Building my own live mixer

Glad to hear it all works well. You've done a fine job on the works in it. Did you put a computer type fan inside for cooling or is that overkill? Looking forward to seeing the finished panel.
 
This should be awesome. Just when you finish, would you mind putting up a approximate price?
 
Axkoa said:
This should be awesome. Just when you finish, would you mind putting up a approximate price?

Well, the schematics are up there - you could do an approximate BOM cost yourself.  Prices are going to vary whereever you are in the world, so you may as well check it out from your local distributor.  The PCBs were cut rate from Dirty PCB - they were about $20 for a batch of 10, so about $2 USD each.  The wood for the box was scrap.  You already know that the top plate is about 100 bucks, but if you have access to a CNC machine you could probably drop that to about a third or less.

If you're going to be an engineer, you should be able to work out a price on your own.  :)
 
Departing band members must pay for new control plate!

Man, that's a sexy beast.  Great work there, MF.
 
fdesalvo said:
Departing band members but pay for new control plate!

Man, that's a sexy beast.  Great work there, MF.

Thanks man!  Departing band members just get scraped off  :icon_biggrin:
 
There you go. The old bezel becomes a lovely keepsake parting gift for the wanderer, and the new member buys a fresh bezel and a pony keg of beer as part of initiation.
 
Hi folks,

It was a nice day yesterday so I was outside working on the box.  I routed the outside corners and it all looked good.  Time for hardware!

So I was looking around for a pair of detachable hinges, and I found these at Lee Valley:

http://www.leevalley.com/en/hardware/page.aspx?p=45246&cat=3,41241

Unfortunately when I went around to the store/warehouse I found out that they are really tiny.  Like jewelry box sized.  A search didn't turn up anything else, so I went 'round to Canadian Tire and grabbed a pair of hinges with removable pins and proceeded to make my own. 

The first step is to cut a slot in the middle bit with a hacksaw.  You need removable pins so you can separate the pieces:

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After a little bit of shaping with a file, the other side could slip in and out easily:

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Once that was done, I somehow had to fix those loose pins in place.  I used my drill press and a #53 drill to carefully drill 1/4" deep holes in the end of the pins.

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Then I inserted them into the hinge plate, grabbed a punch and gave it a solid whack - which mushroomed out the end fixing it in the hinge plate.

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Box is enclosed and the lid lifts off with no problem!

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After that was all done, it was time to put the electronics in and see how it worked overall.

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The plan is to have the unit mounted on a mic stand for easy tweaking, so I put one of those female end mic sockets in the bottom.

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Seems to work pretty well!

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Looks really good. What a good idea to put the mic socket in the bottom. I like the way it is readily accessible.

Have you considered switching the pieces of the latch so the floppy loop side comes off with the lid and is out of your way?
 
Very well done! As Rgand pointed out, mic stand socket is a terrific idea. Nice...  :icon_thumright:
 
That is clever. If I'd have thought of it at all, I probably would have used a speaker stand/cup arrangement.
 
How are you mic'ing drums? Kick only or overhead? I'm all for minimalist micing of drums, but minimal is typically bass drum if there's only one mic, and 2 is still "minimalist"
 
Well,

For small gigs and practice: Electronic drums (into the board)
For medium gigs: acoustic drums - no mics.  Ralph can get pretty loud if he wants.  :)
For big gigs: PA rental house with full crew - they do whatever  :)
 
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