studiomaster 16/8

delo054 · Post by **delo054** » Sun May 25, 2008 12:07 pm

can anyone give me any info on this mixer...its not the mixdown 8 model, but simular, ive checked all over the internet, and i cant seem to find anything about it...im interested in the knowing a little about the pre's and the eq's...any info would be great, i don't know how to post the pic of the mixer but email me at delo054@yahoo.com if you need it...thanks

GREGL · Post by **GREGL** » Sun May 25, 2008 8:47 pm

I had a Studiomaster 16 channel board . The board sounded pretty good, much better than a Mackie and the EQ actually sounds decent. The Studiomasters have a somewhat colored sound (kind like puting a thin coat of caramel on everything) but I've heard some nice mixes come off from them. The pre's aren't Neve's but they certainly are very useable.
Their achilles heel is that the switches don't hold up very well on them and tend to go intermittent.

delo054 · Post by **delo054** » Mon May 26, 2008 4:47 pm

thanks for the info

operator_tape · Post by **operator_tape** » Mon May 26, 2008 7:51 pm

I own a Studiomaster Series 5 16/8/2 mixer. Its pretty colored and has a very interesting eq. Got some really interesting drums sounds from it, for an album I recently mixed. It needs to be cleaned up a little and maybe a little swapping of op-amps could do the trick. For me since I don't do many projects a year its a perfect little console for what I need. Its a really nice console.

Beneficial · Post by **Beneficial** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:45 am

I own one of the older model 16/8/2 boards that I got off of someone locally for $200. I mainly use it for recording drums to tape. It's pretty cool for getting some character in your sounds. The preamps and eq's kill any of the inexpensive mackie mixers i've heard. The auxillary sends are useful. One thing I've noticed is that when I'm stereo micing and I use the direct outs on the channels i'm using I get a certain sound... pretty decent straightforward preamping... but when I go out of the master bus and pan the two tracks hard left and right I seem to get a bigger sound with more color and character to it. The eq is pretty good... the low end eq knob can sound a little muddy... sweepable mids sound good and the high end eq knob sounds good (but can get pretty hissy when cranked sometimes). Some pots and switches are pretty bad on mine. I'd say about half of the channels work right.

JWL · Post by **JWL** » Tue May 27, 2008 10:02 am

I used to work in a studio with a Studiomaster 16 channel board (can't remember the model number). I'd have to disagree, the Mackie Onyx mixer I have now smokes that Studiomaster in every way.

The low end always seemed tubby. But of course, the room I was in back then was horrible acoustically, so that was certainly part of the equation.

If you can get a good deal on a studiomaster, then I'd say go for it. You can probably make it work. But studiomasters aren't my favorite by any stretch.

operator_tape · Post by **operator_tape** » Tue May 27, 2008 7:54 pm

has any of you guys succesfully moded your studiomaster with different opamps and/or re-capping of any of the sections of it?

O_ellinas · Post by **O_ellinas** » Wed May 28, 2008 1:53 am

delo_54, hi, I just got your PM.

Yes I own a Studiomaster Series 5 16-8-2. I like it. Its got lots of vibes. The gothic looks sure has got to do with it.

It does have a sound of its own. A bit noisy, warm and tough overall sound, not overly detailed. Before that, I used to have a small Tascam M-216 which, in comparison, sounded dry and small. EQ is good and musical and switchable. Decent routing capabilites and 5 aux sends, but no group or master inserts. I use it with a Fostex D-108 HDD recorder (great deck by the way) for an old school style experience.

These consoles are 20+ years old so they need a lot of work to get back to good working condition. Don't pay more than 150$ for one. they were manufactured with cheap taiwanese parts. The dual alpha pots tend to fall apart and need replacing, but you can get suitable replacement parts from futurlec.com. With a bit of work, the faders can be replaced by the very good Alps RSOK11. I have not found yet a suitable replacement for the dual rev log pots, so I am considering a custom order from Omeg.

Re cap and op amp replacement: cap replacement is a good idea as part of general maintenance, the original caps are reaching the end of their useful life. Do not expect a major change in sound though. The same applies to op amp substitution, I tried some OPA2134 with no audible improvements, plus, the power supply would not cope with an all-out op amp swap. So don't bother until you have sorted out the pots and caps first. John Williams (i think) wrote a great post on this forum about op amp replacement, look for it.

The bus connector is another cheap and nasty affair that tends to self destruct after you plugged in and out a couple of PCBs. Watch for it and make yourself a new one if you can. it will reduce noise and cross talk.

Put a ground lift resistor in it.

Last thing: this board does not have any supply bypass capacitors. I mean, literally, not a single one. So if you recap, make sure you add liberal amounts of bypassing. I put at least two 47?f near the bus connector on each board, but will probably add some more like, 0.1?f near each op amp.

operator_tape · Post by **operator_tape** » Wed May 28, 2008 7:52 pm

O_ellinas wrote:delo_54, hi, I just got your PM.

Yes I own a Studiomaster Series 5 16-8-2. I like it. Its got lots of vibes. The gothic looks sure has got to do with it.

It does have a sound of its own. A bit noisy, warm and tough overall sound, not overly detailed. Before that, I used to have a small Tascam M-216 which, in comparison, sounded dry and small. EQ is good and musical and switchable. Decent routing capabilites and 5 aux sends, but no group or master inserts. I use it with a Fostex D-108 HDD recorder (great deck by the way) for an old school style experience.

These consoles are 20+ years old so they need a lot of work to get back to good working condition. Don't pay more than 150$ for one. they were manufactured with cheap taiwanese parts. The dual alpha pots tend to fall apart and need replacing, but you can get suitable replacement parts from futurlec.com. With a bit of work, the faders can be replaced by the very good Alps RSOK11. I have not found yet a suitable replacement for the dual rev log pots, so I am considering a custom order from Omeg.

Re cap and op amp replacement: cap replacement is a good idea as part of general maintenance, the original caps are reaching the end of their useful life. Do not expect a major change in sound though. The same applies to op amp substitution, I tried some OPA2134 with no audible improvements, plus, the power supply would not cope with an all-out op amp swap. So don't bother until you have sorted out the pots and caps first. John Williams (i think) wrote a great post on this forum about op amp replacement, look for it.

The bus connector is another cheap and nasty affair that tends to self destruct after you plugged in and out a couple of PCBs. Watch for it and make yourself a new one if you can. it will reduce noise and cross talk.

Put a ground lift resistor in it.

Last thing: this board does not have any supply bypass capacitors. I mean, literally, not a single one. So if you recap, make sure you add liberal amounts of bypassing. I put at least two 47?f near the bus connector on each board, but will probably add some more like, 0.1?f near each op amp.

Great tips, has your noise floor droped a little after these little improvments? Have you gained anything really?

operator_tape · Post by **operator_tape** » Wed May 28, 2008 8:13 pm

here is a tread that has alot more info on the subject

http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopi ... ght=opamps

I like asking the same quesitons twice? I have to get down and start working on my console!

O_ellinas · Post by **O_ellinas** » Thu May 29, 2008 1:34 am

has your noise floor droped a little after these little improvments? Have you gained anything really?

well I think of it as maintenance really, where the idea is to get back the (well-worn in my case) console back to operation; I would say the most relevant repairs are the power supply caps and the ground lift resistor. The power supply connectors are also quite bad and unreliable so fixing them does a lot in terms of noise, hum and cross talk. And of course noisy, intermittent pots have to be changed, pot cleaner will simply not fix them.

Any damaged components must be replaced too, obviously. I had a couple of fried components, including the obsolete LM377 and accompanying resistors and capacitors. Tip: the LM377 can be bought from littlediode.com.

The rest (caps, op amps, bypassing) is less audible and is really up to the listener. Perhaps a very slight increase in clarity after cap replacement but do not expect anything magic. Think of it as the weakest link in the chain: is your room first class? and your monitoring? if not then it will probably not make a lot of difference. At the end, you'll still end up with a Studiomaster!

operator_tape · Post by **operator_tape** » Thu May 29, 2008 3:59 pm

Yeah thats what I thought, thanks man, I have to get back to work

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studiomaster 16/8

studiomaster 16/8

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