Analog console users, The past week was quite a whirlwind adventure
for me ( Trax East ) and Ike Zimbel ( Zimbel Audio ). A week ago
the right channel on the mix buss of our Elite II went down ( or so
we thought ). After a day of searching and probing with no success
I called Ike at ZAP. I had been in touch with him over the past
year and was on his waiting list for his mix buss balancing
modification. I thought since we needed to have the master channel
repaired we should take advantage of the down time and have the
monitor and master channel modified. After talking we both thought
this would be a great idea and then sent the channels overnight so
he could get to work a.s.a.p. A few day's later Ike called and said
he'd finished the modifications on both channels along with the
balancing card for the mix buss but didn't see any ' smoking gun'
that would cause the right channel to go down so the problem must
be in the console somewhere. S**t, still need to find the problem.
Ike tells me to call him when I get the channels and he'll help
trace the problem. Get the channels next day, install the balancing
card ( very easy ) call Ike and with his help proceeded to track
down the problem. We're on and off the phone all day with Ike
telling me what connections to trace so we could pinpoint where the
short circuit is originating from. After a few unsuccessful hours
he asks if anyone has disconnected any outboard gear, tape decks
etc. I look around and see our old stack of cassette decks that are
still patched into the console and notice that the top deck , there
are 4 of them, was moved. I pull the decks out and sure enough
someone had taken the top deck out and never connected the RCA
input jacks back in when the deck was put back. Over time somehow
the tip of one cable fell onto the ground of the other which caused
a short on the unbalanced mix output from the console. I
reconnected the RCAs and wow left and right! What a wonderful
thing. A sure case of looking for the simplest solution first.
Ok, nice story. We've all been there one way or another. I can't
say enough about the modifications Ike did on the master and
monitor channels. The console sounded good on it's own but the top
end just opened up and the bottom just got bigger. The balanced mix
buss send/receive is a godsend. No loss of level. But I'd like to
say that it was Ike's personal involvement, dedication to clients
and support that made this happen.
Eric Rachel
Trax East Studios
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