I wanted to wait to put the M-520 into production until I had the chance to go through it completely, but I have two tracking sessions this week, and I want to use my 58. The M-520 is the ideal partner, so I'm stepping outside my usual anal-retentive nature to use it.
The other issue is that, as I may have mentioned before, the M-520 is not in the control room, but just outside it where there is more room to get around it for the cleaning and testing. I've had to get creative with cabling solutions as I have very few RCA cables on-hand, but I've got it worked out.
So there sits the mixer, naked, with the power supply tipped up on its end sitting behind so it can be direct-connected. A little silly looking, but ready for action.
I have totally gone through channels 1 ~ 4, cleaning all connections, applying DeoxIT to all pots and switches and exercising and partially testing.
I'm a little disheartened that there are still a couple LED bulbs that are finicky, flickering at times. Reapplied DeoxIT and again exercised the bulbs in their sockets, but I'm not sure that has resolved it. Also, pots are generally still scratchy.
Maybe just need more exercising? My forearms and fingers are worn out from all the exercising...can't use the shoestring technique as some of the pots are pretty stiff, plus the stacked pots have to be exercised simultaeously as they are sticking together and I have to twist them opposite directions to reduce that friction that is sticking them together. Also, buss meters 7 and 8 are flickering...not sure if this means one or both bulbs are on the way out or if it is a bad connection...I'll probably try swapping bulbs with another set of meters and see if they flicker in their new setting, unless there are other ideas?
Impressions so far:
- I tested the onboard DI's on channels 1 and 2 using my bass, and I'm pleased by the responsive and clear sound...tons of gain too with my passive bass.
- The eq has been a subject of some skepticism in my research of this console since it lacks any shelviing eq. IMHO, I've come to the opinion that shelving eq is abused along with the general practice of using eq to boost rather than cut. For the engineer who uses eq as sparingly as possible, having three channels of swept eq is pretty neat...coupled with two low-cut filters and a high-cut filter on each channel of my PE-40's I can't imagine a reason to need shelving eq, and so far the eq on the M-520 sounds nice to my ears...can't say I really know what I'm looking (listening) for though...
- Another area of criticism is the routing ideology...this isn't really a 20 x 8 x 2 mixer, and for people that are accepting only that convention I can see they'd be scratching their heads since it is not possible to directly route an input to either of the semi-siamese stereo busses, but it is not a live mixer...it is a recording mixer replete with everything and more I can imagine one would need...not that it couldn't work in a live situation, but you won't find some of the normal things you would find on a standard live board or on a live board with recording application features...The M-500 boards are clearly for recording applications first, which, as far as I can tell, are wonderfully well setup/stocked.
So I'm going to try to get channels 1 ~ 8 cleaned up, and I'm using the -10 to +4 balance amp section from the direct outs to the patchbay in the control room because the only cabling available to make the cross connect is a 50' snake and that surely would be problematic if I ran it unbalanced...I have a radio station transmitting 3 blocks away...
Another note, I noticed the 10kHz signal on the oscillator is finicky, but I think it is the selector switch, so when I get to cleaning the master section hopefully I can resolve that.
