Mar 31, 2009  Soundtracs Solo Mixing Console Tutorial. Learn the In's and Out's of a Soundtracs Solo 24/4/2!

Care to share your love affairs / horror stories?i used to have a soundcraft 400B, but never had the time or space to use it. Now i have a few bits of outboard and a lot of synth i/o and i quite fancy tying it all together with a big (ok, medium-big) old british desk. Something that's not so ancient or esoteric that it'll be impossible to repair, but will still have reasonably quiet signal path, big faders, lots of lovely hands-on EQ and send action, and some mojo on tap if needed.the plan is to be able to record a few non-psy bits and bobs on it; send some stuff to the desk for EQing etc.

While mixing psy; and have enough i/o and hands-on control to do some live dub mixes. At the moment i'm leaning towards a soundtracs topaz or similar. I could get something modern - a little baby soundcraft EPM or something - and i'm sure it would be quiet and well-made. But in the flesh they tend to be really not conducive to hands-on fun.anyone (psyfi?) have any experiences they'd like to share? Things to look out for or actively pursue?i kinda wish Ott was going through one of his episodic studio-downtime-forum-uptime phases. My personal experience with mixers is limited to only a few.

My own soundcraft spirit studio 32/8/2 which is a mid nineties mixer which I love the EQ on the studio is built around it. I also have a smaller sound craft folio 10 channel mixer which I've used live a couple of times. The EQs aren't really in the same league as its bigger older brother its simply a useful device to handle mobile I/O needs. My Bro got him self a soundcraft Delta which is moulder and he has been painstakingly going through each module strip and clean and replacing switches and what not to get it back in to action. The EQ is again very nice and the faders really smooth but we have trouble driving signals to distortion through it where as on mine I can push an incoming signal in to the red and get some great over drive going on My only other experience would be with some of yamaha's digital mixers O2r and stuff like that. Not really my cup of tea. I would definitely look at a soundtracs mixer or a sound craft.

I was recently offered and old 1970s soundcraft mixer which would have needed a great deal of work doing to get in working again but I just didn't have the space so it went to the dump that stings I was told be the previous owner that he remeberd the EQ was great and you could really push the high end and it would just be silky rather than tinny all the way.I think the next thing for me to learn is fixing up and calibrating the PSUs. I on occasion get flutters of sound over my main out and I think it can be traced back to the PSU so look out for those type of problems before purchase. Maintenance of the main board I've not found to difficult. 1st desk I got was a 32/8/2 TAC scorpion, which I was given by another PA hire company. The 1st A/B on sound quality happened by accident where I had it doing monitors at a festival, and rented in a soundcraft GB8 (or was it a GB4?) for FOH. Then the rain came, the FOH tent leaked & it was game over for FOH. A quick switch later we ran the sound through the TAC, and it was clearly a nicer sound.

Softer, warmer.downsides are that it was built before there was any 'standards' in wiring, so all the outputs on XLR's aren't balanced, they're a choice between pin 2 = 0dB or pin 3 = -10dB, which means the signal completely shits itself if you connect it with a mic lead to a balanced input! Therefore 'special' custom cables are needed just for the TAC.I still use it now, about 5 or 6 times a year, but it's big & heavy, and too ancient for any posh gigs with bands & their own engineers.Mr Oood mixed 12 bands in 12 hours on it a few weekends ago, and he thinks I need to get a Midas:p2nd desk I got because the TAC was so big, was this:a 16 channel DDA mixer for £300. It did have some stuck pots from lack of use, but i spent a bit of time this last winter going right through it with switch cleaner, and they've all loosened up, and work fine now, apart from one balance knob on a group, which spins continuously.I'd highly reccommend DDA. Solid as you like, great sound, easy to fix with standard components, and plenty of support (manuals etc) from Midas, who now own all the rights.

The only slight downside is the size. These days you can get a 32ch desk in the same footprint.All standard wiring too.

All balanced, pin 2 hot. I wouldn't be surprised if DDA set the standard for wiring.Studer mixers are kind of like the vintage rolls royce of mixers, so go for incredibly high prices, but I did get an A779 off ebay for £660 odd, and they normally go for £1k +a lovely combo of balanced mic in, balanced line in, AND stereo line in, on each channel. Maybe not enough channels or EQ for you though.there is an 8 ch version called the MR8, and I saw one go on ebay for £270 or something. Everyone missed it. You could sell that on german ebay for £800/900 easily.As for playing live synths, how many of them are stereo out? And how many channels do you need?in terms of space, portability, and playability, I much prefer big dj mixers for playing on.

Like the ecler Sclat mixers.what you get is a totally sold 8 (stereo) channel mixer, that cost over £2k when new, but you can get them for £300/400 now for a good one, or less if you don't mind replacing a few faders or whatever. Big phat external PSU, only one aux send, but it is a stereo one, with balance/pan, so you can send to two FX if you need to.

2 x balanced outs, modular design so you can configure it how you want.2 types of modules, either balanced mic/line (with phantom power!) or phono/line / line, each with switchable input sensitivity settings. 100mm ALPS faders, and ALPS pots too.

Quality.only been at it a year or so, but you can see the sclat in action here:Cheers.Jody. Unfortunately a bit crap on sound quality. Not as good as the opus allen & heath V6 (a prototype one that sounds better than their production ones), but that is the best mixer I've ever heard. Also, not quite as good as my Vestax, but that's been modified a bit.

Thats possibly because of old leaked caps. I've replaced all the channel caps now, with Lechicon caps, but it developed a bit of a buzz, then I got too many other things to do in the summer, so back on it at some point this winter. I replaced some of the op-amps too, as the ones in it are known to sound garbage, so when I sort the buzz out then it should be a lot better.

(or more like get someone to sort it for me, I'm not that good at electronics)Monitoring is funny though. It's got a microphone and a speaker built into it! Admittedly not that good, it's just for a talkback to a different studio room, I think.It has balanced monitor out too, which is probably as good as it's balanced main out. There's also another transformer balanced output too, but that sounds more spongey than the main electronically balanced output.you can choose what to listen to through the monitor outputs, either main signal, cue, aux, or whatever.If it still doesn't sound good, then I'll build some posh wooden sides for it & sell it I expect, but I hope it does sound good enough. It certainly looks the part with the MPC & the Korg MS10 d:cool:n't you think? Click to expand.need or want? I think i could comfortably use up all 24!

I've got twelve channels of synth alone, and more FX etc. But realistically? It all depends on how i configure the thing, and how it changes the way i work. For day-to-day stuff as opposed to proper mixdowns, i think i'll probably want to run 8 channels i/o through it, enough for a little synth submix, and a few processing channels for livening up sound or using the EQ.

Then when i really want to work with it i'll patch the other 8 channels into it. That looks great I now pronounce you man and mixer.Mine is the centrer of the whole studio running through patch bays that my sound card runs through so each output defaults to a channel on the mixer. And then of course all the groups and sends and so on also run through the patch bay where you have all your other outboard plumbed in. You will be wanting some cable and jacks now I guess.

Since upgrading my sound cards last I have now only 32 analogue outputs but also have 32 analogue inputs which I will never use. I have only 8 of them hooked up I think. That's not counting digi I/O of course.

I wouldn't recommend chaining two 16 channel mixers together for the reasons you said.I definitely wouldn't recommend buying a load of old junk because an unreliable mixer is way more trouble than it is worth. These things can quickly turn into money-pits.Trust me. I speak as the owner of a 1979 VW camper.Obviously you should get the very best you can, but you really could do a lot worse than a 16 channel Mackie VLZ and a couple of Echo Gina 20s.If you can afford to get a Mackie 8 buss 32 and four Ginas so much the better.I wouldn't usually recommend a Mackie at all I hate them but they are cheap, reliable and sonically pretty good for the money.As you may have gathered, I'm a bit of a Soundtracs fan but to be honest they made their best stuff over 10 years ago and so anything you might find 2nd hand will be well used by now. That said, don't overlook the possibility of getting a Topaz 32 or 24 if you can find one.Alternatively, Soundcraft Spirit etc are superb.

I totally agree and it really is a question of whether you are happy with 'fine'.I don't think I'd ever be happy with an 'almost there' mix.Yes, but as soon as i switch in my channel EQ and start tweaking I am generating all kinds of random upper and lower harmonics and artifacts that my plugin EQ doesn't. Sometimes i will find myself boosting 2khz by 5 db on the upper mid and then cutting 2khz by 5db on the lower mid - a pointless activity both on paper and also on Cubase SX channel EQ.On my desk EQ, however, it results in a kind of halo of fizzing energy around the sound in question that i can't get any other way. This distortion is crucial for me and functions as a kind of glue or laquer - to smooth everything together.I'm out of my depth already with 'lateral interpolation.' Is that the one I linked to above?Good luck!shall I remove the link, or make everyone promise not to bid on it?actually. Link diverted!Great info from MrOtt.If I could humbly add that low pass filters are added to some high end gear at 60KHz, which sounds astronomical, but it's only 3 octaves up from 20KHz, and that, like he said, you might not be able to 'hear' above 16-20KHz, but you can hear the difference when those higher frequencies are lost, either with low pass filters, digital limits, or tweeters that can't hack it. I’m a BIG fan of Midas.We use them at work and they are nothing short of b-e-a-UTIFUL!I dunno what your budget is, but if you can stretch to one of those, you’ll be sooooo happy. (you can occasionally pick up a bargain on E-Bay)Below that on a budget range, we also use the Yamaha MG rangeand soundcraft EPM range, which you mention.

Both of which are comparable. Clean and nice sounding, and will last you forever if you show them love.(I orginally bought my Yammy 16 channel, when we booked OOOD to play in 05 and they didn’t have space to bring up their mixer).I have ragged it since at both gigs of my own and in the home recording, and it has never skipped a beat or so much as made a crackle.Instead of the Soundcraft EPM range, you may want to look at the EFX gear:24 bit lexicon effects built in, as well as all the usual gubbins. Great for 99% of home scenarios if you ask me.I don’t know how many channels you need, but if you only need a few mics and a few line, no FX etc, then look at the Formula Sound mixers -By far the nicest sounding mixer under the £1k markbut limited if you need sends n returns etc. It is essentially a dj mixer, but if you just need a clear path and EQ for a few mics, you can’t go far wrong. (They are also hand made, in Stockport, Manchester. And the only mixers official FK1 installs use. Separate to that, the lads are really nice.

They will configure any mixer with specific pre-amps as required, as they are building them, so hypothetically, you can have any combo of mic/phono/lineOne thing I would stay clear of is Mackie desks. We’ve had so much historical issues with them, we pretty much refuse to sell them. We sold one a few years back, and it would come back every 6 months for a repairand eventually lost us a very good and experienced customer as he just got fed up of the time it took Loud Technology (who own Mackie), to supply spares etc.If you need prices or further advice on any of the above, feel free to give me a shout bud.Good luck!!CN. I don’t know how many channels you need, but if you only need a few mics and a few line, no FX etc, then look at the Formula Sound mixers -By far the nicest sounding mixer under the £1k markbut limited if you need sends n returns etc. It is essentially a dj mixer, but if you just need a clear path and EQ for a few mics, you can’t go far wrong. (They are also hand made, in Stockport, Manchester.

And the only mixers official FK1 installs use. Separate to that, the lads are really nice. They will configure any mixer with specific pre-amps as required, as they are building them, so hypothetically, you can have any combo of mic/phono/line.

I've looked around at several budget consoles (A&H 16.2 DX, Soundcraft ghost, Yamaha PM-1000, even some mackie and unbearableringer), and I've decided that the real winner in the price/features list is the Topaz. My only real hang up is that I've never actually heard one. One of my instructors told me that the the pre's and eq suck on it. However he's also well know for talking out of his ass. He suggested the A&H, which is pretty decent, it just doesn't quite have all the features I'm looking in a board. So Harvey, I know you own one.

What do you think of it? What are your thoughts of it compared to other consoles in its league? And in particular, what you think of the pre's and eq?

The Topaz is probably my least favorite board in the Soundtracs range due to its reliability and ruggedness, but provided you treat them with care they will last you a lifetime. At least they sound good, close to the larger PC Midi and Megas desks.Tim, from Studio Systems in the UK is probably the last major Soundtracs repairman in the world.His Topaz page is in case you need more info.I've just got a Soundtracs MRX modular split/in-line desk after three years of being mixerless (in the analog way ) since my Tascam M3700 bit the dust, and I chose it over a couple of Solo Logics (Which are good, but not modular) and a Quartz (Which was unfortunately in VERY bad shape and would've cost me a fortune to bring back to spec). What you'll find with these desks is lots of headroom and solid EQ, they are quiet, maybe not as quiet as current desks, but quiet enough for studio work. The pres and the EQ are indeed the highlights of the desk and worth the money.Make sure you get spares for buttons, faders and knobs. They are getting hard to come.

Meverylame wrote on Sat, 12 June 2004 18:14Thanks for the post back Harvey, though I did get the point of Zoesch's post. Why do you reccomend the 32x8, besides the bigger is better?My current setup is a 001 with an alesis ai-3(yes its sad, I know.) and an eight track tascam reel.

Thus only 24 tracks. Should I plan for upgrade?

Or maybe some other reason I don't see cause I'm a newb.When you have all the effect sends routed to the different effect units you plan to use, where do the return signals come back? Returning the effects to channels 25 thru 32 lets you play with eq on the effects, and inserts on the effects as well.

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Adds a lot more flexability and the used price on the 32 channel Topaz isn't all that much different than the 24 track (and it looks cooler too). I have one of the 24x8's and I love it. If you need help with any analog Soundtracs service (i'm noticing you're in the U.S.), the guy to speak with is Steve Magalnick. If you need any information or just want to speak with him, he's the Soundtracs authorized U.S.

PM me and I'll send his info your way.The cool thing about the Topaz line is that there is a little mod you can do that's outlined in the owner's manual that'll convert all of your I/O (with the exception of the inserts) to +4dB balanced, where as most ship from the factory with the direct out, tape returns, etc. Set to -10dB unbalanced. Steve can help you with that as well. Let me know if there's anything else about the console you'd like to know and I'll do my best to help you.-Sean.

Meverylame,your advisor has just discredited himself by saying the eq sucks. One could complain about the pre's not having enough headroom, one could bitch about reliability, but the eq- you would have to spent many, many more dollars to get to that level in another board.The pres sound good, just that they cant be slammed. The weak point is with repairs-a major hassle. I have a problem that will require a pilgrimage to Long Island to deal with.Harvey, Zoesch, you've got me totally intrigued now about mods for the Topaz. I did the -10 to +4 thang, but I wasn't aware of other ones!?

Could you describe them, and who does them?Thanks! Weihfool wrote on Mon, 14 June 2004 15:58I have one of the 24x8's and I love it. If you need help with any analog Soundtracs service (i'm noticing you're in the U.S.), the guy to speak with is Steve Magalnick. If you need any information or just want to speak with him, he's the Soundtracs authorized U.S. PM me and I'll send his info your way.The cool thing about the Topaz line is that there is a little mod you can do that's outlined in the owner's manual that'll convert all of your I/O (with the exception of the inserts) to +4dB balanced, where as most ship from the factory with the direct out, tape returns, etc. Set to -10dB unbalanced.

Steve can help you with that as well. Let me know if there's anything else about the console you'd like to know and I'll do my best to help you.-SeanAre you sur it gives you balanced outs? The impression I got from the manual was that it only changed the level.