Genz Benz 60LT Acoustic Amp
Having an acoustic guitar and several guitar amplifiers means that I could plug in and use the built in pickup in my Fender Sonoran SE.
What I’d noticed in testing out electric/acoustics was that they used different amps than what your standard Tele or Strat might use. Initially, I was thinking “marketing ploy” but when I started to try some, yeah, they sounded a lot different. The idea of an acoustic amp is to make it louder without colouring your sound. So as usual, talk to a bazillion people, read reviews, and try out as many as I could to see what i liked the sound of.
Most of these amps are quite small, i.e. no Marshall stack (Marshall does make an acoustic amp though)…speakers range from a couple of 4″ to a single 12″ and anything in between. Almost all are stereo, which is interesting considering the guitar is a mono source. Wattages range from 15 to over 300. Yea, 300 watts through a pair of 10″ speakers (with tweeters).
Fishman acoustic amps are first and foremost, every friggin’ where. If there were any more, you’d have to start a spraying program to stop them breeding…I tried several different variations of their Loudbox Artist and Professional. Attractively priced. Sound did bupkiss for me.
From that point, I worked my way down the line…and happened to be out at SurfSide Music. Noticed they carried Genz Benz in a solid state series called “Shenandoah”. They went from 45 watts to 300 watts with various speaker compliments, effects and input/outputs. The king of the hill is the Shen ProLT or the 300LT. Loud doesn’t adequately describe these things. Deafening would be closer. None the less, I didn’t care for the sound of either, nor the price…
Then I tried the Shen LT60. Bingo. First amp that I tried that didn’t change the sound of the acoustic guitar. Just brought out it’s natural sound. I wondered what could be making all this wonderful sound and…a pair of 6 1/2″ speakers and matching tweeters. 30 Watts driver each pair for a 60 watt amp. Who’da thunk.
Specs:
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• Lightweight 29 lb design
• Stereo 60-Watt Power (30 Watts per side) • Stereo 24 Bit DSP w/ 16 Preset Digital Effects • Two Channels w/3-Band Active EQ w/Sweepable Mids • XLR and 1⁄4” Inputs • Headphone Jack • All Input Signals Mix Together |
| • Dual 61⁄2” Woofers and Bullet Tweeters • Compact Monitor-shaped Cabinet Design • XLR Direct Outputs (Left and Right) w/Ground Lift • Phantom Power for Condenser Mics • Speaker Stand Mountable • Protective Metal Speaker Grille |
Coming from a world of BIG 4 x 10 or 4 x 12 cabinets, it’s hard to explain how much volume/tone this little amp can pump out…with the mic input I can even caterwaul along with myself…
I recently checked Genz Benz for the LT60 and it would appear they don’t make it any more. They have an LT80 now.
If there’s one annoying “feature”, it’s that the designer(s) overlooked the fact that the amp thumps when you power it up and when you power it down. It’s a solid state amp, it has a DSP. When the DSP comes online, it thumps the speakers. Turn down the “effects” gain before power up and it doesn’t do it. I emailed the company and they suggested doing just that, turn down the gain, power on the amp, turn the effects gain back up.
Which is like saying: get in your car, turn the radio volume down to zero, start the car, turn the radio volume back to where it had been. Every time.
So Genz Benz, lovely little amp, good sound, sturdy but for the glaring oversight on an amp in this price range – FAIL.
Thus, I do like the sound, I tolerate the thumps because some engineer was probably polishing his resume…I hope.
DCA55 – Analyser
Every now and then there’s a big of test gear that comes along that is simply, for lack of a better expression, drool worthy…
As I designing and building some stomp box pedals, I was trying to match up transistors according to gain (hFE) or B-E voltages or whatever. Plus I was looking for lower gain transistors in some cases or higher in others. Just looking at a heap of them in the parts bin doesn’t really tell you much.
Of course the manufacturers specs are always around, and low and behold, some of the parts even are within spec. Some aren’t. Then there’s others that don’t have any numbers or house numbers on them and you wonder what the heck they are. Sure with a multimeter you can figure it out…but I happened across a Peak Atlas DCA55 Semiconductor Component Analyser. Now with a name like that, it HAS to be good…
I checked the reviews and educated myself to it’s pros and cons. The only con I could find was if you were testing 40 year old Germanium transistors with hFE around 10-15 the tester was going to have a fit. Usually saying that it’s either a faulty device or unknown. Since that’s unlikely to occur for me, I ordered one from the UK company that makes them. Because there’s nowhere else that seems to have them. Cost is about $100.
Comes in a nice little box, 12V battery, about the same size as a point and shoot digital camera. Yep. Small. Three leads to connect to “whatever”, two switches to test with and that’s it.
What will it test? Diodes, diode networks, LED’s, Bicolor LEDS, Bipolar transistors (BJT), Enhancement mode MosFET’s, depletion mode MOSFETS, JFETS, SCR’s and TRIACS. Covers the majority of the stuff in my parts bins…
So the first thing I did was plug a common cathode tricolour LED on the leads. Any leads by the way, it will tell which ones are which. Yes, I know mine is a tricolour but this was a test.
Don’t know what leads do what? Click the scroll button on the DCA55…The RED lead is the cathode. Now if you’re thinking it MISSED the green lead, it didn’t it tells you the details about EACH led it found, so I was only checking the one in the photo.
Next up, grab a transistor and plug the leads on (TIP122)
But what leads are what? EASY!
What about GAIN (2N2904; spec says 40-120 for hFE):
The DCA55 comes with a well written 25 page PRINTED manual and the thing is a piece of cake to use. A one year warranty, and a COMPLETE listing of all the test parameters the DCA is using to give you the results.
So like I said, this is one drool worthy piece of kit. Money well spent as far as I am concerned…
Offshore Mail Delivery
I tend to order a lot of little bits and pieces from mainland China and it feels like the post office lottery when you try to guess the delivery date. Some are here in a heartbeat (or two), where as others take 6 or 7 weeks. I’ve searched online to try to find the answer and today I think I found it.
When the shipper doesn’t pay enough at the post office, they get this method of shipping:
El Sleezo LCR Meter
It goes without saying that if you need an LCR meter you should buy a good one. If you’re an engineer or electronics designer you probably have a top notch unit with a calibration sheet, and, you’re hardly the type that is going to get anything useful out of this post at all…except maybe a chuckle…
For the unwashed electronics masses, of which I am one, we simply need something that can get the job done.
Enter the El Sleezo line of meters, tools, parts, or whatever. They all come from the same place (offshore; but you knew that). The quality test on El Sleezo stuff is generally performed at the speed of light. I concluded that because no one in their right mind is going to reach onto the assembly line that travels at Mach 5 and risk life and limb to grab one of these “whatevers” for testing. Nope, testing was done during the design phase. Returns and DOA’s bad Karma.
My eyes, along with other parts of my anatomy, which we won’t cover, aren’t what they used to be. Reading little capacitors to determine what value they once were or might have been, assuming there are some numbers still to be seen, is just too difficult. So I needed a capacitor meter. There. I said it. Notice I didn’t say I needed a good one.
I didn’t need an L or R meter (inductance or resistance). I can read resistors without problems. I rarely work with inductors except for those few times when I forget the mains are live and volunteer to “induct”. At which point I do resemble an inductor. I choke, coil and react. Sometimes all al the same time. Truly amazing.
eBay has a LOT of LCR meters. Some of the local electronics shops carry the same “value” meters at a premium price. And of course theres some good stuff around. Unfortunately you’d have to miss a mortgage payment to afford it..but still..
For brands, there’s Vichy, CA-4070L, MasTech, Extech, and so on. Lots to pick from. For $30-$50 you get one of the low cost units and The Vichy DM4070 I got cost $30 (free shipping!)..
I honestly didn’t expect much, just something that if I blew it up or broke it, it wouldn’t break the bank.
It arrived in a multimeter box, which confused me until I realized that they are recycling boxes “over there”. So that’s not a bad thing. I got the required cute little manual that compretely x-sprains opa-ration of un it. Yea, you want a chuckle, try reading the translations. For example, the one that I found in the “diaper policy” section:
“The Function stated for this User Manual cannot be reason of special usage.”
Or better yet:
“The content of this manual is regarded as correct, error or omits. Please contact with factory.”
That one should set off some alarm bells some place…
You get couple of leads, no 9V battery, the manual and meter. Have to say that the digits in the meter are HUGE. I could almost use them for our house address out front. There’s a zero adjust pot for the leads stray capacitance. On the lower scales it’s a little touchy but it works. The meter has blade sockets so you can just shove in a cap. Okay, these were may out of some old soda pop can but they work. For now.
I tried turning it on. Found that I had to hold down the button because it wouldn’t latch. Who wants to have a half functioning piece of doodoo any way. So I took it apart (credit EEVBlog for that tag line).
Notice that mine is water marked, or something. Maybe a repair for a bad connection. Hummmm. Around the power switch too. Turns out there was nothing wrong with the PCB at all.
If you look at the photo below, you see the power switch on the left under the display. That’s nothing but a chunk of plastic attached to a pushbutton switch. And after looking at it, I see the plastic had a piece of flashing on one side that hindered its movement. Couple of seconds with a nail file and plastic is nice and smoothy…
I put it back together, stuck a battery on it and tried the switch a LOT. Works perfect every time. Checked a bunch of caps with it and yep, it works. Not sure I’d want to shove a charged up electrolytic capacitor into it since it doesn’t look to me like there’s much in the way of input protection on this meter. Well, other than the PCB foil traces…
And as you can see the blade sockets for the caps are well, ah, stellar isn’t the word I’d use to describe them. The rotary switch is one of those wiper jobs that after a lot of use will sand through the PCB traces and render the meter fit only as landfill.
For intermittent use it’ll probably last a while. Or not. Maybe they need to add a tag line like this to the manual:
Life expectancy of unit is subject to change without notice.
El Sleezo MIDI Interface
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If you’ve ever been surfing for a MIDI interface, I’m positive you’ve seen the likes of these ones:
Usually selling for the awesome sum of $5. If you’re wondering how they can build one of these for $5 and make a profit (when they even off free shipping), I have no idea either. These things have peaked my curiosity for some time and since I’m not a feline, I took the bait…er plunge and ordered two of them. One from Amazon, one from eBay. After receiving both, it was obvious that they are from the same factory. There are no drivers to install, you just plug them in and..well…pray. Which is exactly what I did… On my Mac system, they show up as “USB MIDI Cable” in my MIDI interfaces listing. Probably the most generic name in the world, but what the heck. No drivers. Any way, I fired up my testing software and ran these through their paces. I expected the worst. I mean, what do you get for $5? A Starbucks latte? Maybe. Thus I was pleasantly surprised when the darn things actually work. Send MIDI, receive MIDI. Send SYSEX, receive SYSEX… they actually work. Now lets stress them a little…ah ha. Hit them with a high traffic stream and…bingo. We got some issues. Our old evil friend Mr. Latency. Now the latency is not so bad that you could measure it on a calendar, but it’s there. Near as I can tell 9-15ms. Kind of varies. Probably not the largest buffer in them nor well written software (I’m guessing a PIC chip in them). For standard low stream MIDI, you’ll probably get away with it and think they work perfect. But for multiple SYSEX messages (like doing a dump from a MIDI CPU where it sends umpteen SYSEX messages one after the other), or some really high traffic MIDI data, ah..nope. Fail. Of course it “tries”, kind of like the little engine that could, but didn’t. You need the briefest of pauses between multiple SYSEX messages and it’s as happy as a clam though. The reason for my testing these things out was that I wanted to see if it really needs a driver (no it doesn’t), does it actually work with SYSEX (yes it does, as noted), and is it really worth the $5 (yes it is). I wasn’t looking to replace my 8×8 MIDI interface that does routing, or even my M-Audio UNO. Just something I could toss in a gig bag or drawer, pull it out, do some SYSEX programming and toss it back in the drawer/bag. The only thing I haven’t done is plug both of them at the same time to see what happens. And I’m not going to. No use tempting fate… |
Spray Painting
Finally got all the bits and pieces for the airbrush and compressor so it was time to paint up a box (the LED Tester I was making). Since I was going to have black lettering on the box, the best colour for the box was going to be white. Of course, for me, white has to be one of the hardest colours to paint just because it’s tough to see the build up.
That was hardly going to stop me though…so here’s some sample shots of me “in action”…That’s a Badger 200NH with a 1/4oz side cup. I think a standard box will take about an ounce so I could have used one of the 2oz bottles. So I had to refill the side cup quite often (use pipettes to do it!)…
A little close up of it…
And completed:
No mist came out of the box, the filters grabbed it nicely. The turntable made it easy to spin the job and paint it all the way around. The LED’s on the top helped me to see the wetness of the paint because, as I said, white for me is a tough colour to paint…
All in all, the spray booth is a complete success.
There are some additional things needed. One is a proper cleaning bottle:
With this you put some water into the airbrush, then spray it into this large glass container. No mist comes out (it’s filtered) and the water based paint stays in the bottle for easy clean up. Ihave one on order so it will help in the future.
LED Tester Completed
So after shooting some paint with the new airbrush, sticking on my labels, adding the circuits to the inside, the LED Tester lives…actually works quite well.
Lotsa room in there…standard stomp box enclosure…
Just plug in the LED to the top connect, select the current range, hit the TEST button. I like simple.
LED Tester Software
While looking for circuit drawing software, I happened across an app that I’d gotten for the iPad a while back (and promptly forgot about having)…
It’s called iCircuit and talk about slick. While it still doesn’t have ALL the bits and pieces for doing schematics, it’s got a good deal more than Fritzing plus it does allow you to “run” the design. You can scope various points so it’s very much like the old Circuit Maker.
It’s in RUN mode on the iPad 2, you can see the switches that are closed, the current draw at that point. To open or close a switch you just click on it.
The plain schematic looks like this and you get a parts listing out of it too. I was pretty impressed with it.
Led Test Schematic
Finally found a piece of software that allows me to at least do some basic drawing of a schematic. The software is called Fritzing.
This is not a review of the software, just my personal impression of it.
I think it’s designed for taking a circuit that you’d build on a strip style board, which creates a schematic (of sorts) from what you lay down. From there you can create a PCB and save it as a Gerber plot. A high percentage of the examples of it in use show it coupled with the Arduino devices. I suspect that’s a lot of it’s background and judging from the lack of “core” components you can work with on a schematic, it seems to bare that out.
When I design circuitry, I don’t normally work on anything overly complex, I start with a schematic. From that point, I can almost always turn that into a PCB by hand without too much work. When you do it this way with Fritzing, you get some interesting results because that’s not the way it was designed. But then I’m old school too. I was designing PCB’s before there was software to design PCB’s and “auto routing”….
So here’s what I managed to “draw” in Fritzing. First off, you’ll see that I have switches S3 thru S8. Actually in my circuit that’s a rotary switch. But there’s no rotary switch in Fritzing. Matter of fact in Fritzing the “input” section is pretty skimpy. DPDT? Nope. Pushbutton? Nope. And on it goes. While you have the option of defining your own parts, one look at the multiple steps required to do this and it pretty much cures you of that idea.
Which is not to say that Fritzing isn’t useful, it’s remarkably good at what it does. However, if you’re schematic based like me, you’ll find it lacking in a lot of areas. So keep in mind that it’s free.
Ages ago (we’re taking in the early 90′s) I used a piece of software called “Circuit Maker” from Microcode Engineering for my Macintosh systems. Not only could you draw a work schematic but you could “run” your schematic and put scope points on it to watch logic signals change. Of course resistors or capacitors didn’t affect the circuitry for “simulation” it was just logic gates. But you could set propagation for those gates. I built a lot of digital circuits in those days with that little program. I still miss it.
Eventually, Microcode dropped the Apple Mac support and continued to develop for Windows. I think they’re up to version 5 now.
After that I ended up using Canvas from Deneba Software and I had an electronics symbol library that I could draw schematics with. It wasn’t bad either. Course if you started to move parts around the wires came apart pretty quick because there weren’t any real points. Then Deneba got tired of Canvas and flogged it off to ACDC who didn’t give a squirt about the Mac clients. The software was let lapse and one of my most used drawing programs went the way of the DODO bird. If Lion would run Rosetta I’d still be using Canvas 8. But in another Apple’s infinite bouts of “we know what you want more than you do”, Rosetta is gone.
Finally I used OmniGraffle and its electronic symbols to draw schematics. And it worked, but I never seemed to get really comfortable with it to continue using it.
Softwares nature is to be a good revenue generating machine and if it’s not, it’s dead pretty fast. There’s scant few hobbyists like myself that program for fun and little to no profit. Unlike many, money has rarely ever been a motivator for what I do. Regardless of what it is. I write software that I need. Turns out other people seem to need it too, but writing for profit is something I only did once, a long time ago and I never did it again.
Any way, I’d love to see something like Circuit Maker for the Mac again….hey, I can dream can’t I?
So then, probably like a million others, my schematics are drawn on the back of a coffee stained napkin in an all night donut shop…
LED Tester
Having bought about a quadrillion LED’s off eBay and from other sources, I notice that when they aren’t on, they sort of all look the same. Occasionally I grab one, manage to get the right colour and put it in a project. Only to find out later that I should have picked one that wasn’t as bright or one that is brighter. Sort of a duck shoot really.
I’ve looked at those LED testers from eBay and thought, what the heck I could make one myself. Not that it would save any money since the ones on eBay or in kit form are dirt cheap to start with, but still, there’s the creative side of it that intrigues me…
Initially I thought for testing LED’s I’d just use a bunch of resistors on a rotary switch and use that to change the current to the LED. Which is find in theory but when you factor in that different colour LED’s use different voltages it didn’t take long before I could see the error in my thinking (seconds really)… Blue or IR can use 3.6V 20ma, where as red might use 1.9V 10ma. That’s a spread.
Thus a constant current source is what was needed. I could vary the current source to try the LED at whatever milliamp I wanted (to a point or smoke if you like)…I estimated a values from 5 to 50ma should cover the LED’s that I deal with all the time.
The simplest ideas, require the simplest parts. Couple diodes, few resistors, one transistor, some switches, a box, wire, battery and that about sums it up.
My circuit board:
Diodes on the left with the resistor, one good ole fashioned 2N3904 NPN, and a bunch of resistors to do the current limiting (12-120 ohms). Nothing fancy, but it works nicely.
Here’s a shot of the box, label and all the circuitry. That’s a 4 pole 4 position switch, but I’m only using 2 poles. I switch between them so one pole is three low current settings 5, 10, 15 and then 20, 30, 50. I wired them a little different than that so I can toggle 5-15, 10-20, 30-50 with the SPDT toggle switch.
For the LED to test, I’m just using an RC battery connector, and it’s not wired in the circuit yet. Have to paint and get the box ready first.
I’d have put the schematic here, but trying to find some simple to use software that allows me to drop symbols on a layout is apparently more difficult that I envisioned. I used to use Mac Circuit or something about 20 years ago, but that’s long gone now. So I’m still looking for something simple that doesn’t require a second mortgage to buy.
I’ll try to post the schematic….
Spray Both…er..Booth
Having an airbrush means you get to atomize paint in to tiny droplets and spread the rainbow of acrylic around the…well.. pretty much everywhere within a ten foot circle of where you’re spraying. Which may not exactly make you popular with your better half.
Having looked at the outlines of past projects on my garage floor for several years now, I knew I was going to need some sort of containment area. Googling spray booths on the net brought up anything from a transport container that had be converted for spraying to people who obviously don’t recycle much cardboard because they got a lot of it to make into oh..say a Campbell soup spray booth…
In either case, they tend to be big, vented (with some sort of extraction fan) and anything but compact or portable. By chance I happened on Paasche’s web site and found a small fold up spray booth. And of course, with a little more searching a knock off of the same.
Compressor Part Deux…
The bits and pieces for the airbrush to compressor have been not only a challenge but a bit of a test of patience as well. None of the local suppliers carry the required adapters so it’s online dealers or eBay to source out the pieces needed.
Of course, the pieces tend to be in abroad and the expression “Slow Boat From China” tends be bluntly painful when dealing with overseas shipping. Things do arrive, but it can be anywhere from two to six weeks.
The hose is standard 1/4″, the airbrush is .5mm.
Nope, definitely need an adapter…or a LOT of duct tape…
Airbrushing…
Apart from the fact it’s been a LONG time since I wrote in the blog, cause I’m too busy to write every day, my new goal is to turn over a new leaf and get back into it. We’ll see how long that lasts…
I’m slowly getting back into some of the hobbies I had a lot of years ago and one them requires that I do some painting…airbrush style, not HPLV nor rattle cans. So the first thing is a source of … yep … air…
Senco PC1010
I first seen one of these compressors in use when we had our living room mantle custom installed. I couldn’t get over how light, small and quiet it was. I asked the installer a lot of questions about it and eventually found out that it’s next to impossible to get in our area. Lots of distributors carry Senco, none of them carry this little guy and none would bring it in. So I ended up ordering it up from the US and having it shipped here. Even with shipping, it was a lot cheaper than my big twin tank Hitachi or my other pancake compressor.
However, there’s only one quick connect on it, and airbrushes need a moisture trap inline for obvious reasons…
Airbrushes need a max of about .6 CFM, the Senco can pump out .7 @ 90PSI. Thus it’s a perfect airbrush fit.
Senco Modification
I ordered the moisture trap from eBay ($12) quality isn’t too bad, but I didn’t expect much so I wasn’t disappointed. Then it was out to local Princess Auto to find a manifold, some piping and a few other pieces.
After an hour or so later, my compressor now looks like this:
I can still use the standard quick connect for my brad gun or finish nailer, but the airbrush is on it’s own outlet. The moisture trap fits a little snug between the compressor head and the tank, but it does fit.
In hindsight if I’d have been thinking, I’d have got another 2 way manifold to allow me to connect up the brad and finish nail guns at the same time. If I tried to add one now, the pipe would have to come out since it’s in the way, then put in the splitter and then re-assemble the thing. The only time I use both guns is when I’m doing crown molding so I’ll just put up with it…
At this point I’m still waiting on the airbrush hose and the adapter fittings that will connect the hose to the tank. Amazingly enough, they actually sell quick disconnects for airbrushes.
Compressor Performance…
Should you be curious as to how the compressor works with a finish or brad nailer…
Milwaukee 15 gauge finish nailer – 6 nails.
Bostitch brad nailer – 16 brads
Rigid Pin Nailer – lots…friggin lots.
Milwaukee Framing Nail (clipped head) – 1.5 Yep. One point five….
For charging the tank, about 2 1/2 minutes. When it’s time to top up the tank, about 40 seconds. I’ve ran 75 feet of air line from the garage into the house but there’s some pressure drop in that length of air line. I normally run a 20 or 25 footer and that’s the way it should be used.
The other unusual attribute about this compressor is that it only draws 4 AMPS. Use long extension cords, don’t overload circuits, it’s a wonderful thing…
Specifications:
| Power Source: | Electric |
| Max Amp: | 4 amps @ 115V |
| Horsepower: | 1 hp. (peak) .5 hp. (running) |
| Pump: | Oil-less |
| SCFM: | 90 psi: 0.7 |
| Pump Up-Time: | 0-120 psi: 128 seconds |
| Recovery Time: | 90-120 psi: 35 seconds |
| Max Pressure: | 125 psi |
| Tank Capacity: | 1 gallon |
| Tool Weight: | 20 lbs. |
| Height: | 13″ |
| Length: | 14″ |
| Width: | 10″ |
On Stranger Tides…
My daughter and I caught the latest installment of Pirates Of The Caribbean, On Stranger Tides.
In a heartbeat (not Davy Jones’s), it’s about finding the Fountain Of Youth and the reason behind doing so for the four main characters. Plus there was some other stories going on at the same time in the movie, the outcome of some were never quite explained by the movies ending.
And that’s what made it different than previous episodes. For us, it tended to water down the focus. Jack wasn’t as funny, cute or devious (his character looked toned down somewhat), Barbossa was a far more in depth character study, Angelica was annoying and BlackBeard was the stand out character we simply loved to hate. Ian McShane did a fantastic job of portraying the amoral BlackBeard and remained true to his character from start to finish.
None the less, although we enjoyed the movie, we found it significantly different than previous ones. Perhaps because it was a complete new story, not a continuation of the previous ones. The noted Gore Virbinski did not direct this time. It’s not like you can see two or three different versions from different directors and pick the best one, but not using Virbinski might have been one reason for the different feel.
Thus for us it was a good movie, but it wasn’t a great movie…
On the other side of the world…Carol and I just finished off playing Lego Pirates Of The Caribbean on the PS3 and it was a hoot watching the scenes in the movie match up with scenes from the game. Obviously the game scenes are over the top because they covered all four episodes and were expanded because, after all, it is a game. But Lego seems to be able to capture the raw essence of each of the characters, with their odd mannerisms, movements, expressions and encased in Lego’s own brand of humour.
I’d rate the actual movie about a 6.5, and the Lego game 8…
The “Bridge”
The studio Mac Pro’s built in wireless airport can barely reach the main router (a DLINK DIR 655) in the office. In spite of the fact that it’s only about 50 feet. The walls no doubt play a large part in the signal strength..
Thus, I picked up a DLINK DAP 1522 to use as an ethernet wireless bridge. Not exactly a straight forward set up, but that might be because I’ve never set up a bridge before. After finally figuring it out, I got the DLINK DP1522 connected to my DIR 655 and I was..ah.. stumbling along. I checked the signal strength and I was getting about 44% for a blistering throughput of 38Mbps. Maybe. More like dial up…and the signal would fluctuate all over the place.
The problem? The DAP1522 doesn’t have external antennas:
You can see the antenna wire is glued onto the u.fl connector and then it goes to a piece of metal that’s supposed to be some great antenna. Which it’s not. Very directional, very pathetic. I read that the glue is very difficult to get off. I didn’t find that at all. Came off in a second at the most (almost flaked off). So maybe DLINK changed the type of glue they used.
I found an eBay seller who sold an external antenna mod kit but unfortunately only shipped to the US and I’m north of that… However, my son had a four year old DIR 655 that just fried itself and he was throwing it out. Guess what’s on the DIR 655? That’s right. Antennas!!!!
I 
Took about two minutes to get the 655 part and salvage the antennas. I even got a spare…
I drilled two holes for mounting the antennas in the back of the DAP1522, put in the connectors and snapped them on the jacks on the main PCB.
Had to cut off the two posts that have screws in them for holding the case halves together, but there are still snaps around the case that will hold it together. So no big deal.
While I wouldn’t say it looks like it’s factory installed, it was a simple and neat install.
I connected it up to the Mac Pro in the studio and yep, it works sweet…(it’s 192.168.1.197 line):
Why DLINK doesn’t put antennas on these is a bit of a mystery. Maybe they want to sell more of the DAP 1555 that does have the external antennas (I think the 1555 is really a modded 655 anyway). But really the 1522 is a nice device, just needs some signal strength to it… which I now have…
Ethereal Pedals
If you’re a guitarist, you probably have shares in most companies that make pedals. No. Really. If you’re anything like me, you’ve spent a lot of moola chasing down an effect or sound. And in due time realized it’s not exactly what you wanted, envisioned, or was worth selling that last kidney for…and start lusting some other pedal…of. course.
But someone, on the net no less, has a lighter view of pedals…and I certainly got a chuckle out of it…
Tower of Effects
I finally got round to finish up the lower section of the effects tower. I was going to leave it finished wood or paint it black. Carol suggested I use my Tolex and cover it. So I did. Thus the whole thing is still easily separated at the top to make a floor based board or I can leave it in a tower mode and run it from my FCB1010… either way works fine.
The velcro carpeting is still in the mail (someplace) so I used some cable ties to put it together so I can use it in the meantime. I also have some 1/4″ phone jacks ordered and I’ll be making some custom cables for it (that are the proper length).
Top view:
All working good so far…
Guitar Shopping
Although it’s probably not unique to guitarists, there’s something about always being on the lookout for new guitars. I drop into any music store and my eyes just gravitate towards all those nitro finished beauties hanging on the walls of said establishment. If you’re a tool monger or electronics buff, the tool section in a store or rows and rows of electronics parts bins will generate the same kind of “brain rush”.
As it happened, the bassist and I were attending an Andrew Scheps recording seminar, which, conveniently, was held at Tom Lee Music in downtown Vancouver. Guess what they have adorning their walls? Yep. Geetars…mmm We had a lot of day to kill since it was an evening seminar and we go down early in the morning so, quite naturally, I simply have to start playing things and the bassist just keeps bringing them.
Electric solid bodies are my main weakness. Single coil or P90 style pickups. Which means I try a lot of Fender gear. Squier’s, Strats, Teles, Jazzmaster, Jaguar and so on. Usually plugged into the cleanest sounding amp with decent I can find, and I’ll state firmly that clean amps are getting harder and harder to find. Decent reverb in an amp is even harder to find with the DSP (digital signal processor) age in full swing and quality on the other end of the teeter totter.
After you play through about nine or ten of the solid bodies you start to notice a pattern. Specifically, none of them are in tune, or even close in most cases. The strings seem like there is no tension at all, no doubt so common string bends can be done by even the wimpiest handed player. I’d deliberately picked up guitars that others had just tried out to see if the guitar was in tune and nope. Ninety percent of them are out. A lot. So this begs, of course, why test play a guitar that isn’t in tune. My guess as to the why would be:
1. The player doesn’t know how to tune it
2. They don’t care if it’s in tune for their style of playing
Now I’d be hoping that it’s reason #1 because I’d avoid ever wanting to hear the player who subscribes to reason #2.
I did have a store salesman help “tune” a guitar for me. Not sure of the tuning he used, but it would go a long way to explain why so many of the guitars were out of tune. I carry a pocket tuner with me when I try out guitars because many of them will go out of tune so far it’s amazing.
But..today…I finally got “enlightened”. I asked a guy playing a guitar that was obviously out of tune why he didn’t tune it and he insisted it was in tune. Okay methinks, bad hearing (and mine’s not that great any more either). But no, he honestly thought it was in tune so I said, “Play an A chord”. That’d be a barre A on the 5th. I got a look like I was the very first alien life form ever seen (I’m sure he had friends so I knew this couldn’t be true). He says, “A chord, who plays chords on an electric?” To which I put it in “shredder” terms, “Can you play arpeggios?” “OH Yea, he says and fires through a sample”. “Good”, says I “Now strum all those notes instead of picking them”. And I get the “Huh, is that what a chord is?” Well actually it’s a broken chord but enough education for one day.
The guys playing electric guitars that are shredding don’t play full on chords, plus high levels of distortion/drive are used and both of these add up to the fact that the guitar can be a fair whack out of tune and they don’t hear it. If you’re a country, jazz or clean player, you’ll hear it though, your ear is trained for it. Perhaps what the shredders don’t realize is that if the guitar is in tune, the harmonics they so lustily go after will also sound much better. Or it’s not their style.
After spending considerable time going through the electric section and finding nothing that sounded better than when I already owned, we drifted into the “acoustic” guitar area. You don’t find shredders in here and I’ll wager than over 90% of the guitars on the wall, even the El Sleazo models, were spot on for tuning.
I used to own a big Yamaha dreadnaught and it had fabulous sound and was brutal to play. You shredded on it, mostly your finger tips. Typical high action and pain city. Loved the sound, didn’t like neck.
What caught my eye was a Fender dreadnaught that looked like it had a Strat neck. Weird. Traditional acoustic players would consider it ugly, unplayable, a blight on the landscape of all things acoustic. Me? I seen a guitar that looks different, I have to try it. So I did. And it was wow. Low action, easy to play, very usable sound for me. And it was electric as well. Bonus. I should have mentioned that I’m a flat picker, I don’t chicken pick a guitar (not my style) and for rhythm’s I’m a guitar percussionist.
The guitar is a Fender Sonoran SCE and advertised as your $300, drag it to the beach and have a party with it. And yep, that’d be exactly what I’d be doing with it. It’s got laminated mahogany sides and back and a solid spruce top (no, I doubt it’s Sitka spruce, more like some fir tree from someones back yard)…but hey, if it was good enough for the Wright Brothers first plane, it’s plenty good enough for a guitar. Right?
It’s got a Fishman preamp/eq in it with a tuner. So if it’s not in tune, press a button and tune it. I tested that tuner against my Peterson Strobe tuner and was amazed to see how accurate the Fishman tuner was. Very usable.
Since it literally has a Strat neck on it, the sound is like a big acoustic dreadnaught but plays like an electric. Essentially perfect for a guy like me. At the beach. With sand in his sandals….If there’s a weak point, it’s the tuners. They work, but seems to me the quality of them could be better.
I plugged it into my amps (thought I was going to have to get an acoustic amp) but it’s actually very usable there as well. Unless you crank the EQ and then you can get feedback. I cranked the bass up and the whole guitar (and me) were vibrating like crazy. Wow. I do need a longer strap on it, it’s playing kind of high for my liking.
The bonus is really that it sounds different than the rest of my stable of guitars but at the same time just as playable. Even if it has wound strings on it. We jammed for almost four hrs with it and I was more than amazed that my fingers were only slightly tender at the end. With the old Yammie they’d have been hamburger.
I also did try other guitars like Seagull, Martin, Art & Lutherie, Yamaha, etc in comparison to this one. Once I got to about $1200-$1500 the quality of sound bypassed the Sonoran by a fair amount. However anything in $400-$800 range wasn’t. There was a Seagull that had slightly better sound for about $500, but it had a brutal neck and no electric capability. Sound, of course, is very subjective so what might sound good to me might not to others.
Lastly, I will say that I tried three other models of the SAME guitar. A black, red and natural finish model. The red finish one had dead D and G strings and changing them didn’t help. Something not quite aligned right with that one. The black one was beautiful BUT it fretted out in WAY too many places. It needed a truss adjustment in the worst way but I suspect someone will buy it any way and “live” with it (therein lies one of the problems with buying mail order for those that do). Both of the natural models played just fine and sounded the same. The logic in me might say that the paint job was affecting the other guitars but that’s something I don’t know for fact….
All about music, not about me…
I had the pleasure of attending my grand daughters FIRST play production, “The Wizard Of Oz”. I remember when my son was the “Cowardly Lion” a lot of years ago when he was in school. Any way the grand daughter is 7, and was a “mini-Munchkin” in the production (encompassed grades from 1-7; like a cast of 100 kids)…And they did a fantastic job of it, music, costumes and acting.
I managed to get a few photos or her on stage but this one photo is probably the best. I took it at the very end of the production when the actors were coming out to take their bows. I think the faraway look of awe pretty much says it all.
T.O.E.
What’s T.O.E.? Tower Of Effects…
I’ve had a pedal board for my stomp boxes and while it works and keeps things organized when you’re tweaking the pedals (or you want to tweak the pedals), you spend a fair bit of “knee” time. That is the nature of pedals. I mean you have to stomp on them to get them on and off right? Not really any more. I built the iPatch to turn the pedals on and off. So I don’t need them on the floor.
Which started me thinking. Maybe it was the visit to Guitar Center in the US and those vertical pedal displays that inspired me. What ever it was, I started with an idea…A two piece pedal board (which looks an awful lot like the chicken coop roosts we used to have on the farm)…
Any way, the idea was that the pedal board could sit atop of the main cabinet (which will house my MIDI guitar stuff) or be able to sit on the floor as a stand alone unit. Together as a tower the board sits a little over 24″ off the floor. If I had to stomp the boxes on that I’d be trying out for “So You Think You Can Dance.” But with the iPatch connected to my FCB1010, I can do it easily.
Today I Tolexed the whole top and then just test fit the pieces. If you’ve never done Tolex before, it’s not really all that hard but the corners are the tricky parts. I suggest watching a few YouTube videos on doing corners. I used to upholstery all sorts of stuff so I don’t find it all that difficult.
Any way, to glue the stuff on you use Contact Cement. So here’s my tip. If you use the “normal” contact cement (non water based and NOT odor free), do it in a well ventilated area!!! And you’ll find that positioning is quite difficult. I mean the two surfaces met, that’s where they stick. Right. Frigging. Now.
The solvent based stuff will also really softens up the Tolex and allow you to stretch it quite a bit to get it into shape.
As it happened I ran out of solvent based contact cement and got some water based LePages. Hardly any odor at all. AND you can reposition the Tolex quite easily, yes it sticks, but you can peal it back and reposition it a couple of times. I never found that very easy with the other cement. The water based stuff will cause the Tolex to “curl” when you apply it so watch it doesn’t curl on itself…tack time is slightly longer too (30 minutes). Oh and the water based cement looks like yogurt. Spreads on about the same too.
So here’s the “stand alone” mode setup:
And the Tower mode…:-)
I still have to finish the bottom, do the wiring but it’s taking shape…and I don’t spend a lot of time on my knees..woohoo…
Studio Load-in Day…
Finally, after what seems like forever, the blinds got installed in the studio. We wired the remainder of the console, tested out all the connections in the process and found two problems. One was a bad patchbay strip. Just a cold solder joint. The other is that one of the Sends in the LX7 is not working. That would be a major repair since it has to get disconnected, fixed and then reconnected. For now I’ll just remember that strip 17 Send is not working but the return works fine. Probably another cold solder joint…
After wiring in the rest of the studio it was time to bring all the amps and guitars back in, wire them up, run cables again for recording. Here we found some problems again and it was easy to fix them because it was during the install.
The blinds are Hunter Douglas and are the double cell type (motorized as well) and the first thing we noticed was that they really go a long way to deaden the sound reflection coming off those big windows. Triple cell would probably be even better, or perhaps heavy drapes. Except drapes don’t work all that well above a baseboard heater. The blinds also insulate the windows very well. It was really cold last night 21F and the bottom 10″ of all three windows has a heavy coating of ice on it this morning. That’s one of the issues you have with baseboard heaters instead of forced air (no air movement). Might try leaving them up a bit and see if that makes any difference.
And the noise maker wall:
It’s a weird industry…
As a guitarist I find the music industry has changed a great deal over the 47 years that I’ve been playing. Yet, at the same time, many things haven’t. I mean, well, there’s still good guitars and bad guitars and as highly subjective as that is, only your own ears can tell the difference. What some players regard as “awesome” sound, the same number will cringe at.
Electric guitars themselves haven’t actually changed much beyond two different woods, with different density, that vibrate and get picked up and at some point, usually, amplified. The resulting is again subjective to each individual. But guitars aren’t what has caught my “ears”…
It’s pedals, amps and software….oh my…
As noted by a previous blog, slapping “vintage” on a pedal doth not make it a “vintage” pedal. Calling a new pedal a direct copy of the old one, is only possible if it is indeed a direct copy of the old one. In many cases, those parts are long gone and there’s no way to “clone” the original. This goes along with the fashion idea that everything built before 2000 is boutique and commands a price to reflect that. Maybe, maybe not…
Amps are another sticky wicket. Take Fender amps. All those wonderful amps in the 1960′s are now be “reissued”. Are they exact copies of the originals? A side by said comparison would say otherwise, but if you can’t do that, you’d be convinced that it’s the same amp. So it’s whatever you like.
Enter in the new “software” systems that emulate these oldies. Software that runs on your computer or iPad/iPod and allows you have to instant gratification from all those wonderful amp, cabs and effects. Except that if you do an A/B comparison you face the obvious fact that although the emulations are good in some cases, they aren’t the originals.
Take the 1963 Fender Spring Reverb that was a staple way back when (and still being made). Every company that makes a reverb pedal has taken a “shot” at producing a “spring” reverb (Boss has because they know the tube unit is too pricey for many). Again, though it’s still subjective, to my ears some come close, while others might as well omit that fact they even have a “spring” setting.
Software, to my ears is no different. Run it through five different sound systems, you get five different sounds. Because that’s what you have to do to get the noise out of the software. Unless you play with headphones, in which case I suspect you’re the target market (and nothing wrong with that either if it works for you). But some of us like to play without headphones one so sound is what we’re quite critical of.
I’ve used Amplitube, TH2, GuitarRig and I find I go right back to a real physical amp, one solid state, one tubed. To my ears they sound light years better and as old fashioned as I might be, I’ll keep using the original gear. Hence, I’m not a target market.
So this:
is not this:
Nor is this:
The same as:
Studio Wiring 2
I finally got enough of the wiring connected to power the console up and tests for…ah…leaks..
Before I shut it down, the Apogee interface was giving me fits. Firewire issues abounded. When I started it back up again, I did one OS update on the Pro and everything seems rock solid all of a sudden. On different days, after a number of restarts. While I am a computer geek, I don’t exactly under stand how that would happen. Unless some driver, flag or switch was thrown someplace deep within the OS.
I’m not going to dwell on it, I’ll just use it and the first time it craps out again, it will get replaced.
And the spooky photo with only the console lighting…
The monitors I hooked up aren’t my studio monitors. The are some poor JBL two way systems that I use when I want to check a mix out on what the average guy might have. The reason is if the mix sounds good on my monitors and the JBL’s, it should sound good any way. Course with the big empty room right now, they sound pretty muddy.
Now it’s time to write down where all those wires in the patchbays go to and come from. Then make up labels for them.
I can’t actually finish off the rest of the wiring until the blinds go in.
Studio Wiring – 1
Now that the console is back in one piece, I can start the long and complex task of trying to figure out where that 51lbs of wire goes to that I took out of it…
The racks already had LED lights in the back of them, so all I had to do was wire them back up to the switch panel in the front. I seen a lot of racks with those goose neck lamps for lighting and I’d have to tell you that those are pretty pathetic. The strips that I use are from RC helicopters and there is 20 LED’s per running foot. They run off 12VDC and a three foot string draws .4A (400ma). I have a 5A 12VDC power supply to run them all.
Another critical area for light is the back of the speaker distribution system and the mixer. So I added a strip of LED’s in there too.
While I was at it, I added two strips up under the front lip of the console. Each side is on a switch I so I have them on or off and need be.
The racks has blue LED’s (we are the Fabulous Blue Diamonds after all) and again, controlled separately if the mood doesn’t strike us…
So that’s the light package done. Next it was time to make the “tray” that would hold all the cables off the floor. I could have made one out of wood, but I decided to use those hooks that are designed to screw into the walls to hang ladders on. Cheap and string and worked out perfectly. It would have been nicer if the front edge had been a little higher but they’ll still work as is.
Studio Console Installed
After messing around with pedals for two days, I managed to get back into the studio for the final fit and make sure it’s all going to work…
Surprisingly enough, it fit like a glove. The templates I made out of paper apparently helped more than I’d imagine they would. So here’s the completed desk, bolted in and waiting for the 51lbs of wiring to actually make it all work….
It’s still sitting in the middle of the room because the motorized blinds going in won’t be in until closer to the end of the month. Plus there’s still a whack of wiring to do.
Dimension wise, my console is smaller than an Argosy (who make the cream of the crop when it comes to consoles as far as I am concerned) and lighter too (an Argosy this size would weigh in empty at around 800lbs). My whole setup is 36″ deep, 38″ tall, and 103″ end to end. While it doesn’t look at size in the pictures keep in mind the mixer is 31″ wide and that’s a 30″ Apple Cinema display…
Next up is to start with the lighting and the power wires. Then it will be on to the audio wiring sections.
Gear Intermission – Take Deux…
There’s just something about guitarists and sound. And the law of diminishing returns…sometimes…
For example, I owned a Roland Boss CS-3 compression pedal and stock, it’s best trick was to hold the door open in the summer time to ensure a breeze could waft through the studio. Noisy, awkward and just plain crap in my point of view. A compressor is supposed to be almost transparent when it does its magic. The CS-3 thought IT was the soloist…
However all was not lost, I found a number of MOD sites that help you rescue that sad pile of components and turn it into a useable device. If you have one of these and some soldering talents, I suggest you look no further than Monte Allums CS-3 mods with the op-amps (Burr Browns). I highly recommend this mod.
The truth is, that even with the modification, which does make the compressor vastly improved, it still needs something. Like a compete redesign. It’s still noisy if you crank it up, the attack can be pretty brutal and overall it’s a little sterile. Hence, I sold it. To someone who obviously had heard the stock CS-3 and wondered why mine sounded so superior.
That of course started my search once again for a decent compressor. I own a Barber Tone Press and it’s a very good compressor and quieter than the CS-3. Normally the bassist uses it because it seems to really smooth out those low notes. Most good compressors seem to cost upwards of $300 and considering the parts inside, seem somewhat overpriced to me.
Boss products that I have tested out, tend to suck the tone out of anything plugged into them because they don’t have true bypass. Since I made the iPatch, this is a non-issue…so I no longer avoid them as I once did.
This of course lead me start looking into vintage compressors. You know, the ones that guys buy and never give up. The ones you see on eBay for a heartbeat and then they’re gone again. There’s a few old ones to pick from, but one that comes on the radar as being quite good was the Boss CS-2. Made between 1981 and 1986 I believe. A step up from the CS-1 according to those in the know.
Low and behold, I found one that was reasonably priced on eBay. So what does a 30 year old pedal look like? Little dusty, some obvious signs of wear and the thing works perfectly. Amazingly enough. I expected some caps might need changing but no, it’s fine. It’s also very transparent for sound quality so as far as I’m concerned it’s a keeper. The bottom of the pedal tells a slightly different story. Rust. Which means at some point it came in contact with moisture. As in water, rain, beer…well you get the idea. The actual circuit inside is perfect though so whatever caused the bottom rust didn’t “leak” through to the inside…
My favourite pedal of all time is my 2002 Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man. It was also giving me problems. I had noise coming out when you’d enable/disable via the foot switch. I re-soldered all the components on the board, checked all the traces and did everything I could to find the source of the noise. Today, after a few hours of replacing caps and opamps, I found the culprit. The volume control. Quite simply a 1 meg pot.
I had the board out of the box for testing and I “touched” the body of the pot and I got noise (snow like static). I immediately thought there was a ground issue with the pot. The instant I grounded the pot to the other pots (forming a ground plane) there was LOTS of noise. Huh? That should have killed the noise. I traced all the grounds down and nope, if you floated the body of the pot, didn’t touch any of the metal on it, it was as quiet as a mouse. But ground the outside or touch it, big time noise.
The local electronics store had exactly one pot in stock, and not the same as the one I took out. I had them order me a PC mount one and I took the other any way because I wanted to see if I had a bad pot or not. I stuck some wires on it and tagged it to the solder pads. None too pretty but it was just for testing.
I touched the body of the new pot and noise! BUT, when I grounded the body with all the other pots, no noise at all. Zip. Nada. Ziltch. Works perfect. I’d suspected op-amps, caps, traces and well everything. Never once did I suspect a bad pot. But some where inside the original there has to be some corrosion or steel wool or something that’s causing the problem. I did check it with an ohm meter and it tests out fine. I’ve never found anything like this before so it was a good lesson too.
Since then, I’ve replaced the whole thing in its box and I’ve been using it on and off and it’s performed exactly as it should. So yep, there was something wrong with the original pot. Who’d thought. Not me, that’s for sure. It was just a freak chance that I grabbed the body of the pot to see if it was loose that put me on to it. Besides, this is going to be one of those collector pedals (because they are made any more) that I’m never going to give up…next week I’ll put the proper replacement pot back in. And still bbbeee eecchoooiiinnnggg…
Gear Intermission – DMM
As the studio is going back together, I’ve been skulking around looking for another 2002-2003 model of the ElectroHarmonix Deluxe Memory Man. This is the five control model and probably the last reissue that used the MN3005 bucket brigade delay chips (they went to MN3008′s at some point). In 2009 the chips had all been used so that was the end of the DMM as we knew it.
I happened to buy the last early 2000 vintage and the sound is amazing. I owned an Echoplex and although the DMM was supposed to be analog echo, it was more. Ethereal. The sounds you could get out of it just put it out there by itself.
So when mine started acting up, I first checked to make sure you can get them repaired and yes, they still repair them, unless you need a memory chip and then forget it. There is no supply. Mine, as it turns out, has an intermittent connection someplace. The foot switch click will cause a hum in the unit at some point. Click it a few times and most of the time it clears itself. So I found the schematic and picked up all the parts to completely rebuild it. This I haven’t started yet because all the gear is stored while the studio is being rebuilt. It is on the to do list though.
EHX was obviously inundated with requests for the DMM so they produced a bunch of “next generation” boxes. Hazarai, Memory Boy, and Memory Man. Complete circuit redesign, some using a DSP (digital signal processor) and so on. To say any of these sound remotely like a DMM is about the same as stating all guitars sound the same or digital reverb sounds like a 1963 Fender Reverb Tank. If you’ve ever owned a DMM, you’ll know exactly what I am talking about.
Scanning eBay for one of these is pointless. Oh there’s one or two that pop up for some overblown price or ones that have been modded. Apart from that the only ones you can find are the new “digital” sounding ones. So for anyone who wants to know what the difference is, the classic DMM has a warm full sound. The new offerings are sterile, clear, digital sounding. No where near the same as the older units.
Behringer, the bedroom producers gear supplier of the world, was also paying attention and brought forth this:
A “Vintage Time Machine” that, as you can see, is a direct knock off from the DMM. And for DIRT CHEAP ($69 eBay). So how good is it? Well, as it turns out, it’s digital but it’s not DSP driven so it’s not too shabby. It’s not great and the repeats are “digital” sounding. The Chorus/Vibrato work but not all that smoothly.
If you want to compare the VM-1 to the DMM, save your time. It doesn’t. The VM-1 needs expanded pots to give you a wider range. Right now a hair either direction and you go from echo to oscillation. Noise wise (the echo’s induce noise) it’s slightly better or the same as most of the echo pedals I’ve used (Echo Park for example). None the less, if you tweak it, you can get some usable sound from it. So for that I’d say it’s worth the $70 (whereas the DMM was $350 and worth every penny to me).
So what’s inside the VM-1? Well, keep in mind that if you opened ANY pedal and found this:
You wouldn’t even have to look at the name on the pedal. What? You don’t see it? Behringer must own stock in the worlds supply of hot melt glue. If you take almost anything they make apart you’ll find globs of the yellow stuff all over the place. The VM-1 is no exception. Glue central. They probably say it’s to help things stand up to road wear. I’d say they are smuggling hot melt glue out of Asia…
The second part is the circuit board. It looks like there is a DSP on the board doing all the “magic”. As it turns out, Behringer used a double sided PC board, but solder components on both sides. That must make “flow soldering” interesting…the bucket brigade chips are from CoolAudio.
So compare that with what a DMM looks like:
The DMM is traditional in all ways and there is only one of them. But I’m still looking for a backup DMM…
Console – Day 2
Seems to be either a large bug or an extra knob in the console…going to have to see if I can work that out of there..
After the test fit, it was back into the shop to make the two backing plates.
One will hold the Presonus Central Station (speaker distribution controller). The other will simply sit behind the monitor. I was originally going to put in rack mounts but decided it was more work that it was worth because the mixer is far wider than a standard 19″ rack mount and the monitor covers the panel any way. So I made them out of wood and tolex’d them. Fake face plates…
Back in the shop, I test fitted the shelf and backing plates. The green painters tape is to protect the Tolex from Varathane.
The front “bumper” on the console is Tolex covered as well so I have someplace nice and cushy to rest my elbows…
Console – Construction
Once all the little bitty pieces are cut, fit, found wanting, I started to put it together. And of course, testing to make sure that the pieces still fit where they are supposed to…
Once the middle part is partially done, it was time to see how it mated to the existing rack ends. Clamps were hold it in place so I could transfer the side positions and drill the mounting holes that hold the center to the sides…
After drilling the mounting holes and applying several coats of Varathane, it was time for another test fit….
Stay tuned for the next exciting part of this build…zzzzz
Console build – Plan Phase
And this is how console builds start:
A 2 x 4 for a straight edge…and then some cardboard to make a template…just to see how everything might fit. Or not.
Then it’s get a bunch of wood start cutting..
Get a bass player to help with a low frequency broom is always a good idea too..
Just silly…that’s all…
What happens when you mix left over 3D glasses from the cinema, a ongoing renovation, a room crowded with gear from the renovation and a guitarist with absolutely a left field sense of humor?
Scary thought…ain’t it…
