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Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

301 by Garth
Kniferide wrote: Wed May 21, 2025 5:23 pm I assume you have put it through its fader calibration exercise routine? We have to do it from time to time.
Nope. All the tech manuals and white papers have tons of ALL CAPS about not doing fader calibration unless specifically instructed to by Digico support. Some of them elaborate a bit and say that if they're dirty or need replacement that calibration could make the issue worse. IDK. It's working now w/ only a tiny bit of jitter on one fader. I'm good calling that a win.
Kniferide wrote: Wed May 21, 2025 5:23 pm I really hate the x32/m32. Interface sucks, Routing sucks, Fader motors burn out all the time.... Blehringer. New Yamaha DMs are really cool but I've only poked at them.

All of the above are better than the Soundcraft Vi we used to have. I hated that board.
Heard on all this too. I mean I know WHY the X32 blew up, it's a lot of bang for the buck, but not great. Like anything though I guess if you do 40 a week on it, you'll crack the code and fly around on it easy enough I guess.

I'd add those old Presonus digital boards to that hate list as well, never heard one sound good for whatever reason and I never could grok the navigation on it either.

Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

302 by Kniferide
Garth wrote: Thu May 22, 2025 6:54 pm.

I'd add those old Presonus digital boards to that hate list as well, never heard one sound good for whatever reason and I never could grok the navigation on it either.
I hate them. They sound terrible. The EQ and Comp are unusable.
Was Japmn.

New OST project: https://japmn.bandcamp.com/album/flight-ost
https://japmn.bandcamp.com/album/numberwitch
https://boneandbell.com/site/music.html

Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

303 by llllllllllllllllllll
I got an amazing DI sound with a Danelectro style baritone with lipstick pickups by accident. I’d actually had mics plugged into the pre plus a compressor and an audioscape pultec with the eq disengaged and but forgot I had a guitar cable plugged into the front of it from a keyboard I used previously, which defeated the xlr in, but I tried it with the guitar and I don’t think I’m going to need the amp now.

The current craze for music school dorks playing stiff plugin funk and the 2000s thing where bands had to have a track where their producer showed off his dumb “synthy” pedal has kind of ruined me for 99% of DI sounds, but sometimes they really can’t be beat - see the famous Motown, Nashville, Lou Reed, and Silkworm examples, but given the amount of times I’ve tried to make di guitars work vs tracks I’ve actually kept, they almost have to happen unintentionally.

Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

304 by Nate Dort
Nate Dort wrote: Mon Mar 17, 2025 2:07 pm Supro S6497

Somebody had recapped it about 20 years ago and converted to a diode rectifier. I only replaced that silver cap because it was bulging at the positive end (you can see it in the photo) and two 'lytics in the preamp that hadn't been replaced.

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I didn't look close enough when I had this open before, but they hadn't actually recapped it, just added equivalent-ish caps in parallel to the original Mallory multi-section can cap. I knew it was still in there, but I thought they had disconnected the common ground lug on the can cap and were just using the cap's terminals for convenient connection points. I was mistaken, and there was still full voltage across the can cap sections. Found out the hard way during a recording session on Thursday when we broke for lunch after a few hours of using it and came back to the smell of burning electronics and wisps of smoke. The can cap had started leaking electrolyte, which was burning on the 10k resistor and turning to ash.

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I removed the cap, plugged the hole with a 1" silicone hole plug, added a terminal strip, and cleaned everything up.

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Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

305 by llllllllllllllllllll
So the other day I was getting super gothy with the Balls AC30 and a KU5A plugged into a Radial outboard phantom power into a Spectra C610, as well as a couple other mics on the cabinet and was getting static sort of thups on certain peaks. I moved the ribbon mic over to the other speaker and same thing. Subtle but made the track unsuable.

Wrote AEA on how to check the ribbon and when I plugged directly into a second Spectra pre w/ internal phantom, it sounded good and the ribbon was super quiet on the shake test.

Also compared the KU5A to a EV 635a, RE16, Beyer M69 TGV90r and MC930 and surprise! Everything sounds good! The KU5A wasn’t making the little sounds, which were obvious before, though I was testing closeup on my voice and not the speaker cabinet. It is kind of fun fucking around with them when I don’t have a song to record, but I never do it unless something needs troubleshooting.

I’m going to have to put the Radial phantom power through its paces with other mics and see what happens. Not so worried about the Spectra because I use it all the time on mic and line level sources, but fuck a $150 box as long as the expensive stuff is ok.

I’m actually supposed to be studying for finals but fuck it I’m plugging in the 610 right now.

Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

306 by llllllllllllllllllll
llllllllllllllllllll wrote: Thu Jun 26, 2025 5:41 pm So the other day I was getting super gothy with the Balls AC30 and a KU5A plugged into a Radial outboard phantom power into a Spectra C610, as well as a couple other mics on the cabinet and was getting static sort of thups on certain peaks. I moved the ribbon mic over to the other speaker and same thing. Subtle but made the track unsuable.

Wrote AEA on how to check the ribbon and when I plugged directly into a second Spectra pre w/ internal phantom, it sounded good and the ribbon was super quiet on the shake test.

Also compared the KU5A to a EV 635a, RE16, Beyer M69 TGV90r and MC930 and surprise! Everything sounds good! The KU5A wasn’t making the little sounds, which were obvious before, though I was testing closeup on my voice and not the speaker cabinet. It is kind of fun fucking around with them when I don’t have a song to record, but I never do it unless something needs troubleshooting.

I’m going to have to put the Radial phantom power through its paces with other mics and see what happens. Not so worried about the Spectra because I use it all the time on mic and line level sources, but fuck a $150 box as long as the expensive stuff is ok.

I’m actually supposed to be studying for finals but fuck it I’m plugging in the 610 right now.
It was the fuckin 610. The ratio and release controls work backwards and I had them at the exteme counter clockwise. You leave them at the knob’s max for peak limiting with no compression. I noticed before I finished getting levels and was able to recreate it.

I had been running vocals from another song through it the other day and got the Southern Man vocal sound that made Neil sound like an Old Testament scarecrow and forgot to set it to default after I was done.

So it turns out I’m dumb but at least I got to bother the guy from AEA. My bad!!

Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

307 by llllllllllllllllllll
any ideas why I can hear so much hiss in my monitoring that doesn’t come up in my recording?

For example, I have a pre/eq with a switchable midband - its fine when the eq is bypassed, but when its not, I hear a ton of hiss on the headphones and speakers.

However, when I compare the peaks or lufs being recorded at idle with the gain cranked up, there is only a db or two difference with the mid band in and out.

I tried recording it at idle, and I can’t really hear noise when peaks are at mid -50s and -60s lufs-m, even with the monitoring cranked.

However, if you were monitoring that channel live as its being recorded the hiss would be bad.

The chain goes

(Source is either mic or line input from recorder) > Pre-amp/eq > (compressor patched in when line level, not patched in at mic level) > y-cable
From the y-cable out:
One end goes to the recorder
The other end goes to a midas venice channel for monitoring

When I monitor playback of the line level idle, the recorder plays back on a different channel of the Midas as compared to when I am monitoring a mic signal. No hiss. I should be happy but it makes eqing difficult.

Re: PRF Members Tech Journal

308 by matttkkkk
matttkkkk wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2024 7:20 pm I had an Aria 12 string acoustic whose neck block had collapsed, buckling the top but leaving the (bolt on) neck in need of a body. Then I found an Aria 1532T on Yahoo Japan, with a Fernandes neck grafted on, and thought I'd have a shot at making a 12 string electric from the parts. Eventually had it shipped, unboxed it and didn't bother trying to reattach the Fernandes neck.
...
Then it's a matter of decking the trem, test fitting the bridge and drilling two holes in the trem plate for the bridge posts, and hopefully it'll look like a missing-link prototype.
Has it really been a full year? All I had done was sand the neck heel slightly to fit the pocket and bolt it on. Yesterday I decided to strip the garbage stock strings from my Squier JM XII to see if I could use them as a guide to set up this mutant. It looks good strung up! And it's pretty compact despite the long headstock.
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The 12th fret notes are sharp, and the action is high, so I need to get the bridge further back and lower down. I might be able to attach it directly to the former trem plate, I think. I don't want to mod the 1532T body if I can help it.
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