External meter bridge?

[jkowtko]

After three days I'm really liking the Soundcraft LX7 I just purchased for the theater. The art-deco buttons and pot knobs have really grown on me, and the response of the controls is very smooth overall.

However, the lack of a meter bridge is killing me, and I'm really surprised that there are so few low-end boards with meter bridges.

Question -- does anyone know of an external meter bridge that I can buy, or build with parts, that would plug into the channel direct outs?

Currently I have a bunch of Behringer MDX4600s plugged in for compression, and the input meter on those servers as a makeshift meter bridge, but the placement and orientation of the MDX4600s and their meters makes it difficult to use them for true metering purposes. It would be great to find something I could mount directly above the board channel inputs.

Any help here would be much appreciated.

Thanks. John

[mixmaster]

I've got a couple LED meters around here somewhere, I just took them out of one of the house racks. They were measuring output to the amp rack. I suppose you could use 24 of them. If I can find them again I'll reply to this and let you know what they were.
Are you sure you want to use the direct outs though. It's been a while since I've used that board but I thought the D.O. were post fade?

[jkowtko]

Only channels 1-16 have DOs ... but there's a Pre/Post switch on them all

Yes, please send me the info on the LEDs if you find them. I can make a 16 channel meter bridge.

Thanks. John

[mixmaster]

Originally Posted by jkowtko

Only channels 1-16 have DOs ... but there's a Pre/Post switch on them all

Yes, please send me the info on the LEDs if you find them. I can make a 16 channel meter bridge.

Thanks. John

Surprisingly enough I found them! I cleaned out the boneyard this AM and actually put stuff away. Anyhow, What I took out of my rack is an RDL RU-SM16. They are two channel, 16 led meters that can be mounted 3 to a frame (total of six meters) to fit in a single rack space. However after checking the RDL website, these are 200kohm devices, and may not work for your application. I don't know what the output specs are on the DO for your LX7. Everywhere we use them, it's a fairly hot line level. Check them out here:
- RU-SM16 Dual Audio Meter - Average/Peak/Hold

If this won't work, I'd continue to look for other ideas on the RDL site. They have a lot of little solution boxes and I've found all of their stuff to be good quality, if slightly expensive. Best of luck

[jkowtko]

The LX7 has 75 ohm DOs, so that should be fine.

I don't want to rack mount these -- I already have the MDX4600s sitting in the rack. I wanted to create an home-built meter bridge to mount just above the input channels and position each LED bank above it's corresponding channel. If I turn these on side they should be narrow enough (1.75" per two channels) to fit within the board's channel width.

However -- I just looked at pricing -- these are very expensive ... $200/unit, that's $100/channel! Might as well go buy a Spirit Live 8 ... I'm looking for something for about $2/channel, that I can solder my own wires on, etc

Thanks. John

[mixmaster]

RDL is not cheap, that's for certain.
If what you want is component level, I usually find Mouser to be a pretty reasonable place to start, but I warn you, their website is a bit awkward.

[jkowtko]

Here's what I'm thinking of ...

10-LED Bargraph Meter PCB adjustable levels, multi-use - eBay (item 330198026902 end time Aug-10-08 12:55:26 PDT)

however this particular unit is just a bit wider than the channel strip on the LX7, so if you know of any others like this please post the information.

Thanks. John

[waynehoskins]

It doesn't have a 4-bar meter right at the fader? Those things ("idiot lights") grow on you fast. I wonder sometimes how I lived without them for so long.

[jkowtko]

Allen & Heath boards have the 4-segment LED. GL2200, GL2400 and up. Those are higher on my list than the Soundcraft LX7, but they're a lot more expensive, even used. And even 4 segments still does not provide as much feedback to the user as a full 12 segment bargraph (-20, 0, +6, peak) since a lot of my monitoring happens between the -20 and 0 range.

Then some boards have a signal and peak (2 LEDs), and most of the lower-end boards just have a peak indicator.

The LX7 appears to be the entry level for Soundcraft's medium level format, and looking at their price structure and the GB line and how it compares to A&H, it looks like they had to keep a lot of features out of the Live4/LX7 series to keep it clearly distinguished from the Live8 and GB line, in order to prevent cannibalism. Unfortunately, that's a standard marketing strategy ... offer a full line of products but clearly distinguish between them on cost and features so you don't overpack the lower-end models and lose sales on the upper end.

It would be awesome if Soundcraft were to offer a meter bridge for the LX7 -- even at $1000 it would probably be worth buying. There just aren't many lower-end boards that have meter bridges. Other than the Behringer MX9000 and Mackie 8-bus, you pretty much have to move up to a full medium format console in the $3-5k+ range. Even on the digital side -- if the Yamaha 01v96 had a meter bridge option that would we great. But you have to start with the DM1000 or LS9 at $4k+ ...

[museav]

Originally Posted by jkowtko

It would be awesome if Soundcraft were to offer a meter bridge for the LX7 -- even at $1000 it would probably be worth buying. There just aren't many lower-end boards that have meter bridges. Other than the Behringer MX9000 and Mackie 8-bus, you pretty much have to move up to a full medium format console in the $3-5k+ range. Even on the digital side -- if the Yamaha 01v96 had a meter bridge option that would we great. But you have to start with the DM1000 or LS9 at $4k+ ...

I have to believe that very few people purchasing an $1,800 console would be willing to spend $1,000, or anything near that, for a meter bridge so there likely is simply insufficient demand to justify it. And if an $1,800 console includes a meter bridge then think about the compromises probably required elsewhere in the console to maintain that price.

I'm looking for something for about $2/channel, that I can solder my own wires on, etc.

I doubt that's practical. A 10 or 12 segment green/yellow/red bargraph and driver IC alone may be closer to 3 to 4 times that. Then you need a power supply, housing, scaling resistors, etc.

The direct outputs of an LX7ii are either post-fader or pre-fader but the pre-fader signal is post high pass, insert and EQ. Also, 8 of the mono inputs do not have direct outputs. I'm sure you already know this, but that would seem to limit the monitoring possible using the direct outputs.