shop, which incidentally, is in the same building as Dave Harris' Studio B Mastering facility. Dave's an excellent mastering engineer and there's another great instrument and amp repair tech named Steve Stoeckel who has a shop in there. Engineer Mark Williams also has an office in there (and he's currently doing some overdubs and mixing for a project on which he hired me to play drums), so there's always a lot of cool activity happening in that building.
If I remember on Monday, I'll try to see what kind of scopes those are. Rob's got all kinds of stuff like that back in the back as well as in his office/shop in the front of the building.
Spent most of today hanging out with my wife, but still managed to get a bunch of soldering done while watching cooking shows on PBS. Ran out of solder, so went to Lowes and bought some (and some additional cable ties, 'cause I can see that coming, too). Then came home and cooked some rock shrimp with a habenero marinade, jasmine rice, and margaritas for dinner. Soldered some more. My fingers hurt.
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
_________________
www.chrisgarges.com
www.oldhousestudio.com
Bunky Moon, The Public Good
Playing drums with Mitch Easter |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
drumsound
on a wing and a prayer
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 5802
Location: Bloomington IL
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
trodden
on a wing and a prayer
Joined: 07 May 2003
Posts: 5106
Location: C-attle
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
