agedhorse

You too Doug.

Pro Club +3.pdf

For those of you old guys wondering what I've been up to, I've been working for Mesa Boogie, developing the Subway amp/cabinet line and now that Mesa is owned by Gibson, I'm also working on some Gibson projects. My second to last pro audio event client threw in the towel this year, my last one is questionable. These were two large gigs that could provide enough income to life off of... oh well.

Best place to get hold of me is at Talkbass

On 2/4/2022 at 1:43 PM, Mogwix said:

Howdy y'all. I really hope everyone has been keeping it together. I wouldn't expect too much activity on this forum with everything that's been going on. Lots of familiar faces in this thread! I haven't posted here in some time. 

I'm doing alright. I fell out of the live music game some years ago as I shifted careers towards IT. I was doing the occasional gig here and there as a freelance engineer. I was working as a monitor or FOH tech with a few artists but I've sold off almost all of my inventory and don't have any regular ties these days.

I lost my job at the start of the pandemic and have been working on a project which has really hurt financially but well, I suppose it could be worse. I was thinking about this place because I picked up a Genz Benz El Diablo head and cabinet last summer and I was reminded about the conversations I had with agedhorse back when he was with GB. I needed to replace an impedance selector switch and I was surprised to find out GB isn't around anymore lol

A little late I know, but I have these switches in stock. While the company is "gone", those corporate entities who owned the brand set me up to continue the factory service program. 

It's amazing how far this mixer platform has evolved in essentially 20 years!

I haven’t seen one of those amps in well over 20 years, don’t have any docs. Sorry.

Haven’t been here for a while either, glad you guys are still kicking!

Hanging in there, have my first gig in almost 2 years coming up and it's been scaled down to less than 1/2 of what it was before.

Sure is quiet over here...

See my post above, which references my other post farther above. It's generally not an easy repair unless a solo switch is pushed down that you didn't notice.

Yikes, is that a Pro 4/2 series? 

Those pictures make me feel weak

On 6/20/2020 at 4:40 PM, Mike Pastrana said:

I have this other problem. My mackie 1604 vlz the rude solo is on but none of my channels were solos but the mute button led stills on although it was un mute. Always channels were affecting it. 

Read my previous posts, your question has been answered.

Well, did you learn anything from the previous posts? 

There is not enough value in this product to justify a proper (ie qualified) service technician's time. The cost of repair far exceeds the mixer's value. I have repaired these 20 years ago, they were tricky and not worth the time or the hassle. It requires a thorough understanding of how the cue/mute/display circuits work because you will be analyzing as you go. What's your experience level?

Better tools for the job beat trying to use a crescent wrench as a hammer IMO.

They are all worth about zero unfortunately. Same for most analog consoles of the era including some $10k+ consoles that I have taking up shop space.

3" is probably about right.

I just look at how the system models, look at the Q and try for something that's only very ,mildly underdamped to critically damped.

Try making the ports a little larger in diameter or shorter in length. Your response is over-damped.

Keep the rubber ring.

I have a few times. The solution that works every single time is sending it to the dumpster. Fixes every other problem as well.

My problem was that it looked like 2 nodes were connected and I didn't bother to verify that the nets all had the same name. Live and learn.

I just started using diptrace last year.

No ratlines because the netlist on the schematic capture itself was wrong. A connection that I thought was made on schematic capture was not in fact made. You can be sure I am double-checking this now!

Yes,I like that too.

I am working on bringing a new DSP solution to life, mixed surface mount and through hole, and I can't emphasize how important it is to follow all the rules regarding any application implementation. When you follow the rules, you eliminate many if not most of the possibilities for failure points, making troubleshooting and debugging much more efficient. In my case, I missed one connection on schematic capture that transferred to the PCB. I knew it had to be something simple, all the complicated stuff strictly followed the rules so it had to be a mistake rather than a misapplication.

Agreed, getting folks to even identify the problem is becoming the bigger challenge. If the problem can't be identified, or the identified problem accepted as a problem, there won't ever be an agreeable solution.

Precisely why I made the comments that I did. It's a form of "proprietary" network like protocol that is not compatible with other "network" equipment and protocols.

Too bad the OP doesn't recognize the knowledge base of the resources here.

Bingo, and it will test ok with a typical ohm meter but since everything operates at high frequencies and an ohm meter can't differentiate between a paired conductor and a conductor that's not paired, it's the wrong tool for the job. And, at high frequencies physical common mode rejection of capacitively coupled signals is critical to the operation.

Right, like I said before, there are very specific requirements and limitations regarding the cable structure, and what it may and may not connect to, how it connects and very critical requirements for the elimination of (or avoidance to using) stubs and taps because the cable is not really a simple cable but acts like a transmission line.

So, how do you know that it's a, X-32 problem at all? The AV processing matrix is something entirely different and unrelated to the console/stage box OTHER THAN the AUDIO signal processing (nothing to do with the AES-50 protocol).

What I am getting at, and I am not trying to be an ass but sometimes it comes across that way when folks are in over their head troubleshooting something more complex than they understand) is that you have to identify the actual problem before definitively stating that something specific IS the problem. At this point, all we can say (or all I can say) is that you do not know what the problem actually is, and by bypassing EVERYTHING, you have deduced (incorrectly) that it is (or is not) one particular thing, which your data does not support.

It could just as easily be a defectively terminated RJ connector, UTP cable installed in an electrically noisy environment, incorrectly terminated STP cable, a cable that has a sharp tangle in it because it was pulled incorrectly through conduit (sharp kinks or knots can cause this problem because it's not a wire but a transmission line), but it could also be something intermittent in the output signal processing system (including software, glitchy Crestron control (if Crestron based), etc. There are probably 100 possible causes for your problem, which is why any competent design-build installation company will follow all protocols and structure the design to completely eliminate the possibility of as many of these potential issues as possible, leaving a MUCH smaller group of possibilities to troubleshoot.

PS... I do this for a living, and have for 35 years. I'm pretty darn familiar with not just the installation side of this but also the engineering side of this from an equipment designer's perspective.

I agree, that something like this tends to be a LOT more successful designed and installed as a stand alone system, but in your situation, how are you accomplishing the system drive processing once you bypass the installed matrix DSP (presumably with the drive processing internal to it)?