Refurbish or Replace? (vintage console Qs)

[stevep]

Yes do it ! keep it working


If you have a few bad channels its normal.... Just keep up on it

I find with consoles its best to keep them on all the time, they are more stable


if you did a full recap and rechip 6 years ago you shouldn't have to many bad components. unless it was ran with no AC

What is the problem,, loss of HF ? noise ? ect...


keep us posted


Long Live Analog

[Led]

I'm in a similar position with mine - everything's been redone except for ch 25 - 40 which need recapping, (about 95 caps per channel) but also need a fair few eq pots replaced. I love working with it, and it has a bit of an Oz local history - Nick Cave, Cruel Sea, Dave Graney, Beast of Bourbon, Spiderbait and more. No way I could afford something equivalent new.
I'm about to switch to a Fairligh Crystal Core for recording and am thinking of changing consoles while I'm at it. Thing is, I still love it. Let me know how you decide.

[The Byre]

Something tells me that you did not get a good recap.

To need a new recap after just six years tells me that the first recap was not up to snuff.

[stevep]

Originally Posted by The Byre

Something tells me that you did not get a good recap.

To need a new recap after just six years tells me that the first recap was not up to snuff.

Or they used different opamps...... or only replaced a few caps, or....overlooked ???

another thing is how it was operated, i could see on a Neve V series doing a recap every 6 years because of the heat.

if they ran it with no AC or had PSU troubles ect....... that might hurt


thats why i asked about the loss of HF, it might be op amp related


But i agree, 6 years after a total recap the desk should only have "normal" problems

but then again i dont know the MCIs at all.



peace,





steve

[drBill]

I vote for keeping the console! Someday these dinosaurs will be highly prized and rarer than hen's teeth. I'm keeping all 3 of my analog consoles.....forever! Or at least as long as I'm on this earth. Maybe I'll have my Vision rack mixer buried with me.

bp

[bdmctear]

Originally Posted by stevep

Or they used different opamps...... or only replaced a few caps, or....overlooked ???

another thing is how it was operated, i could see on a Neve V series doing a recap every 6 years because of the heat.

if they ran it with no AC or had PSU troubles ect....... that might hurt


thats why i asked about the loss of HF, it might be op amp related


But i agree, 6 years after a total recap the desk should only have "normal" problems

but then again i dont know the MCIs at all.



peace,





steve

I know the previous refurb job was good. I have an excellent tech, he has an excellent assistant, and my partner who is very skilled in electronics also participated.

There are a lot of factors that could have played into it sagging a bit, however, including lack of environmental stability (hot and cold) at my old location, as well occasional power supply issues. AND we moved it about a year and a half ago. This summer there was a power outage that seemed rather violent (probably because it happened in the middle of the day while I was recording), and lasted about two hours.

I can't be sure it was because of these things, though, as I did the tests AFTER all this.

So it's been through a lot.

I did a simple test on every channel. I would calibrate the channel to 1k, then switch the tone to 15k, 10k, 100hz and 50hz. The good channels would remain even at each tone. The bad channels would have different responses, MOSTLY they would exhibit a BOOST in the highs but a REDUCTION in the lows. Sometimes it would read +2dB at 15k, and -2 or -3 at 50hz.

I should mention that we run all technical powere through a separate balanced power electrical system. It has its own separate ground in the basement. And dispite the summer power outage, the new environment is very good, with proper heat and AC, etc.

Again, I know what I will do if I do, in fact, spruce it up: rebuild all power supplies, test all channels, clean and recap where necessary.

My real question is, for my usage purposes, would I be better off with a Summing Box and preamps? Does a console, in fact, sum any better or any worse than the best new box out there?

This is almost certainly a hypothetical question, because either way I will most certainly do the maintanance on the MCI.

[bdmctear]

Originally Posted by stevep

Or they used different opamps...... or only replaced a few caps, or....overlooked ???

another thing is how it was operated, i could see on a Neve V series doing a recap every 6 years because of the heat.

if they ran it with no AC or had PSU troubles ect....... that might hurt


thats why i asked about the loss of HF, it might be op amp related


But i agree, 6 years after a total recap the desk should only have "normal" problems

but then again i dont know the MCIs at all.



peace,





steve

I know the previous refurb job was good. I have an excellent tech, he has an excellent assistant, and my partner who is very skilled in electronics also participated.

There are a lot of factors that could have played into it sagging a bit, however, including lack of environmental stability (hot and cold) at my old location, as well occasional power supply issues. AND we moved it about a year and a half ago. This summer there was a power outage that seemed rather violent (probably because it happened in the middle of the day while I was recording), and lasted about two hours.

I can't be sure it was because of these things, though, as I did the tests AFTER all this.

So it's been through a lot.

I did a simple test on every channel. I would calibrate the channel to 1k, then switch the tone to 15k, 10k, 100hz and 50hz. The good channels would remain even at each tone. The bad channels would have different responses, MOSTLY they would exhibit a BOOST in the highs but a REDUCTION in the lows. Sometimes it would read +2dB at 15k, and -2 or -3 at 50hz.

I should mention that we run all technical powere through a separate balanced power electrical system. It has its own separate ground in the basement. And dispite the summer power outage, the new environment is very good, with proper heat and AC, etc.

Again, I know what I will do if I do, in fact, spruce it up: rebuild all power supplies, test all channels, clean and recap where necessary.

My real question is, for my usage purposes, would I be better off with a Summing Box and preamps? Does a console, in fact, sum any better or any worse than the best new box out there?

This is almost certainly a hypothetical question, because either way I will most certainly do the maintanance on the MCI.

[drBill]

Originally Posted by bdmctear

My real question is, for my usage purposes, would I be better off with a Summing Box and preamps? Does a console, in fact, sum any better or any worse than the best new box out there?

??? what IS better for your purposes? Only you can say. Personally, I think even the most halfway decent console will blow away the best of the summing boxes. Providing the console has a decent noise floor. And any console certainly has magnitudes more versatility. Why go summing box when you have the real thing? It's a poor man's console fix.

[stevep]

I know the previous refurb job was good. I have an excellent tech, he has an excellent assistant, and my partner who is very skilled in electronics also participated.

Cool

There are a lot of factors that could have played into it sagging a bit, however, including lack of environmental stability (hot and cold) at my old location, as well occasional power supply issues.

Yea, that could speed up the caps wearing out and maybe a few hot chips

Sometimes it would read +2dB at 15k, and -2 or -3 at 50hz

Did you do this same test after the recapping?

Thats not to bad, it could be an easy fix, first i would look at one of the good strips and compare it to one thats down a couple db and make sure all the chips and components are the same

Did you do the test with the same meter or were you using the meter on each channel ?

I would love to see you get it back to 100%

Originally Posted by bdmctear

My real question is, for my usage purposes, would I be better off with a Summing Box and preamps? Does a console, in fact, sum any better or any worse than the best new box out there?

A good desk will sum way better than a summing box. plus a desk has real faders mic pres ect....

i dont know your desk, but i worked on a MCI a long time ago and it sounded great, had good eqs, but the busing was kinda strange


peace,


steve

[bdmctear]

I did my test with the tones this Fall. I did not do the same in 2001.

The console does sound fantastic. Again, I am playing devil's advocate with myself. All we use are the pres (all Jensen based, and in my opinion, excellent), and the summing bus.

What is a good number for my noise floor? I am rather certain that I am in good territory as far as that goes, though, I suppose there are a ton of electronics in this thing that I DON'T use that can only be added noise.

But would my money be better spent getting an API summing system? 8200s, 7800, etc?

B

[Fletcher]

Originally Posted by The Byre

To need a new recap after just six years tells me that the first recap was not up to snuff.

Actually that is about the life span of 85'C capacitors... you can get and extra 4-5 years from 105'C caps... I have also heard a real difference when you double the voltage value of the caps [like if the design calls for a 25V cap, use a 50V cap].

On the MCI 428... they're great sounding desks. In the days of analog it was often recommended that folks pull the transformers from the line in path of the desk and replace it with a differential circuit as the phase shift created by the second level of transformer made things sound really mushy. With P-T HD I don't think I would do that as the added phase shift might make shit sound closer to normal with that grainy piece of inadequate sounding storage [obviously, my opinion... YMMV]. Unless you plan on moving to one of the glorified mouse control surfaces... at least if I were in your shoes I would probably go over the desk from top to bottom and plan on doing it every few years or so.

Best of luck with all you do.

Peace.

[Bassmec]

You need to find some better caps, lytics are cheap shit and I dont think you can go wrong with replacing them with Polyprops, paper in oil and silver mica even if it is low voltage tranny stuff a microfarad is a microfarad then it will sound better and you can forget them and get on with your job.

[bdmctear]

Originally Posted by Fletcher

Actually that is about the life span of 85'C capacitors... you can get and extra 4-5 years from 105'C caps... I have also heard a real difference when you double the voltage value of the caps [like if the design calls for a 25V cap, use a 50V cap].

On the MCI 428... they're great sounding desks. In the days of analog it was often recommended that folks pull the transformers from the line in path of the desk and replace it with a differential circuit as the phase shift created by the second level of transformer made things sound really mushy. With P-T HD I don't think I would do that as the added phase shift might make shit sound closer to normal with that grainy piece of inadequate sounding storage [obviously, my opinion... YMMV]. Unless you plan on moving to one of the glorified mouse control surfaces... at least if I were in your shoes I would probably go over the desk from top to bottom and plan on doing it every few years or so.

Best of luck with all you do.

Peace.

Thanks for the input, Fletcher. That is the plan, of course... fix her up again. And it's a process that I quite enjoy, really. Currently we use P-T HD, and I have (Toto's) old MM1200. It's in amazing shape, and it is probably the real reason that I think the console is an absolute necessity. I can picture a console-less set up with Pro Tools, but I can't imagine having such a great tape machine and ONLY having the option to mix it in PT and sum into a little box. It just seems fundamentally wrong.

So thanks, everyone. You da' best!

B