Hello,

With the help of the kind gents at PMI, I decided to take on the Meter Bridge Mod project. As you can see from my previous post, there are a few options. I decided to do my own variation, and share it with Gearslutz in case someone else decided to try it.

My desire was to meter the direct outs on each channel, rather than the mon returns. The newer model ATBs have the internal buttons on each channel (accessible from the belly of the board). But there are hundreds of ATBs out there that were built before these buttons were added. This is what you will need to do to meter your direct outs:

I basically did Alan's mod, but rather than solder the meter bridge wire to the card, I modified the connector (CON2), and added a jumper to R107. Soldering the meter bridge wire to the card would essentially attach the card to the meter bridge wiring harness. If you wanted to remove a card, you'd have to desolder the wire. Not really a big deal, but I came up with a way to keep the cards modular and removable. Also, soldering the wire directly would mean you'd have to solder while the channel cards were installed in the board...which is much easier said than done, since there is a plastic connector directly above it, and it's a very strange angle. Also, since you need to apply a bit of solder to the card, I feared solder splatter, and decided it was safest (though slowest) to perform this mod with the cards removed individually.

PMI was kind enough to send me removal instructions for the input cards, and the process was very straightforward. I reccomend you work on a large flat table, with a lot of cushioning underneath a clean sheet. You'll have to flip the board over a few times, so use a big work area.

Once you have the cards out, it's easy! Just snip the + lead wire on the CON2 connector, and bend it back a few mm. Then solder a short jumper from the snipped CON2 lead, and jump it to the end of R107. It's only about 1" away, so you won't need a long jumper.

The whole project took about half a day, but the most time consuming part of the job was dealing with the knobs. They are hard to remove (you need to use padded pliers), and the inner plastic core of the knob often broke it's glue bond from the outer metal shell - and remained on the pot shafts. I had to reglue many knob back together, so be prepared! (PM me for details on knob repair, it was a project on it's own!) But I was still very happy I did the mod, it works 100%, and it makes a huge difference in my workflow. I am very jealous for the owners who have a simple button to press!!!

Even though I snipped a lead on a connector, this mod is totally reversible for future owners. Just bend the lead back, add a drop of solder, and you are back to the factory metering scheme.

A picture is worth 1000 words, so here you go! PM me if you have any questions.

Thanks,
gee_lo