SSL Bling

Yeehaa! I'm finally in the forum (thanks, Ethan :sam: ) and I can't wait to get going with a whole slew of crazy ideas with you folks...anyway, thanks to all you guys here I really got into DIY...here goes:

My first SSL:






I am still amazed that I managed to get everything crammed into that hit-pult from Conrad Electronic, but it's been a long dream of mine to one day have something in a desk-type enclosure to twiddle around on (I'm kind of crazy that way). One thing cool is that it fits nicely on the console and you don't have to lean around to the rack to set it.

Then I went on to tackle my first 19" project, which provoked yet another addiction of mine...LEDs! I love LEDs...



And I'm also very much (like a lot of us here I surmise) into outboard looking like Das Boot. Heck, I'd even go for a steampunk version :thumb:






Easy enough to hijack a 2-4-pole switch for status indication, but getting the connections all in line was a different story. Of course wires would have worked but that actually didn't occur to me at the time. What I ended up doing was to use leftover resistor legs as z-pins and just hauled off and connected the control board vertically, which worked like a dream (except for 1 LED that had a creased rail, it felt like doing open heart surgery getting in there...).



So at around 7 AM it was finally working:



The circuit board in the background is a combination PSU for the SSL plus extra reg for leds and 3914 board, them being hooked up to a simple voltage divider thingy for "dumb" status indication of the pot with the 2 bargraphs (another kiddy dream of mine). Fun about the thresh (red) is that when you twiddle the knob backwards, the threshhold "comes down".

What would be cool, of course, would be to get the bargraphs to act as vu and GR meters, respectively, methinks that's gonna be the next rev, all hints of course appreciated.

If anyone wants to build the thing, you can download the board for the 3914s here

It's kinda achy breaky but it's got Stefan's cool psu (Thanks, Stef :guinness in it so you can bastardize that, if nothing else.

And then there's the LED board here

as well as the drill mask for the front plate here and here.

It's all kind of a primitive form (my first stab at board design with Illustrator, no less) and so there's no component overlays, but I'm sure we can work it out if someone really wants to build it.

Enjoy! :guinness: :green:

Well, as first 'newbie' posts, that must surely get a prize!

WELCOME

:thumb:

pure creative genius!!

:thumb:

Thanks :razz:

Looking forward to future mayhem :twisted:

Holy shit dude. It's half mad scientist, half PIMP! :thumb:

Nice introduction :thumb:

Respect!

:shock:

..and welcome to the GroupDIY forum..

Jakob E.

wow!! VERY cool!! Nice work!

mm

holy sh*** - very impressive!

Very nicely done! I like!!!

I couldnt even get one led to work in my ultimate gssl build without THD rising like crazy....lol.

/J

Welcome aboard.
This LED stuff makes your comp look very digital.

Did you accidently buy this Neumann desk in Mannheim through ebay last year?

I'm so glad you're here.

:thumb: :thumb:
Just made me...jealous!!!hahahahaha!!!!
big up!

[quote author="jensenmann"]...

Did you accidently buy this Neumann desk in Mannheim through ebay last year?[/quote]

I am looking for such accidents to happen too :green:

Hey thanks everybody! I feel at home here already :grin:

Yup Jens, that's the one, even though it was less of an accident and more like a week of almost not being able to sleep anymore when the offer came. You know, I've seen a lot of nice stuff come and go, but a whole Nemann N20? Noooo waaaay!

Getting it up here from down there was another interesting thing (24 hrs driving holiday), even though I must say these N-20s are the most ingenious thing because you can take them apart very easily and carry all the pieces around.

Were you one of the fellow bidders? :wink:

If you guys want I can post some more pictures of it...

By the way these guys down in Mannheim (e*bay studioemt) have quite a shed full of stuff with tape machines, Telcoms, you name it...all the way to the old Siemens star shaped plug stuff.

Joachim (one of the guys down there) said he didn't take the Neumann for himself because he has a...

*Telefunken tube mixing console*

in his basement :shock:

Ah yes, funny you should mention looking digital. I'm in fact really interested sooner or later in building computer controlled fully-analog gear, and encoder status indication was one thing in the back of my head as I designed it.

I feel there is still too little going on in that department...

oh and Tony I love that avatar+ :twisted:

[quote author="livingnote"]Yup Jens, that's the one, even though it was less of an accident and more like a week of almost not being able to sleep anymore when the offer came. You know, I've seen a lot of nice stuff come and go, but a whole Nemann N20? Noooo waaaay!

Getting it up here from down there was another interesting thing (24 hrs driving holiday), even though I must say these N-20s are the most ingenious thing because you can take them apart very easily and carry all the pieces around.

Were you one of the fellow bidders? :wink:

If you guys want I can post some more pictures of it...

By the way these guys down in Mannheim (e*bay studioemt) have quite a shed full of stuff with tape machines, Telcoms, you name it...all the way to the old Siemens star shaped plug stuff.

Joachim (one of the guys down there) said he didn't take the Neumann for himself because he has a...

*Telefunken tube mixing console*

in his basement :shock:

Ah yes, funny you should mention looking digital. I'm in fact really interested sooner or later in building computer controlled fully-analog gear, and encoder status indication was one thing in the back of my head as I designed it.

I feel there is still too little going on in that department...[/quote]

Yes, I´ve been bidding on it, too. I had sleepless nights as well. Finally I´m glad that I didn´t get it because a few days later I ran into an Amek M2500 for 2/3rd of the price which you paid for the desk. The Amek desk suits my needs much better because of the better multitrack routing abilities. Nevertheless I´d love to have 16 V476 preamps. A little bit of jealeousy is ok, isn´t it? Did it turn out to be noisy?

Anyway, good to see that the desk found a good home and has not been slaughtered. Post us some more pictures, please.

Regarding digital controlled analog gear: get yourself a Drawmer M500 as main comp. Then you´ll be healed (though there´s nothing to cpmplain about sonics)

Good to hear you found a nice desk too. It's enough to make a grown man cry at how in the past years people have been slaughtering Neumann consoles and selling the pieces on the bay. Alone last year in Berlin I heard there were about 10 that went that way. And of course, I'd be jealous too – who wouldn't

And yes, it's got its little deficiencies like I've got Bernd from Berlin trying to get the aux sends to work and concerning noise, it was like Niagara Falls until we found out that one module was connected backwards (the first time this happened in his history). We got that sorted and now it's really really quiet.

Didn't know about the Drawmer, thanks for the tip :sam:

Pictures are coming, right after I build this PSU...btw now I understand what you mean with accidentally, in German you would say "zufälllig" which would be "by any chance". If you write "accidentally" it's "aus Versehen" (Mom teaches English and I'm always assigned to editing lyrics for musicians that record here...)