by crochambeau » Mon Dec 09, 2019 1:11 am
So, several months back I was hunting for a line level sub-mix solution to the synth closet, and I pulled out a Kawai MX-8BR 2u mixer to test and plugged the admittedly ailing Kawai SX-240 into it (because why the fuck not relish in a moment of brand linearity). The result was a terribly anemic sound. I was able to get an okay signal when I grabbed a patch lead and plugged the CZ-101 in, so I figured the SX-240 had finally passed into hard project mode.
I mean, it was pretty deep into project mode to begin with: many function LEDs are locked "on", the display is about 33% garbled hash, the PSU caps get warmer than I would like, and it needs a firmware update - but it sounded good, at least, it did...
I then dropped the project to wire sound into the closet that day because I have a bunch of other shit going on, and because the Kawai mixer was also not delivering a wide enough sound stage, itself sounding "off" or out of sorts. So, wind sucked from sails, so to speak.
Fast forward to today. I need to sort out some additional channels, and expecting the Kawai MX unit to sound like shit, I simply used it as a platform to set up a Simmons SPM 8:2. I'm fully aware that the Simmons mixers (I have two of the fucking things) are noisy & fidgety things, but I'm hoping I can dial in a sweet spot, so I unplug the pair of TRS cables I had plugged into the Kawai mixer outputs and on into my main trunk mixer.
This is where it gets complicated. See, my main mixer is an Autogram AC-8 radio station console. It is essentially eight stereo channels, each with a single volume control and a destination switch, about as dead simple as a mixer gets. I have each channel set up with input transformers, which makes driving a channel directly somewhat challenging for certain pieces of gear, hence my hanging line mixers on the input channels. Anyway,the actual input to the Autogram is via a patchbay that I have wired and connected to the input blocks. Everything on the Autogram side is balanced, since I have it set up with transformer inputs on all channels - BUT, I neglected to remember that while the "A" channel inputs that are wired to XLR are balanced, I opted to use an UNbalanced 1/4" patchbay for the "B" channel inputs (there is a selector for each channel on what source you want to route).
So, long story shorter, the Simmons sounded like shit UNLESS there was only one side active. Mid point panning sounded as if it was suffering from phase cancellation. I checked the other one to determine where the fault was (Simmons or Autogram), and the issue remained.
Then a flash bulb went off, temporarily blinding me, but casting enough doubt on the cables to swap them out. I grab unbalanced cables.
Tons of level. The Simmons works fine, but holy shit, what a noise floor. I plug the Kawai mixer in, it sounds good too...
..and finally, I plug the fucking SX-240 in, and it sounds good as well. That's why I posted. The fixed architecture synth I had thought was another deep project is only a surface project. Probably some latched logic, but playable.
So the synth closet is climbing the to-do list. Not to the top yet, but fewer fun draining obstacles in mind.
I guess the moral of the story is that there are more failure modes than the Boolean WORKS/BORKEN