Pro Audio Repair

Crimson125 · 01-10-2014 5:03pm #1

Hi all,

Are there any reputable repair houses active around Dublin area for high quality and competent pro-audio repair ?

I've an old A&H desk i wanna get some work done on for starters.

Cheers,

Crim.

TroutMask · 01-10-2014 11:21pm

A&H - which model? They can be problematic to work on

Crimson125 · 02-10-2014 7:12am

TroutMask wrote: »

A&H - which model? They can be problematic to work on

S8 MKI. Do you know any reputable service places ?

TroutMask · 02-10-2014 12:12pm

I usually do all my own tech and occasionally refurb consoles for other people. That A&H looks like a cool project, though it will be quite expensive to recondition as it takes many hours to rebuild a mixing console, esp. if you intend using it for recording. So unless it's something really special ............

Crimson125 · 02-10-2014 1:00pm

TroutMask wrote: »

I usually do all my own tech and occasionally refurb consoles for other people. That A&H looks like a cool project, though it will be quite expensive to recondition as it takes many hours to rebuild a mixing console, esp. if you intend using it for recording. So unless it's something really special ............

Has been fully functional since I got it - last year I fully recapped it so thats done - theres just a few buxs I need to iron out thats all - not a major job, but i need someone who can get it done with minimal fuss and get it back into its space quickly !

TroutMask · 02-10-2014 3:58pm

Cool! What kind of caps did you use?

Crimson125 · 02-10-2014 4:27pm

TroutMask wrote: »

Cool! What kind of caps did you use?

All Nichicon :-D

TroutMask · 02-10-2014 4:34pm

Yes, they sound great - rebuilt a Soundcraft Series One with the same caps! Doing a Neve right now. Would it not make more sense to finish off the desk yourself rather than hire in a tech - gotta be 60-80 an hour for a tech worth his/her salt?

Crimson125 · 02-10-2014 6:52pm

TroutMask wrote: »

Yes, they sound great - rebuilt a Soundcraft Series One with the same caps! Doing a Neve right now. Would it not make more sense to finish off the desk yourself rather than hire in a tech - gotta be 60-80 an hour for a tech worth his/her salt?

I'm stumped with it man and just wanna get it done amd working - im pretty sure its not.crazy stuff for.someone who knows what they are looking at. Ive spent too much time looking at it and the schematics and have a bunch of other things on the go aswell so at the point of desperation !

"Doing a neve right now" - its a tough life :-p Which one ?

TroutMask · 02-10-2014 7:32pm

Crimson125 wrote: »

I'm stumped with it man and just wanna get it done amd working

what is the problem? Noises? Bad ground structure maybe? Switches? If you have a dicky summing amp it can spread noise across the busses and make sadness

Crimson125 wrote: »

"Doing a neve right now" - its a tough life :-p Which one ?

Its a 5432 broadcast console. Not in the pantheon of Neve-age but a pretty tasty front end all the same

Marinair iron in and iron out everywhere!

Crimson125 · 02-10-2014 7:43pm

Good Stuff - the Neve sounds tasty !

Well the two main issues are an intermittent master right channel, and problems passing signal over to 2 of the busses. That's what I can remember off the top of my head, but I wanted to do a full test and see if there's anything else.

The 2 master channels were pulled out completely and double checked - as for the busses, hadn't properly looked at them after realising the master was dodgy. Had been using it as a mixing surface really with some inserts on the master and sending the 2bus back into the machine.

It may be something simple, but I don't have the time any more to deal with it and have been working itb at the expense of dealing with it.

TroutMask · 02-10-2014 8:20pm

I would try a methodical signal trace first - clean all of the inserts first then inject signal (a 1 kHz sine and a 10 kHz square) and work your way though the console stage-by-stage with a scope (any old scope will do - even a pocket scope!) until you find the fault. If there are socketed ICs - spray out the sockets. If there are trimpots or tweakers - spray those too. Check the rails everywhere for correct voltage and meter the input legs of every IC for DC voltage - the presence of DC on an input flags a blown IC, and one blown IC can send stray voltages around the place and cause a lot of strange problems

Crimson125 · 03-10-2014 11:51am

TroutMask wrote: »

I would try a methodical signal trace first - clean all of the inserts first then inject signal (a 1 kHz sine and a 10 kHz square) and work your way though the console stage-by-stage with a scope (any old scope will do - even a pocket scope!) until you find the fault. If there are socketed ICs - spray out the sockets. If there are trimpots or tweakers - spray those too. Check the rails everywhere for correct voltage and meter the input legs of every IC for DC voltage - the presence of DC on an input flags a blown IC, and one blown IC can send stray voltages around the place and cause a lot of strange problems

And that there is beyond my skills allready - onw of a bunch of reasons thus i want a repair shop to.just get these sorted.as i have an album i want to mix on it very soon and im busy working on music ! Sound like something you would take on ?!!!

TroutMask · 03-10-2014 2:10pm

Hmmm, getting a console like that back into spec is a time-consuming endeavour. I'd do it but I'm super busy with other projects and have a couple of albums coming up myself. And all this for a console which sells for €600 or so used in good condition. Have you considered a Midas Venice, seem to be a few of those floating around. Have one myself for live use and have multi tracked out of the direct outs with very good results. Quiet, clean channels with a musical EQ.

Crimson125 · 03-10-2014 2:18pm

TroutMask wrote: »

Hmmm, getting a console like that back into spec is a time-consuming endeavour. I'd do it but I'm super busy with other projects and have a couple of albums coming up myself. And all this for a console which sells for €600 or so used in good condition. Have you considered a Midas Venice, seem to be a few of those floating around. Have one myself for live use and have multi tracked out of the direct outs with very good results. Quiet, clean channels with a musical EQ.

Yeah - thing is, im in love with it - and have loved using it so its on no matter what lol i love the footprint of it, the look of it, the space on it -just how it happened !

TroutMask · 03-10-2014 2:26pm

To give you an idea - my Soundcraft Series One refurb soaked up about 15-20 hours, it's working but still not right and needs more work. Thankfully the parts are cheap! The Neve I'm doing will be about 12 hours - and that's just getting the noise out of the channels - the direct out mods will be another few hours and big bucks for balancing traffos on every out. Realistically, the Series One was not really worth doing - a labour of love to resurrect a Lee Scratch Perry style console; the Neve on the other hand is totally worth it. I've done more modern A&Hs and I found them to be a complete PITA to work on and not really worth the sonic payoff in the end. Can't really comment on the vintage A&Hs like yours in fairness as I've no experience, but I don't think they're in the heavy hitter league. My advice would be to learn the basic electronics so that you can service it yourself, a tech will only fix what's wrong, they won't (well, usually) actually recondition each section so that it's in satisfactory state for recording. The electronics is pretty basic - there's not much beyond a bunch of gains stages, summing amps, EQs and routing in those. Even if you find a tech that will rebuild - it'll sit down in a year or so, and you'll end up sending some tech's kid to college over this desk

Pro Audio Repair

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