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[gevermil]

anyone framiliar with these monsters ?
seems to have some nice discreet electronics going on
transformers and the like.

[Vertigo]

I use one every day in my studio - love it. Do you have one or are you looking to buy one?

-Lance

[gevermil]

I had a conversation with an old sound guy in chicago about the yamaha pm 1000 and he said hed sell me a midas pro 4  that hes had forever . We havent talked about price yet so Im just kinda looking for thoughts from anyone who knows of them > I have seen your name on some searches on this and other forums , seems like your one of the main proponents for this board . I guess Im curious about its electronics and mod-ability and overall sound as a tool for recording . Ive been looking for the cheaper route for getting good  analog console  ala  yamaha ect , . What  is a fair price for this console ?

[Vertigo]

I don't think you could go too wrong with the PRO4 if it's in decent working condition. The first thing you'll want to know is if it has the PRO4A or PRO4C channel strips. The biggest difference between the two being that the PRO4A has sliding faders and pan controls and the PRO4C has a series of rotary faders (8 - one for each bus). The PRO4A strips are geared towards live sound and recording and the PRO4C are designed for monitor mixing. Other than that they're virtually identical from a functional perspective, and either one will do the job in a studio environment. The PRO4C strips would just be a little more convoluted to work with for mixing purposes.

It's hard to say what a fair market price for these consoles would be, since they were all custom built for various purposes and each and every one is different. Mine is a 32 channel with the PRO4A strips that was built for Mountain Sound back in the 70's. I can't tell you what I paid for it, but I will say it was one heck of a deal. Especially considering that the console was in practically 100% working condition. They do go fairly cheap though, I've seen 24 and 32 channels going for between $2-4k, sometimes even less.

Specs wise, everything is top notch - P&G faders, gold contacts, Sowter trannies, etc. The pre's are ClassA/discrete, with more gain than you could ever need - even with ribbons. And they sound GREAT overdriven. Sonically they're very aggressive and punchy, very "API-like" in capturing transient attack, but they definitely have a character of their own. I have a pair of PM1000 channel strips as well, and the response of the Midas strips is very similar but with a different flavor. The pre's ARE colored, but it's a warm and pleasing color. I find them to be an excellent compliment to my RNP.

The PRO4's were manufactured in the late 70's/early 80's, but they were built like tanks - the frames are solid steel. They hold up VERY well over the years and shouldn't require a lot of teching to get in working order. The channel strip capacitors are polycarbonate and shouldn't need replacing (my tech highly advised me NOT to replace these), however there ARE electrolytics in the submasters you'll want to replace, as well as a few in the power supply.

Some PRO4's were built for live use, and others for recording. Converting a live board for recording use is VERY easy though, and adding direct outs to the channel strips is a cinch and takes all of 10 minutes to do. The PRO4 strips already have sockets for adding a direct out and even have a mount for an additional transformer if you want to make your outs balanced.

If you should ever need it I have info on all of the mods for these, as well as schematics for every square inch of the PRO4 and most of the other PRO series as well. Oh, and here are a couple of pics of my PRO4:





Good luck

-Lance

[gevermil]

fantastic . Great response . Well , I will definately be in touch if I can get a fair deal .
gary

[anders]

Hello.

What about the Midas PRO-2 and the later PRO-40 SERIES consoles?
Are they of the similiar design/constructions and worth using
for tracking?

-Thanx & Regards; Anders-

[zywot66]

hello. your board looks great. i wish i had some of the PRO4A strips. i do have a PRO4C 24 channel thats really clean. is it conceivable to mod my PRO4C to have pan and sterio bus? or should i use as is and forget about it. what about swapping channal cards. i cant seem to find any info on theses boards, im sure finding pro4a cards are even harder.
thanx for any info
mike

[dB Sound Design]

i know this is coming in kind of late. i am the proud owner of (2) Midas Pro 4s. The larger board I am actually in the process of racking individual channel strips for sale in a neat package. i have all the Midas docs. for all series. The other console a 24ch version came w/ a 24ch tape mon. section which i do not have docs. for. If anyone could help w/ that it would be greatly appreciated. i have done substantial work on these consoles if you have any further questions.

[zywot66]

o wow thats cool db. i would love to get my hands on the docs for my pro4. ihave the c strips. what can we do to work this out?
mike

[Vluminator]

Let me set the record straight:

There is not much "discrete" about early Midas consoles. It's all IC opamp stuff on +/- 16V rails. True, they use the occational complementary pair to boost current capability of output amps, but that's about it.

The earliest ones use horrible uA748 IC opamps... Some years later they were one of the first to use the (then) esoteric TDA-1034 (now known as 5534) starting about 1977.

They OK sound wise, nothing spectacular. Fairly simple circuits, basic in features. But they were hugely successful in the pro touring business asince they were built like tanks, top quality switches, potentiometers (Bourns 81-series) and P&G faders.

Midas Amplification as they were known way back when started out as business to build solid state guitar amps. Didn't really succeed...  Ventured into power amps, not much success their either. But with consoles they struck gold...

Rick Kilminster and Chas Brooke were the founders of the business. Chas later left and started BSS.

[nwsoundman]

I have seen em both discrete and IC. You gotta pull a strip and look.

[Vertigo]

I have schematics to pretty much every inch of the PRO4. Someone recently asked me for copies so I'll probably get them scanned in soon. If anyone wants a copy feel free to PM me.

And that's true - the IC's actually are op-amps, the console isn't as discrete as I initially thought, but there's still very little in the signal path. I found this out when I blew a 748 and eventually replaced all of the 738's with LF-351's. This worked fine, and I was able to fit the 8 pin 351 into the 14 pin socket. If you decide to do this be sure to change the op-amps on ALL of the channels, or you could wind up with a 32 channel oscillator.

And btw - the 351's do sound better, but I never really thought the 748's sounded bad.

I dig the pre's a LOT, and like most gear they're great for some things and not the best for others. They don't mind being overdriven and they have a very interesting and useful color. But they also have that Neve'ish "mush" if you stack a large amount of tracks through them. I'm guessing that's due to the nature of the transformers. I'd characterize them as "aggressive", but "smooth", with a little fuzz and a lot of color. I did an entire album on them as an experiment and it came out very well. They'll get the job done.

I don't know about racking the channel strips to sell as preamps. To me the beauty (and usefulness) of the console is as an analog full-package mixing desk. It has all of the features you need to get the job done, especially as an interface to your DAW.

-Lance

[dB Sound Design]

The channel strips are IC based simple but w/ hi end components. They just sound good. As far as racking the channel strips, I had a small problem w/ the 40ch I bought for spare parts/expansion of my current 24ch setup. The motherboard connectors were changed to 33pin ISEP connectors. They didn't match my 24ch board, whoops. To replace them all which is necessary because they are all cracked/broken on the motherbaord from years of being swapped etc. it would cost approx. $1,000 in parts and an unknown amount in labor. i thought it might be fun to put the channel strips in  racks 2 or 4 @ a time and sell them cheap. Sure, to the circuit design freak they may not compare, but, most people I know that have used them dig the sound, its definitely worth checking out at about $600/pair w/ phantom and an added phase sw.  The EQs are fun too w/ the ("mid range") fader for freq. select variable from around 20-20K. i have a little demo box w/ (2) ready to go. I've shot them out in my tech shop w/ Neves from the 5316 console 33114Bs(also IC from the same era, in fact used those same early 5534s the 1034), and they compare favorably. They don't have quite the oomph w/ out the transformer out like the Neve, but I'm going to experiment w/ adding an output stage, but from preliminary results the unbalanced out is probably just fine and will keep the cost down. if you wanted to one could always add that later.

[zywot66]

hello again. i have one of these beasts. mine has an insert patch bay and need to figure out if its bantam style or the 1/4 phono pointy tip type. any help is awsome.

[Vertigo]

Quote:

The EQs are fun too w/ the ("mid range") fader for freq. select variable from around 20-20K.

The PRO4's have a rotary dial for the mids, no fader. It sounds like you're talking about the PRO5, which has a fader for sweeping the mids. The freqency sweep ranges are laid out in multiples based on rotary knobs - I've heard people joke that the EQ section on these requires a slide-rule to use. It's a bit confusing, but it does give you the ability to get fairly surgical with the EQ.

Quote:

hello again. i have one of these beasts. mine has an insert patch bay and need to figure out if its bantam style or the 1/4 phono pointy tip type. any help is awsome.

If it's like the insert PB on mine then it will be TRS:

Tip->Send
Ring->Receive

-Lance