[Philly Stress]

Originally Posted by Gm7Cadd9

A knowledge of electronics and soldering, and the manuals. But you might be surprised, I have heard the SSL and Neve manuals cost in the hundreds of dollars. Where I work we have an SSL 4000 G+ and a Neve VX console. When something goes wrong (as it always does) we have our in house electronics guy come in and fix it and make a class out of it, but when the master section volume control goes out or we start getting crazy crosstalk we have to call desk doctor, who charges quite a pretty penny.

We have found that when an LED goes we have to special order them, but you can't just order 1-2 or them they need a bulk shipment in order to ship, so you end up paying for like 50 or more, then sometimes you find out they don't even make the part/light anymore. Fixing Neve and SSL is a great skill to learn, but dangerous... For instance, we once had a Mackie D8B here, and it was always breaking, and there was only one guy in LA who really knew anything about them, and he made a killing for a while, but now hardly anyone uses a D8B, so you have to keep up.

I used to troubleshoot macs on OS 9, and it was like learning all over again when OS X came out. Our Neve's computer runs on Windows 3, if and when the automation/recall computer decides to die (and it will) it will cost over 100,000 just to replace it. The power supply costs even more!

If you want to get into that kind of repair realize that it is very specialized, and while it pays well it requires a lot of effort to keep up to date and compete with the pros like desk doctor.

-Roy

It there an East Coast equilvent to Desk Doctor??