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AEA TRP (The Ribbon Pre) first version. Missing knobs, PSU, and the top/front and sides of the chassis. paid ~$80 for it.
Manual says 2x 18V AC for power, and it has a 7 pin midi-esque connector. Closest I have is a brick for a little Mackie mixer. Figured out the pinout and connected with some jumpers. Just plugged my headphones into the TRS outs 'cause, I can't use the mackie in this scenario. Works great. Score.

Last weekend the Midas Venice 32 playback cut out all the sudden except when a track was solo’d, but it happened well past midnight on a Sunday where I had to be up in a few hours, so I left it until later to get sorted.

Went up there again. Tested the master outputs, they worked fine, but still nothing in played back on the monitors until I solo’d a track, so I exercised the ever-loving shit out of solo buttons of the last two channels I’d messed with, thinking that had to be it, wondering if it was possible to break it further. Eventually I absentmindedly adjusted the speaker volume like I do all the time and it occurred to me that the goddamn tape mode was on. Switched it back to master and voila. This is why I pay to do this.

I've been working on a non-audio related project in an attempt to grow a small non-profit I'm part of. The head of the organization found some potential donors who are "model train enthusiasts" hoping to modernize their setup. I personally don't give a shit about model trains, but it's been an interesting technical project. Thanks to some very committed people in that community, there are some awesome free open source tools that are pretty impressively developed. I've got an arduino with some accessories doing the heavy lifting, and a PC running bitfocus companion which fucking rulez.

My day job is AV support at a college. Bitfocus companion is basically a free open-source version of control systems like Extron, and it's built to use off the shelf elgato Stream Decks (and some similar devices) as control surfaces. So basically I'm using my AV control programming experience to program this in much the same way. There's a lot of developed modules for video stuff, but there's also a fair amount of audio stuff as well. Allen & Heath, Behringer/Midas, DANTE, Digico, SHURE, and Yamaha RCp all stood out as I scrolled through. Anyway, if you're into that sort of thing, and you've got gear with some kind of control protocol, this seems like it could be great for tying things together and doing some pretty advanced control. Or if you're a camgirl and you want to run your setup from a streamdeck, you can do that too.

https://bitfocus.io/companion

thecr4ne wrote: Sat May 03, 2025 11:48 am.

https://bitfocus.io/companion

Makes my entire world work. The shit you can do with companion and vmix is amazing, especially if you use variable commands.

Ampeg SVT III (non-pro)

Ok, so this thing was caked in dust and a bit of a death trap, the ground trace on the power terminal board was gone, so nothing was actually grounded.
There were some lifted/missing traces in a few other places as well. Whoever worked on this previously deserves the results of their work.

I tore it all apart, cleaned it up real good. replaced the various lifted/missing traces with jumper wires and got things back to the way they should be. The 5 position Mid freq select switch had a broken shaft. A direct replacement is like $40 or some shit, so I got some cheap used 2 position switches of the same style from ebay (stackpole/ Electroswitch C1 series) Drilled out the rivets, had to press off the disk with the detents and replace it with the one from the 5 position, re-assembled with some machine screws and nuts. Success.

Big ups to FM Nate Dort for calling out this listing, and helping clear up some misconceptions I had while going through and testing it all out.

Broke out the oscilloscope and signal generator and went through the test points. Once I had a clue what I was doing, it made sense and all the measurements were actually pretty close. Nice.

I haven't hooked it up to a cab yet, but everything checks out on a scope. Here's some pics.

Before: After: Front panel: Mid Switch:

great job, mang. That switch hack is *chef's kiss*

Digico SD8 and Digico SD8-24.

I recently started working as the full time sound tech at a venue here in town and it has some very high end, but aging equipment. It's a LOVELY sounding room and the original install was done right, no expense spared. Right now, I'm being tasked with eking as much life out of our 15-year-old consoles as I can.

The nice thing is that we have two consoles, one being the main console and the smaller was originally used as a monitor console but that has been less-and-less every year as more of the artists coming through are doing IEMs. This means I can focus on getting the smaller one fully functioning before doing anything to the large console.

So far, I've replaced the CMOS batteries on both so it's keeping proper date/time. I was able to figure out a way to lift the main screen and weasel my hand in there and replace it by feel without having to do a full teardown to get at it.

I am currently upgrading the software to the latest version which came out in March. That's kinda wild considering the debut for the SD8 was 2008. I successfully performed this on the small SD8-24 console but after the upgrade, the meters by the faders are not functioning. To be fair, this console was so seldom used (not by me since 2019 at least) that I don't know if they worked BEFORE the upgrade or not. Digico support wants me to pull the panels check all ribbon connections etc. This seems odd that they would be disconnected on both sides but I have to jump through support hoops I guess. I don't want to update the main console until I know for certain that the update did not cause this problem.

The small console has some jumpy faders too that I want to replace and the main board has a non-functioning button that needs to go as well. I'll have to de-solder these things from a circuit board which shouldn't be a big deal but these mixers easily cost as much as a small house in this market when they were new so still a little stressful.

Stay tuned. I know this is usually the analog world and recording-focused on top of that, so hopefully y'all don't mind a little diversion.

Garth wrote: Tue May 20, 2025 5:55 pm Digico SD8 and Digico SD8-24

We have a Quantum 338 and I've worked on an SD9. I have to say aside from the amount of routing/connectivity capability they have, I'm absolutely not a fan of The Digico ecosystem and GUI. Its so visually noisy and I feel like everything you want to do takes twice as many menu clicks as any other console I've used. We demoed a S21 and it felt so cheap to the touch that we decided to go with a A&H SQ6 (we also have 14 DLives, so it keeps training to a minimum) to fill that need. the SQ6 is half the price and we all liked better. They sound great and are action packed but they kinda give me the ick. I've never been inside, but if it is anything like the Soundcraft Vi it replaced, keeping "vintage" digital boards alive has a definite End of Life date where getting replacement cards or support of any kind from the company just stops. I do hear Digico is better at this than a lot of other companies tough. Good luck.

Yeah, I mean it is a love/hate console for me! There are features that my entry-level QU-16 has built-in like onboard recording and an RTA that this console doesn't.

The SD8 is particularly loathesome in that the monitor, while both large and touch-screen, is oriented in a very downward-facing position where you have to kinda hunch over the console to see the changes you're making. This has caused me to miss multiple visual cues from the stage to the point where I have trained myself to look up every few seconds when working something out.

That being said, the internal routing is amazing once you get the hang of it. It's kinda like pro tools in that once you're embedded in it, you can do things like build entire shows remotely very quickly etc.

I also have zero quibbles with the sound quality. I'm generally dismissive of cork-sniffers, but having heard touring techs come through w/ their digital mixers, I can hear when they don't sound good (usually the X32). I cannot say that about those A&H ones you mention though because those SQs sound GREAT. I think if I had to pick replacement consoles tomorrow, I'd go d-live all the way.

I do think I can eke a few more years out of them. Parts are still available apparently as they used a lot of the same components across the SD line & Digico is still releasing updates for SD series so that's a pretty good sign. And shout-out to Digico support who has been great to work with and super knowledgeable/helpful on a console that debuted in 2008.

Today's actual fixes on the SD8-24:
The meters by the faders were not registering at all. I opened the board up, reseated ALL the ribbon cables and now working. I am a little worried that I might have bumped them loose last time I was in there or something. Regardless if they're that fiddly, it doesn't make me feel good about relying on it for production.

The aforementioned badly-placed monitor also was not displaying properly, it was kinda white. Same thing: opened up, reseated all ribbon connections, now fine. Same thing: probably self-inflicted.

Jumping faders, pretty common as motorized faders age. Was dreading having to do replacement but followed the digico "light cleaning procedure" and everything is working nicely again. Probably due to just sitting around and not getting used, just needed to be exercised.

A huge final boost to quality-of-life: Got ipad connectivity working and that will be really handy AND maybe provide some additional visual monitoring that I won't have to hunch over for. had to dust off some IT skills to get the networking playing nice but now that it is, it seems to be pretty solid.

Garth wrote: Wed May 21, 2025 4:50 pm Jumping faders, pretty common as motorized faders age. Was dreading having to do replacement but followed the digico "light cleaning procedure" and everything is working nicely again. Probably due to just sitting around and not getting used, just needed to be exercised.

I assume you have put it through its fader calibration exercise routine? We have to do it from time to time. Don't get me wrong, They are fantastic mixers, I just find them a bit cumbersome to navigate. The GUI is cramped too much for my terrible eyesight, but that only bothers a few of us. Routing and IO is second to none. That is where they really shine. They sound great. We have Waves Grid and I think people using it are only using it out of habit because I find no reason to leave the console for processing. Everything inside sounds great and I hate Waves.

As far as the DLive, they are pretty great. Not everyone thinks they sound great (automixer isnt as good as a Dugan but who cares) but I have no issues with them. If you are familiar with the SQ/QU line you can walk up to one and figure out everything about it in about 15 minutes. Allen & Heath user interface is just simple and good. As fa as entry level mixers I do not think you can beat a QU. I have a little CQ18t that I use as a PA mixer at home and it is also pretty rad for something that fits on a music stand.

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.