Stephen Smoker, a man of great intensity and passion, is the mind and hands behind the bass guitar on The Drama’s record. The signal chain was a fun one – we went from Stephen’s bass to his amp head, then line out into the console, line out of the console into a mult, took one signal straight from the console and another through the Joemeek SC2.2 Opto Compressor. Blended nicely, the tracks sound great and fit into the mixes just right. Oh, and the performances are GOOD.

There are so many great and endearing aspects of the Dynamix 3000 that we have at Kilo. The vintage design lends so many pleasant characteristics to not only the audio, but the general vibe of the studio as well. Paired with an ‘industry standard’, modern, Pro Tools HD system, it says it all about what we strive for at Kilo – the best of both worlds, both old (and vibey) and new (plus clean).

Master Channels

I was determined to tinker and improve the console by way of minor ‘modernization’ of certain components. I swapped an old 5532 opamp with a brand new opa2604 opamp in one of the two master channels and did an A/B listening test. The result was noticeable right away – the modified channel sounded ‘better’ to me initially. After listening for a while, these words came to mind: cleaner, more robust, better stability…

Admittedly, before the switch there was some dirt on the floor. The new opamps were like a consumer-grade vacuum cleaner and cleaned all of the obvious mess, but couldn’t necessarily get every little bit of dust up. In other words, the noise floor was more existent before the swap – not that the noise floor is completely absent now, though.

The audio from the console would start to break up and distort at about +6 dB (on the meters) but the new opamps make the distortion less apparent – not that I would run program at +6 dB – but it translates to better headroom. There is less stress on the amplifier and the resulting sound becomes open and takes on some life, as opposed to the ever-approaching-flat-topped-plateu-of-dynamic-range thing that was going on before.

This is good news because not only are we hearing more of the actual audio now, but when we record the two track output of the console, it prints with these ‘new and improved’ characteristics.

Pro Tools Sub Channel Returns

I decided to experiment further. The Pro Tools outputs come back to sub channels 3 and 4 on the console. I wondered what would happen if I replaced the opamp in each of these channels with a modern one…

Again I did an A/B listening test, and the results were far from subtle. I was shocked, actually. I was hearing things I literally hadn’t heard before in the songs I was so… scientifically… using for the test. It’s like I was listening with cloth over the speakers before. The high end of the frequency spectrum extended so much further! The lows were less conspicuous, but extended a little further and had a stronger constitution. The mids sounded much flatter and more uniform, especially between about 800 Hz and 2kHz, and the low mid mud was mopped up. More detailed harmonics made the instruments sound more realistic and I was hearing super minimal reverbs and delays that just weren’t there before. The transient response was astoundingly faster with the new opamp, too.

Such great improvements can be made in such small ways – all of these things from a simple component substitution! Swapping an older 5532 for a new opa2604 in 2 different places worked wonders for the Dynamix. All this was possible because of the custom power supply that we had built, of course, so… don’t try this at home *without a little bit of research*. After that, have fun!

Let’s Record.

Mitchell

Jason from The Drama sings some texture vocals through a little megaphone into a BLUE Dragonfly pointed into the lounge room where a room mic picks up some nice, natural delays.

A Little Bit of History

The amount of information about the Dynamix 3000 recording console and the company that made it, Starsound, is staggeringly difficult to find. An internet search gives results of single-post forum pages with nothing more than a question and tumbleweeds rolling through, as well as a couple of other studios that have a Dynamix board. I dug deep and eventually got in contact with someone in Leeds that had some schematics, but unfortunately no information outside of that. I kept looking and eventually learned that Fender bought out the company and added the products to their Sunn line. I could even, apparently, buy some printed manuals and such from them. I did so, and after $10 and about 2 months I finally had some answers, or so I thought. The documentation was super basic and included diagrams of how to connect the board to other gear. Oh, and it also taught me about overdubbing and mixing. My life. Was. Complete. I hopped into my virtual rowboat once again and paddled my way through the ocean of information. At last! A message in a bottle!

Legend has it that around the mid to late 70’s, a disgruntled ex Neve employee started this company. Its focus was designing and building mid-level gear, which at that time was considered to be rather good for its price and got favorable reviews. The company went out of business just about as quickly as it sprung up. I have read claims that Starsound was a child company of Whiteley Electronics, which is located in Nottinghamshire and seems to still be around. This is about the extent of the information I have regarding the company.

My particular board went up for auction after Indigo Ranch, in Malibu, closed its doors. I was told that this board came from the legendary studio, and it was probably used for some of the recordings that came out of Indigo Ranch. I have been searching high and low to find the confirmation of this, and to also learn on which recordings this board was used.

This Is How To Ship a Recording Console

Being a neophyte gear collector, making the decision to purchase a real, functioning recording console was a rather easy one to make. For about a week after winning the online auction I waited, very eagerly, for my prize to arrive. When it did finally come, it was epic. A semi pulled into the little tiny Wisconsin neighborhood – a sight never before seen – and came to a rest at the top of my driveway. I RAN out to greet the driver, and he said, “You must be Mitchell Cepaitis.” Duh.

Through the use of modern lifting equipment, the mighty crate containing my treasure was lifted off the truck and moved into the garage, which was very cold, due to it being the middle of winter. This was no place for a such pretty thing to stay. I immediately grabbed a crowbar to pry off the lid, like I had seen so many times in the movies, but it turns out that the company that packed and shipped the crate used screws – probably, you know, just to make sure it wouldn’t fall out during transit or something.

After grabbing the screwdriver, I properly removed the lid of the box and the Dynamix 3000 was peeking out at me through a bed of bubble wrap and other packing material. After completely unpacking and cleaning it, I naturally wanted to fire it up. I was with some friends and my parents, and everyone was excited to see what this mysterious, brownish thing with ‘all the knobs’ actually did. I connected the master output to my home theater speakers and handed a microphone to a friend. I flipped the power switches and we watched (me in amazement and everyone else in disappointment) as the LED meters filled and slowly floated back down to the ‘ON’ designation (meaning the channels were connected and working, but there was no signal – basically, -INF). I had my very own set of LED VU meters! And I could even change them to PPI with a quick push of some buttons! I told my friend with the microphone to talk and as I raised the gain and fader slowly, his voice came out of the speakers. I was dancing with glee! Everyone else looked like they had just collectively asked a question and were waiting for the response. “Is this all it does?”

I explained some of the more intricate workings and nobody was impressed. The 16 input chanels, the 8 sub-group channels, routing capabilities, send and return pots (making it possible to blend original signal with processed signal! Parallel processing, anyone?), talkback functions, 4 channels of beautiful EQ, 4 aux sends… They just didn’t understand.

It actually wasn’t until recently that I finally justified the purchase of the board to my parents. I played some of my earlier recordings using lesser preamps and then I played some of the material from the albums I had been working on using the console. They finally understood. It was all about having the right tool for the job.

I’ve Never Recapped a Board, How Hard Can It Be?

Not surprisingly, within the first week of having the Dynamix I caused a small explosion inside of it. Small, like the size of a capacitor, but little did I know that this tiny mishap was the beginning of a big problem. I would be experiencing a long, arduous (albeit educational) period where the console was non-functional.

After moving the board to Chicago I contacted a local technical wizard and all around great guy to come take a look. It turns out that the power supply was failing and when I asked if I would be able to find a replacement, a hearty laugh was the response. The solution was even better though – I ended up with a brand new, custom built power supply that improved upon the original. Headroom and noise were improved and I would now be able to modify the board with modern opamps. WIN.

I was also told that I would need to recap the board. In case you aren’t familiar, the process involves replacing every single little capacitor that is part of the internal electronics. I decided to do it myself, because after all, I had done some soldering before – how hard could it be? I completely unloaded the channel strips from the console and cleaned the inside of the frame. I took out the fader assemblies and cleaned the accumulated dust and debris that inevitably falls into the crevice in which the fader travels. I found any other excuse to put off the soldering. After realizing how many points I would have to first desolder and then resolder, I was honestly intimidated. I eventually dove in and several days of doing nothing but melting this strange metal passed. I got into a good rhythm and decided it wasn’t so hard. My ambition grew and I then replaced the internal wiring that seemed to be slowly becoming an issue. Another few days and each channel strip was in great working order. Am I totally satisfied? Of course not. Anyone who knows me understands my constant strive to learn something new or experiment a little further…

During my time inside the electronics, I became a little more familiar with the circuit architecture and the components’ characteristics. Each channel with a microphone preamp uses a Belclere Oxford transformer (the same that Neve used during the era) at the input stage. I think the next modification will be to make 4 channels transformerless, for super fast transient response and replace the old opamps with modern ones for (hopefully) an ultra clean sound.

The Dynamix 3000 is a very sentimental piece of gear to me because of the journey we’ve taken together, and things have only just begun. I know that I will never be able to get rid of it and we will have a long, happy future together. Those that have used a well-maintained one speak highly of it. Some extremely popular and well known recordings have been created on a Dynamix. Its presence will definitely be on many, many of my recordings to come – hopefully yours.

Let’s Record.

-Mitchell

Oh my, just what the world needs – another blog. Another AUDIO blog. Well, hopefully I can make a good impression on you, provide something fun, interesting, and useful for you to read, and you won’t mind the existence of yet another virtual journal, splayed open for all to read.

I absolutely love audio recording. The process of capturing disturbances in the air, transforming them into electricity, and then storing them, magnetically, on metal coated plastic fascinates me. It’s almost magical, in a way. The same could be said of other media, of course, but nothing can move me the way sound does. No photograph, painting, film, or other visual stimulus can affect me the way something like Chopin’s Nocturne in E Flat Major, Andante, can. Or Mayonaise by The Smashing Pumpkins. Or… well, you get the idea. This is not to say that I can’t appreciate or find value in those other things, of course. Let’s not start on the wrong foot, here.

The purpose of this blog, this website, and even Kilo as a whole, is to help bring creative things into the world. Whether it is directly, maybe by recording an amazing album with a phenomenal band, or indirectly by, say, inspiring said band to use the information from these posts to create its own recording, bringing these things to fruition is the goal, I will be sharing my thoughts on a range of things and all of my writing can be lumped into some sort of categories, perhaps something like:

Reviews of gear, bands, album production/recording

Experiences in the studio

Gear modification

Personal rants and raves

Hello, Chicago. Hello, internet. Hello, world. I hope our friendship grows into something unique.

Let’s record.

-Mitchell