From left to right: Sy Potma; Dave Miller; Roger Ginsley: Ike Zimbel; Ron Lynch; Jeff Johns.
Sy elaborated on the topic for tonight's meeting.
He introduced the following panel members: Roger Ginsley of Tekxelectronics, Jeff Johns of JJ Pro Audio Group, Ron Lynch of Technicolor, Dave Miller of Airfield Audio, and Ike Zimbel of Zimbel Audio Productions and provided extensive summaries of their backgrounds. Sy Potma of Fanshawe College, acted as moderator.
The first question was:
How did you get started in electronics and studio-Tech work?
Jeff Johns: At a young age began piano and violin lessons until the age of 15. He has perfect pitch. He studied dentistry. He took the 3 year Technologist course at Niagara College. He was in the computer business for 5 years. He later went back to school studying at Trebas. He considers working for Jack at Tele-tech as his real start in the profession. He was technical director at Film House for ten years after being asked to assist in the installation. Most of his work is in the Post production. He went freelance in 1998. Currently he's working on a very large studio in Toronto.
Dave Miller: He built Heathkit and Dynaco hi-fi systems from scratch in his youth. He got the music bug in the 60's and '70's. He studied music and recording techniques at Berklee. While working at a studio he discovered a natural talent into repairing and maintaining recording gear.
Roger Ginsley: "Two men in white coats came for me one time!" During high school, his headmaster noticed his ability in electronics and suggest getting work in a telephone company. It was there that he went to college and studied electronics in the sixties. In the seventies, he got the opportunity to start work at Wessex-Reed Studios which was his introduction into recording. His amazed these days with the with bands he worked with as they were generally unknown at the time. He was hired in 1976 to work in Canada at the Olympics. In 1981 he became a contract tech at Sounds Interchange until 1995 when he went freelance.
Ike Zimbel: He always tinkered with things as a kid. His first electronic 'job' was building an extension speaker on the kitchen radio! He always wanted to be involved with music. He started his own DJ business in PEI at 14 yrs., and built and maintained some of his own gear. He began mixing bands at 16. He moved to Toronto in 1979. He got jobs touring with bands, (one of them eventually became known as Glass Tiger), often repairing gear when possible. In 1981, with a sound company called Westbury who had a line known as Select Concert Products, he began work silk screening, etching & assembling circuit boards. He considers this manufacturing aspect an important part of his development as it instilled a methodology. He then began work with a 'sound co-operative' doing repair. This led to a position at Sounds Interchange as assistant engineer which he hated! Six months he asked to be transferred to the maintenance department and worked under Roger (Ginsley) for a time.
Ron Lynch: "Curiosity": he wondered how things worked and also took thing apart. At 13, a friend had a battery operated tape recorder which after playing around with it piqued his interest in recording and its industry. He began building and modifying tape recorders, recording his friends' music and producing compilations. He became the go-to guy for anything electronic. Deciding he wanted to be a recording engineer he first wanted to know how things worked, so his post secondary education consisted taking the appropriate courses at Ryerson. During his first week working at a professional studio he realized did not want to be an engineer but a technician! And since then "it's been very rewarding and a lot of fun". An opportunity came along to work for Octopus Audio, a division of Manta Sound. He did much design work and custom manufacturing, and presided over a very rapid growth in sales to professional audio and video markets. Deciding he was way more administrative than technological work, he began his own company doing "all kinds of fantastic projects" involving design and service. Family obligations had him decide to take on a position at what is now known as Technicolor. There is not a day where he has not learned something new - and he still does not want to be recording engineer!
Sy: He always watched his siblings take things apart, and build things like stereos and a lap steel guitar. He had a friend with 'piles' of electronics which got him hooked. After joining a band, he was able to create a 'fuzz' tone via a transistor radio! This led to being things like the 'sound guy', the 'soldering guy', and 'equipment lugger'. He got into live sound through Festival Productions.
As many in the audience still had analog and tube gear, the next question concerned buying equipment, off the Internet and otherwise:
Roger, referencing his recent book 'The Bottomless Money Pit', discussed the issue of people who bought gear off the 'net in such a condition that 'calling it a boat anchor was an insult to boat anchors! Examples: a purchase of an 1176 limiter with no absolutely innards; Studer that had been dropped with irreparably damaged internals. And there was no recourse for these purchases. His advice: Buying from a dealer is a better bet as a dealer needs to continue his reputation. Other questions to be asked regardless of the seller: are the manufacturers still in business? is firmware still available? Name brands don't necessarily mean as much today as they did originally. Are schematics available?
Ike: SSL will not support 4000 series because they can not get the parts for them.
Roger: Classic gear may not function as expected, parts are no longer available.
Ike: Repair jobs have become restoration jobs and that cost can approach what the gear cost new.
Roger: Buying from studios can be touchy. When money is short in studios, maintenance goes first. Defective equipment often goes into the gear they're selling. Are you getting all the defective channels? Roger checks the channels at the end to find out how much fixing has to be done and the quality of the maintenance work in the studio.
Jeff: Get a reputable local tech to check the console .
Even then, Ike has seen almost 100% failure rate of console power supplies even though he and his client have seen the console functioning in the studio they intended to purchase from. Part of the reason is that it was on 24/7.
Jeff: Gear doesn't like its new home, or being moved.
Roger: Temperature change is often the main culprit. The gear is old; components wear out.
Ike: Discussing the Soundcraft Ghost console, he noted a congenital defect where the insert jacks lift off the circuit board and cease to normal the signal. An external patch bay would do the normaling and hide the internal jack errors.
An audience member asked if the jacks aren't printed-circuit-board mounted?
Ike replied yes, but the solder joints crack very easily.
Sy asked the panel to comment on the fact that chips (IC's; op amps) are disappearing as well as components. Only most sale-able chips are manufactured to the RoHS (Reduction Of Hazardous Substances) Standard.
Roger, in discussing upgrades and op-amps, cautioned about doing headroom mods, having seen many of them going horribly wrong with oscillation and instability problems because the circuit wasn't looked at in the proper context.
Sy then asked what changes in the industry the members of the panel had noted.
Ike noted the change in workflow in recording studios. In the older days every part of the consoles, tape machines, and monitors had to work. Nowadays, knobs can be half off a pot or a switch is broken. Not all things that are broken the client wants fixed. Equipment might be only used for a part of its functions; ie: mic pres in a console.
An audience member asked a question about a situation where everything malfunctions, the tech walks in and everything suddenly works perfectly; he leaves and it's back to disaster!
Jeff: "That's how we get paid"!
Sy noted that that's the rationale that the industry lived with for many years that studios had to have techs physically there to make sure everything ran.
Jeff Johns stated today he has fewer techs now but with more equipment to manage.
Sy re-iterated the question asking if he panel was familiar with that phenomena.
Ike stated that he takes these reports seriously. He believes and trusts the person who works constantly with gear when things go wrong even if it takes a long time and a lot of work to hunt it down.
The audience member discussed his work in churches and how those environments seem to be re-broadcasters of RF and Chinese radio stations, generators of hum and buzz.
Ike noted that many church installations are terribly bad and highly political. Installations in older places are worse. Electrical wiring may not follow code.
An audience member brought up the subject of ground. How much of the problem is ground?
Jeff Johns noted it's more likely bad electrical wiring. So it follows that the ground will be a problem in those situations. Things are not planned properly.
Ike reinforced Jeff's view discussing a client with a new home studio with the wiring done correctly. New additions added later by a new electrician added problems until a consultant pinpointed the problem.
Referring to Bill Whitlock's presentation, Roger stated adding more grounds adds more current paths. Ground wire does carry current.
Sy mentioned that questions regarding grounding won't be delved into too deeply because Mr. Whitlock's presentations, which can be found on the AES website, did a superb job covering the topic.
Ron, returning to the question, jokingly stated a cutter for the 3rd pin does wonders!!
Continuing seriously, from his experience, noted that if the initial infrastructure concerns are dealt with solidly, correctly following simple physics rules, you'll have no problems with ground. Some of those being that cable has to be twisted, not shielded. Make sure racks are well grounded. The power going to them is isolated ground coming from an isolated ground transformer. All the equipment grounds that are going to the power bars inside the racks, inside the studios, are all isolated grounds.
Ike added the 3rd ground pin is the best connection to a good ground point inside your equipment that you're going to get.
Ron continued that properly twisted wire does not pick up hum. He recounted Neil Muncy's presentation featuring empirical evidence of this. Shielding only works on high frequency issues. The exception occurs with low level signals like microphones, where being susceptible to picking up RF, you need to have shielding. It also helps you get your phantom power.
He added when buying old equipment (say 25 years old), consider spending $300 to have the capacitors swapped out before installation.
The tech's role is to prevent problems.
An audience member wanted to know how the panel dealt with handling balanced and unbalanced equipment in a studio.
Ron: "Do not send unbalanced signals around your complex". In a professional facility, make sure every signal is balanced. This is done through electronic or passive balancing devices (transformers). Also use a leveling device so that everything is always at operating level typically +4dBu.
Another audience question concerned operating levels and gain structures.
Roger: The majority of the people running home studios, don't understand line level, impedance matching, and balancing.
Jeff Johns provided an example where a novice might not understand that when a level is about 6 dB down (compared to others in a console) is due probably to a one-legged balanced signal or a bad normal in a patch bay, and compensates merely by increasing the line trim.
Ike: "I've never calibrated a Protools HD rig that did not have one channel somewhere that someone had adjusted either (or both) input and output trim pot to compensate for some other problem somewhere else down the line".
Roger stated calibration is a major problem that he runs in to.
Sy suggested a break but asked for a few comments from Dave Miller who stated if you interface a balanced signal with an unbalanced signal it's always a crap shoot. He also recounted a job at a church where the audio system had to be 'un-grounded' from the church system by putting 6-foot copper stake in the grounds outside. "So don't forget the copper stake".
Ron stated they go through the Hydro itself and no longer use copper stakes.
At this point, Sy suggested everyone take a break.
A discussion about alternatives for power supplies and capacitors after the break:
Dave recommend rebuilding the power supply through a company called Acopian.
Roger noted he uses them a lot. He thought it odd they have no power switch or a fuse.
Ike noted that's because they're meant to be built into an external chassis. His issue with that is that they technically have to be certified by CSA. His other issue is that the rails don't talk to each other.
Dave noted Acopian offers a five year guarantee which impressed Ike, who noted a lot of companies won't be around in five years!
Sy's next question to the panel was "how do you get stuff fixed?":
Ike stated his most cost effective tip to offer was: communication. Be accurate. Be up front and honest. Don't be afraid of looking stupid.
While Ike was illustrating why that was important Jeff stated "We're all just detectives."
Sy then asked "Would they (the client) pay you to be a detective or would they rather have you fix it quickly?"
Roger offered that the issue is history; because the tech needs to know why something is not working. As an example if someone tells him simply something is not working he'll begin by assuming a power supply issue. But if someone notes display or error codes, this provides a clue to begin intelligent troubleshooting by identifying what works and what doesn't. This aims at the heart of the problem.
Dave says he asks the client to show him what they think is wrong.
Ike added that he finds out if the client did research. If so forward the link if applicable. Also, did the client work on it a bit already?
An audience question touched on the subject of fees: as an example he offered a hypothetical case of the amount of time to find 10 cent part, but the labour is $300.
Ike joked that he just coined a term for that: "Compressor related bankruptcy"!
An audience asked for trade secrets, specifically products for cleaning switches and contacts.
Jeff uses EML.
Roger has great success with MG Chemicals Contact Cleaner without silicon.
Ike uses the Cake Lab Products: G5, F5. Also distilled water; isopropyl alcohol; and white vinegar.
An audience member wanted to how much one is shortening the life span of equipment powering it off and on (for overnight).
Roger said in his experience, the cap's life can be shortened by 1/3 shutting power on and off. Gear running even a little hot tends to have longevity.
Ike stated older gear had to be over built to work reliably and may be a reason for longevity.
Sy added that they may not be built to last 20 years anymore, the rationale being it may be obsolete in five years.
Roger mentioned that trying to find axial cap's are getting difficult to find, and expensive.
However, Jeff offered that gear gets exercised turning it off and on. Cycling gets components 'used' to turning on and off.
Sy added that today's home studio's don't get used 24 hours a day; if one only needs the studio for, say, 4 hours you might as well turn it off and get more life out of it.
Ike's experience, working with studio gear left on 24/7 versus PA gear which was on 6 hours a day then off while on the road the rest of the time, was that the gear on the road was far better electronically than the studio gear.
Sy said studios often added more and more equipment in racks, resulting in the equipment running hotter 24/7.
Ike said of the power-cycle-failure issue (where everything works fine the day before, but fails turning it on the next day) could be the gear is running too hot in the first place because of connection issues with the wiring.
Another audience member asked for views on tube circuits and how tube longevity is affected if left on 24/7.
Ike said it depends on the functions of the tube: whether it's 'true' tube gear (ie: Manley, Pultec, etc. which actually use tubes for amplification) or it's solid state gear with a tube in the middle for 'warmth'. With all tube equipment (the first group) he recommends turning it off. When turning it on, wait 1/2 an hour to let it warm up.
The audience member replied he was thinking specifically of the Aphex 661.
Ike suggested that product fell into the latter category.
Sy said the tube is just an effect piece and not working that hard.
He next wanted to find out from Dave why he got into manufacturing? Why build another compressor or limiter?
Dave felt he could build a better one. "There weren't as many tape recorders around to fix so I had to do something!" This got a good laugh from the audience.
Sy touched on the topic of sourcing parts and factory service and wanted the panel's opinion.
Jeff said SSL services their current equipment, but not their older equipment. Sony stopped building consoles due to RoHS (Reduction Of Hazardous Substances)
Sy added some companies won't look at anything over 5 years because the newer products are farther advanced.
An audience member noted dbx as an example when Harmon it took over: no parts were available because of the manufacturer change. So they can't (or won't) offer support.
Ike mentioned that, to their credit, Harmon at least makes documentation (ie: schematics) available for legacy equipments. Some companies don't do that at all.
As the only factory service rep on the panel, he stated one gets different levels of support from different manufacturers. Referencing distributors, some companies get reimbursed for their repair work and some don't. He's never come across service training offered from the factory. In many cases the original service factory centre may no longer exist.
Roger discussed licensed parts: a situation where he can't get parts from a local distributor, for example, the part has to shipped be from the US to England, and then England to Canada because they can't ship across the border due to the license agreement.
Ike discussed the term 'factory selected'. Having a direct line to factories doesn't guarantee a solution. Often the factories themselves can't get replacement parts.
Sy asked for closing comments.
Ron felt it's a good people are still trained to be able to fix things. His goal with his team at Technicolor is not necessarily to walk away with it fixed, but walk away with an understanding of what went wrong and what to do to prevent it happening again. The more that model is followed the less the need to re-fix the same problem again.
Dave closed with a horror story. He once found a device not working because a fuse had blown and someone had put aluminum foil around the fuse.
Roger offered a moral to this scenario: if the fuse goes there's a reason for it.
Jeff doesn't repair much today. He passes the work along to the experts (Ike and Roger). Jeff installs and configures systems as well as design them. Get the right people to do the job.
Sy thanked the audience and the panel.
