Rock of London Studio

[DaveUK]

Gan on Steve! Forever blowing bubbles

[Steve Honest]

SO chaps i spent quite a lot of time today cleaning the 24 channel strips of dust and gunk, and the i loaded the into the desk, but sat on there connecters rather than pushed home, as i have to take them all out on tuesday for Bob to start the desk empty, so pointless instering them and uninserting them , and this keeps them out of harms way, as we have a new cleaner starting tommorow

I also bought all the matrials i need to run a 20 amp supply to te PSu out in the machine room, from the fuse box , so the desk has its own power,
so onwards and upwards

steve

[Steve Honest]

HI\Joe our wireman came in today and looked over the patch bay for the desk and we spent some time discussing how we will integrate the existing mic line s and out bored and cues ends and so forth into the SSL patch, the most effective way i can see is to Stick D subs onto all the cut ends, and join them with gender benders, nice and fast and cost effective.

Joe will start this work monday evening , bob the SSL tech will start on the desk tuesday morning,, hopefully we will have it ready by the end of the week.

steve

[Steve Honest]

So chaps, my son is staying over tonight so just a brief update
Joe he wire man and i started putting D sub plugs on the mic lines to hook up to the desk patch. tommorw we will work on the pro tool send and returns on d subs and tuchels , as the desk ahas Tuchels on it.

Bob powered up the PSU after opening it up and checking it over, he then powered the frame, gave t time to settle a bit while checking voltages from the psu, rails seems steady.
then he spent the rest of the day Recapping the Mater section,
pics will follow

steve

[Cegor]

Can't wait to see this thing finally come together! Any chance you can post some pics each day to accompany the stories?

[Steve Honest]

HI there

I will get a few pics up as we go along, the desk is booked for a live Radio broadcast this friday, so we are running along fast.
i Have session every day , n the other room , but ill try and get pics up
cheers
steve

[Steve Honest]

hi chaps
here are a few pics of the progress,
bob started the psu, noisy fans for about 15 mins, as they havnt run for a while, but they settled, then the master section cards all came out to be recapped, geting rid of all those tantalum bead caps, we had probs wit the power in the buckets and bob had to rebuild the power switches and replace a reset for 2 of the buckets, but its a 30 year old desk, a little love this week will make it good for 30 more years,

now heres the thing, I have a live to air radio broadcast booked for this desk for Friday evening!! 2 full bands
Nothing like a tight deadline to bring your sense s to life
steve

[Steve Honest]

SO , yesterday after i got out of the day session ,
I stripped out the racks and the X desk, and started reshaping the rack to accommodate the same outboard but with 1 less rack, as we lose because the new desk is wider then the old 1.

Today im untangling al the cabling to get ready for the Wireman to come tonight and start connecting it a back u and connect the Tuchel to D subs adapters he is making,
we might Just pull this off in time
steve

[Steve Honest]

HI chaps ,
breif not as we are doing alive to air broadcast for radio from the ssl room
bob did a great job and got enough desk working so i could do this live show
more to follow
Stev

[Steve Honest]

SO the desk is well enough to handle a recording session , and so today one of our House engineers , SHuta is Recording the Seahawks on Lo Records,, a lot of head scratching and where did that go, happened to begin with as the whole desk and patch are different to last week, but they are underway and sounding great.
steve

[Steve Honest]

So chaps
the first week on the desk has been cool, i did 4 days on it myself since i last posted , and a visiting engineer did a day, the studio is booking up briskly as word gets round, and we are about halfway thru the restore, just all 24 channels to be recapped, and also 2 sets of pink G eqs to be fitted, i prefer the browns , but my customers want to have soe piks in there.
Recapping will be done in stages to spread the cost ,at the rate of about 4 to 8 channels per week,

steve

[Brett 123]

Hi Steve this is an interesting thread , especially as my old band used to have that space before you . ( After the guy that had originally built the studio ) I think you have really maximised the space there . It's a great location too .

Also I was wandering if you could forward me your wiremans details ? As I need a patch bay hooked up pretty soon .

Thanks,

Brett

[Steve Honest]

I belive we spoke on the phone greet when i was looking for more space, ill phone you with the wire guys number, he is amazing value , and i have a good gear tech too if you need one
steve

[Brett 123]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

I belive we spoke on the phone greet when i was looking for more space, ill phone you with the wire guys number, he is amazing value , and i have a good gear tech too if you need one
steve

Great thanks mate

[Steve Honest]

This SSL was a leap of Faith, particularly as i dissed owning large desks for many years, and always preferred to record to tools via outboard ,and then using a small desk for summing,
but to prove me wrong, the desk took its first booking on Feb 7 th and has a session in there every day since feb 7th til april 1st!! except for 2 days in march, with I'm sure will get booked within a week from now,

Nice work when you can get it.

steve

[waveterm]

Rock On !

WT

[Steve Honest]

Bob our tech , is so great. So great he is booked solid and we are still 6 weeks form finishing the recap on the desk channels as we can only get 4 done a week. but its worth it , Bob will make the desk Sound amazing.
and then we need to fix the bargraphs....
steve

[TapeOpAl]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

and then we need to fix the bargraphs....
steve

I wouldn't bother... Just a load of flashing lights that tell you if signal is there that use a load of power and generate heat. Not as useful as VUs.

[Steve Honest]

Originally Posted by TapeOpAl

I wouldn't bother... Just a load of flashing lights that tell you if signal is there that use a load of power and generate heat. Not as useful as VUs.

HI Al
hope your well,
thats not what I'm told by other users, VU s or Virtually Useless, as they are known, on my other SSL tend to bent all the way over to the right,
no I'm spending plenty of money to get the desk sounding great , i want to do the whole job properly,
cheers
steve

[Steve Honest]

The 292 g eq upgrade cards arrived today, so on monday Bob will install 4 fully restored channels ,and take 4 more away and then 2 of these 4 will come back with G eq, i prefer the brown, but my customers will like having 2 G s in the desk,
in the neve room we have 2 browns racked up so a job can continue on ssl once started and next week i am hoping to add 2 G s in there too, ,aces for a nice bit of flexibility

steve

[TapeOpAl]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

HI Al
hope your well,
thats not what I'm told by other users, VU s or Virtually Useless, as they are known, on my other SSL tend to bent all the way over to the right,
no I'm spending plenty of money to get the desk sounding great , i want to do the whole job properly,
cheers
steve

Just goes to show everyone's got their preferences! One thing I do know is that when the red overload LED starts lighting up you're in the right place

All the best mate.

[Steve Honest]

yes , quite right ,each to there own,
but one place we do agree on , is i like the levels all the way up, over on the dorrughs , means to me, cmon sucka is that all you got. though i don't like the amount of compression and limiting that is thrown at modern mastering, the lap top mastering revolution have a lot to answer for

steve

[Blast9]

Hey Steve good to see you today... Those ATCs sound great... and the Avalon looks pretty

Clash of the titans today - I though both mics sounded great on my voice but the venerable U87 was the winner for this sesh

[Steve Honest]

HI there
i enjoyed our day, you have a great voice,
The old lady Nuemann frequently wins out over many mics, the early 87s just have that something magic about them, perhaps a familiarity in tone that appeals to so many people.
anyhows, hope to see and hear you again soon, and thanks for the day.
steve

[Steve Honest]

So not much to update , been mostly busy recording, the SSL has had 17 channels restored, and of course the frame and all the master section and PSU,
I'm looking forward to getting the last of the channels bad from Bob, and starting the last phase , the Bargraph meters.

i have got a few more little bits
59 Bassman torres CLone, built up from a kit, i changed the power valves to KT66, bigger fatter low end and miles more headroom
another KM84i, love these mics,
starting to build a Valve spring reverb stereo with balanced ins and outs,
and slo a Drip Fairchild 670,

Spotted another way to make the live room 3 sq meters bigger , so will do that next month i think

steve

[Blast9]

Cool, Steve... That bassman clone sounds interesting!

[Steve Honest]

hi balst , yeah its a fantastic amp, warm, saggy and very of the period, its still burnin in , but i love it to bits already.

This week i have decided to take out a wall that juts out in my live room, it used to form the left angled bit of the old control room wall, and it takes up , in a triangle shape about 2 sq meters of floor space,
Now i know this is not a lot to add, but it will reduce a reflection i=on the drum kit , and also the far wall will continue in one uninterrupted line, so wil make the rom look 10 sq meters bigger,
i will post some pics as we go along
steve

[JoeyOsk]

Originally Posted by Steve Honest

Well today we commenced the studio build, the first truck load of materials arrived and al and I carried 3 and 3/4 tons of stuff down stairs by hand.
We have a nice shell to build within , but there are some structural weakness s we have to address in this first phase,
The studio is LOcated in the lower floor of a very posh apartment building in EC1, and im very keen to not annoy any of my Neighbors, either thru the works or from any music we might play after the build. so careful planning and design on the computer filled a lot of my december and holiday season.
im being quite careful to build a lot of elements that i have liked in studios over the years as this will most probably be the last studio i build, as now i am 50 , im guessing i only have 10 years of useful hearing left, but with a bit of luck Neo, my son will forget Thomas the Tank engine and Lightning Mcqueen the race car and continue the work i have Been most involved in this last decade, and thats providing first rate recording space and facilities to self releasing artists on a modest budget.
more will follow, and pictures if i knew how to paste them
steve

Hi, I need a little Help... Ok Im using Pt9 with the safire 56, basically In the box, I have gone and ordered a ssl x desk, the write ups kinda of opened my eyes to how I would like my final mixes to sound. only problem is how would I set this up with the Safire 56? also how would I route back my final L/R stereo mix back to DAW Via spidif! Optical digital, Ive been told that I need to buy a D-Sub Patchbay..Can I work round this without the Patchbay! I never record more the 2 tracks at once. Please some 1 out there give me the best options for this scenario without breaking the bank... Thanks Joey

[Trev@Circle]

Looking great Steve! Would love to come and check the place out some time!

[Steve Honest]

Originally Posted by JoeyOsk

Hi, I need a little Help... Ok Im using Pt9 with the safire 56, basically In the box, I have gone and ordered a ssl x desk, the write ups kinda of opened my eyes to how I would like my final mixes to sound. only problem is how would I set this up with the Safire 56? also how would I route back my final L/R stereo mix back to DAW Via spidif! Optical digital, Ive been told that I need to buy a D-Sub Patchbay..Can I work round this without the Patchbay! I never record more the 2 tracks at once. Please some 1 out there give me the best options for this scenario without breaking the bank... Thanks Joey

hi joey
the x desk is great , i had one for ages and was happy with it everyday
a patch bay makes it very easy to interface the desk and your saffire, you cn use some normalising to save you on patch cables, you can prtin back to your daw via spdif as the x desk is all analogue outputs, but this is no disadvantage, just route the desk outputs to 2 of your saffire inputs and record back in analogue, a bit like the old take days.
signix is a very good d sub patch bay , i have had a few and very pleased with the quality

steve