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[Gold]

I had a test run a little while ago. Brendan Brown from Wheatus was kind enough to bring over some mixes on 1". We cut an acetate. All systems go.

[bblackwood]

SWEET, Paul!

How'd it sound?

[Allen Corneau]

Paul,

Thanks for the pictures. it's nice to put a room with a name. Now, how about a face?
 

[Gold]

How'd it sound?

It sounded very good. I use a cheap AT cart for playback. When we switched over to playback Brendan got a big ol' smile on his face. I thought it sounded good too. I guess I should say it made me come instantly, but I don't have that kind of hyperbole in me.

The cart is about half way through it's life. Since I often play back as I'm recording acetates the magnets in the cart are weakened by the cutter head magnets. At least that's what I think is going on. After a couple months the cart has no high end. This one is a little dull but not too bad. I order the carts by the dozen.

Allen, there is a face. It's just not mine. I'm ramping up the narcissim. Pictures to follow.

[Noah Mintz Mastering]

You are my hero Paul. Nice stuff.

I actually just used our Studer A80VU 2tr. Preview Deck yesterday (we have 1/4" and 1/2" heads) and forgot how good it sounds. I love our Ampex ATR102 (only 1/2" for us) but the Studer has a different sound that's a great alternative to have. Calibrating is so easy with the knobs on top.

[saint]

Hi, It's ABOUT TIME someone made a 1" for vinyl mastering!!! This is AMAZING news!. I mix to a 1" ATR @ 15 ips, IEC & have an MRL I could bring so you could look at the response at 30ips as well. I have a few 1" masters I could bring in to NYC as I live just a half hour out. CONGRATS!!!

[Gold]

Hi, It's ABOUT TIME someone made a 1" for vinyl mastering!!! This is AMAZING news!. I mix to a 1" ATR @ 15 ips, IEC & have an MRL I could bring so you could look at the response at 30ips as well. I have a few 1" masters I could bring in to NYC as I live just a half hour out. CONGRATS!!!

Thanks! I have a three tone test tape. I just bought a multitone 1" MRL from ebay. It's new and sealed. I hope it's in good shape. We'll see...

I've been talking to Mike Spitz about making a custom pinch roller that will pull and center the tape better than the multi section pinch roller that is on there.

You are welcome to stop by and take her for a spin. Your productions have brightened many of my days. I'd like to know what you think of it.

[bblackwood]

*temporary bump while thread porting from old forums happens*

[jamesfei]

Hi Paul: This is one of the most impressive builds I've seen, congratulations on that 1" deck. Out of curiosity, how much of the cutting work you get comes in on analog? And a couple of questions about the console--is that an A/B desk with preview (four identical signal paths)? What are you using for the high frequency limiter and elliptical eq?

Very inspiring work, thanks for sharing.

Best,

James

[Gold]

Out of curiosity, how much of the cutting work you get comes in on analog?

Thanks James. I get projects on tape that go to lacquer often. Most of the time they are captured in the DAW and cut form there. I do direct tape to lacquer mastering less often but regularly. I don't have an A/B path setup now so the circumstances have to be right for it to happen. If it's a 7" it's no problem and I do those pretty often.

And a couple of questions about the console--is that an A/B desk with preview (four identical signal paths)?
 What are you using for the high frequency limiter and elliptical eq?

Yes both the A and B paths are four channels. I have two Maselec MDS2's. Those are the only commercial units in the build and the only units that are in the program path only. Otherwise the program and preview paths are identical.

For the EE's I had PCB's laid out. It's the Neumann EE77 circuit with some changes. The FET switching was removed. I'm using a rotary switch and I'll have 12 frequency selections. I tacked on THAT balanced In's and Out's and made all the opamps singles.

[jamesfei]

What are you using to do the A/B path switching? Is everything else on Shallco rotaries as well? Again, very impressive. Hope to be able to see the console in person one day.

James

[Gold]

What are you using to do the A/B path switching?

I'm having it built for me. It has three positions. A or B or X fade. The switching is done with SSM2402's. The crossfade circuit hasn't been hammered out yet. It needs to crossfade eight channels so a pot is hard to source.

Is everything else on Shallco rotaries as well?

Shallco's are only in a few select places. I have 45 position switches for both the Input and Output amplifiers, for +/- 11dB in .5dB steps. The 8 pole 5 position transfer path source select switch is also Shallco. Almost all the rest of the switches are Electroswitch C4. For the compressor threshold switches I used Elma 04.

[Gold]

This past week was console vacation week. No studio work was done except for about six hours of cutting on Thursday which couldn't be avoided.

Below are the Input Amplifier and Output Amplifier. I did most of the work on the Input Amplifier around Christmas. I finished it up this week and did the Output Amplifier and some other stuff this past week.

The top unit is the Input Amplifier. The bottom unit is the Output Amplifier. The Input Amplifier has Source Select, Level Adjusters, and Process Chain Insert. The Output Amplifier has Level Adjusters and Fader.


It's really hard to get XLR's straight. I spent a lot of time on the Input Amplifier and I'm pretty happy with how straight I got everything. I got a little lazy on the output amplifier. Oh well.

All audio connections are on 5 pin XLR's.


This is the inside of the Input Amplifier. I'm using JLM Audio Dingo PCB's for both the Input and Output Amplifiers. The Dingo's are a line receiver and a line driver with gain on a single board. They are made to accommodate either 8DIP IC's or discrete opamps in the 2520 form factor. Listening tests are later.




This is the inside of the Output Amplifier. There is much less routing and wiring for this. That's a P&G RF15 for the output fader. Here is a close up of the Shallco T pad attenuators. Each one is two channels.




I have about another week or two of prototyping and then assembly can begin.

[bblackwood]

Wow, VERY nice - did you do all the construction? Those Shallcos look incredibly tedious but awesome.

I'm super impressed.

[Gold]

Shallco made the attenuators but I did the assembly of the units. It's very time consuming to do all the hand wiring but I enjoy it. The attenuators use IRC 0.1% resistors at almost a buck a pop. I couldn't get every needed value so I hand matched the few values that weren't available with run of the mill resistors and sent all the parts to Shallco.  The attenuators are +/- 0.1 dB accuracy.