Beautiful setup!...is that a large monitor screen back there?

Wow! What a beautiful setup. Did you design the desk entirely from scratch, or did you get some plans somewhere?

Thanks guys!

The monitor is a 50" plasma display - makes it easy to see from across the room

The desk was designed by me from scratch. It was actually very simple. I built two 14U base rack units that were deep and secured a board between them as a shelf. The mixer sits on this shelf (shelf is slightly lower than the tops of the racks so mixer looks "built in"). I then made a front rail piece and built two small 4U racks for the top.

All the racks were built with Russian Birch ply (similar to Baltic Birch - 7 layers, no voids, very strong) using pocket screws and trimmed with solid mahogany to hide the edges. This is a very fast way to build boxes - not as nice as solid wood with box or dovetail joints, but just as strong and (depending on wood choice) a bit less expensive. Finish is Danish oil and wax.

Oh, and I should add, I originally built this desk for my R16. When upgraded to the GS-R24m I simply replaced the "shelf" and the front rail. I also built a top trim piece to go above the meter bridge. The modular design improves the odds of me being able to adapt the desk as my needs change. It is amazing how quick 36U of rack space fills up.

finally got my R24 setup the way I want it

Nice console and woodwork! Am tempted to sell my older desk(s) and check the A&H out.

Very cool!

Looks Awesome!

I notice a Dangerous D box on the left side. Do you sum your mixes through that unit as well as the mixer? How do you actually use it since the mixer receives the signal?

Thats a good point. I have a nicerizer 16 summing mixer and I wonder if I would buy a desk should I keep it and use it as my main summing? I'm not really sure how beneficial / practical would that be in this case.

Thanks!

I haven't as yet used the D-Box for summing because I'm waiting for a db25 cable to arrive from the States.

So here's my cunning plan:

spread a mix out accross the R24 from my daw. take direct outs from the master L/R, 2x Tube Channels and 4 x mono subgroups and sum them in the D-Box.

Then route the sum to my Metric Halo ULN-2 controlled by a Macbook Pro running Slates VBC plugs.

Using the D-Box I can switch between

1) the sum,
2) the digital return from the ULN-2 (including buss compression)
3) control room out from the R24 (for solo in place)
4) a reference mix

no idea where this will take me, but hey, I got the gear and I'm a slut so I gotta try it

Hmmm ... I've thought the desk would be my 'summing box' ... in my case the AH 16R.

I intended to send submixes from my DAW in stereo pairs to the A&H pre EQ, EQ them on the board and run the main outs through a hardware compressor for mix down and then recording it on my laptop at 44.1k and 16bit to bypass dithering.

Why wouldn't summing digital input through the board and rerecording it be the same ... if not possibly better ... as using the D-Box or other summing device?

It's only about the AD conversion through the summing box really, isn't it? If you are going through the A&H at all, how can a summing mixer improve that?

I'm just playing around.

The D-Box primarily a monitor controller and has no built in AD only DA for monitoring, and also has 8 channel summing. Obviously it's going to be a different flavor to the R24 master buss, and I want to see if I like that flavor.

There's nothing wrong with using the R24 or R16 master buss for summing but I wanted to see what replacing it with a D-Box would bring to the table, and since I have a ULN-2 I want to test it as the final AD, and since I can run and monitor VBC on it, effectively across the analog master bus... well, why not?

Experimenting with your setup is fun, no?

Just experimenting with my gear like any other gearslut would.

Why wouldn't summing digital input through the board and rerecording it be the same ... if not possibly better ... as using the D-Box or other summing device?

The summing headroom on the D-Box is rated at +27dBu and the master buss converters on the R24 at +18Bbu (with the console clipping at +23dBu) if I'm not mistaken.

Dbox will offer a clearer, wider and 3 dim sound. When you sum again through the A&H the benefit of the D box sound will be diminished

First ... "playing around" is obviously good.

Second ... and here is what is unclear to me ... it seems that if you use the A&H F/W audio device you necessarily are getting your ADC from the A&H. If you take this analog and then run it through a D-Box I'd think you'd still be limited by the quality of the A&H ADC.

BTW, I wasn't talking about running back from the D-Box and then through the desk. I was talking about coming out of the DAW into the desk with sub-mixes and then summing at the mains of the desk.

That would work.

I have no problem with the ADC of the R24. The purpose of the exercise is to replace the R24 master buss with the D-Box summing for the improved headroom.

Dbox will offer a clearer, wider and 3 dim sound.
This is what I'm hoping for.

When you sum again through the A&H the benefit of the D box sound will be diminished
Which is why I'll be recording the stereo sum of the D-Box with the ULN-2.

I'll be eager to hear your opinions on this!

Still waiting for the db25 cable to arrive, but I'll be sure to report back and let you know how it goes once I get it.

I don't think a GSR24 will ever be in my budget ... but what I 'd give for a R16 with proper direct outs, connections vertical on the back and a meter bridge.

I wonder if anyone is modding anything like that or anything at all for the R16s.

Hi everybody,

just remodeled the custom desk I made for my GSR24 and I'm extremely happy with it :D

Great thread. Curious to know how mitzush's summing experiments turned out. I would think that the A&H would have headroom to spare if properly gain staged.

I have no problem with the headroom of the R24, it's fine.

Haven't had time recently to go really deep into my setup yet, but it's working now. I did have fun playing with the character emulations summing to the ULN-2 and the d-box does indeed have bags of headroom. As for the sound, I need more time with it.

I'll try and get some sound samples together, recording the output of the d-box to the ULN-2 and recording straight back into the R24, just to compare the converters, but we're expecting a baby any day now so that's going to have to wait a while.

HI I have a question.
i have a gsr24m and i'm trying to understand the porpoises of couple of things:
1) the porpoise of send=post eq daw? is it mean that i can send signal to gsr24m from daw after eq? if yes how can i do this?
2)I/P=daw. if there an output channel that i can send a signal from daw to stereo bas what is the port number?
3)how can i work whit 17-24=AUX+GRP and how to set them correctly.

thanks.

Very nice!

1) Are you referring to buttons A B C D?
button A pressed means: while recording the signal goes through the GSR24M Mic/Line pre -> INSERT -> EQ -> DAW
If A is not pressed: Mic/Line pre -> DAW

While mixing:
If button C pressed the signal from the DAW goes:
DAW -> comes in after the INSERT & EQ on the GSR24 -> Fader
Button B pressed: from DAW -> comes in before the INSERT -> EQ -> Fader



2) I/P=DAW in the stereo channels/tube channels:

signal from DAW to the stereo channels/tube channels

channels: 25/26 = stereo 1
27/28 = stereo 2
29/30 = Tube Ch1/Ch2

3) If button 17-24 = AUX/GRP is pressed channels 17-24 from the board get replaced by axes and grp channels on the interface - means you can send signals from/to the AUX/GRP channels from/to the DAW.

hope that helps
cheers

Hello Everyone,

I have a question about how to record the analog summed 2 bus back into the daw via firewire.

Is this even possible and if how?

I could not make it work and would be very happy if someone could help.

All the best
Johannes