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Soldering for me was always an annoying process back when I needed to fix my electric guitar jacks when they broke. I was 16 then, and not really into schematics and electricity diagrams, I wanted just to play in a rock and roll band. Fortunately, that did not work out ...
Also, my friends know me as a person of a rare clumsiness, so no wonder I was a bit discouraged with studiyng how to build what is actually inside those boxes we use to make music. And I'm still far from that. Anyway, well, appearently, what's inside a summing bus is relatively easy, because passive means no electricity needs to be generated inside. Basically, I wanted to build just a network to mix audio signals, so no transformers, op amps or similar were needed.
Well, first of all my friend Stewart (again) introduced me to Prodigy Pro. He's been into DIY for a while, and I never really got involved with this aspect of his activities not least because I thought I would never be so precise and constant to ever start understand the basic principles behind it, and I would never think I have got the patience to develop such projects starting from scratch.
Prodigy Pro is a forum where people share their passion for modifying existing hardware, or building new stuff. The philosophy of openly sharing the projects and the help provided by professionals moderating the forum is a perfect demonstration on how nice and useful, and stimulating the internet can be. I have been able to form a clearer idea on how I was going to build this summing device just by surfing through this forum and a few other links, and found especially useful the info presented on Forsell's webpage. There you'll find all the info you need to know about how a summing device works. What I more exactly wanted, besides having an 8x2 device, was the ability to choose to route some mono channels at the center of the stereo field ( the default, instead, would be 1 – left, 2 – right and so on).
Finding out how to implement this funcion took a bit more time, but finally I bumped into this schematic from NewYorkDave (one of the most active Prodigy Pro contributors) and that post triggered the whole thing.
So, I got a cheap basic electronics manual, bought basic soldering tools and with some help from youtube and friends I learned to solder and, well, the result of my first attempt looks pretty nice I reckon. There are so many shops where it's easy to find the parts needed: in particular, if you live in Germany or central Europe, I suggest http://www.banzaieffects.com/ for having both electronic components and luscious switches and buttons to pimp the look of your new toy.
Well, after one week of work (because that was the first time I tried out), it seems to work, and in my head is now buzzing with the idea of starting to mess with active devices ... dreaming of building my first tube amp ... well, if I'll ever do that, you'll probably find out here.
Hoping this will be helpful to someone,
M.
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