hi all, i have been brewing a design for a mixer with some of the best features of older analogue mixers and a few quirky ideas, also updating some features to work with the likes of tractor. For some reason it seems like most mixers nowadays have eliminated kill switches and pot the knobs so close to each other, not catering for big fingers. its still a work in progress however i am quite curious to know what you think and would like to ad:
key features:
Large knobs
arcade buttons
kill switches
on board sound card
full analogue mixer
midi mapable
Position of the VU meters at the bottom, just doesn’t look right, I would keep them purely on the master to show master output. Just have LED’s to show clipping.
The Rotary pots still look too close together.
To help with layout, look at the Condesa Rotary Mixer, shows how VU’s can incorparate well into a design. And how far apart pots should be. Also check E&S DJR 400.
the diameter of the knobs are 18mm, as they are smaller than the arcade buttons, arcade buttons are 33.5mm in diameter including bezel around, the useable gap between 2 rotaries is 19mm, you are right it is a bit tight, the VU meters could go in favour of the led’s, that would give me some more room to space out the knobs.
Punch buttons is going back in time, they used to be standard on mixers and was allot of fun to mix with, basically it reverses the channels while held in. used to have loads of fun with that function
the colours unfortunately is down to what decent resolution images i could find on the net, the best one actually ended up being red. ideally they will be illuminated and light red when activated to kill, and green when the audio signal is passing through normally, giving a clear indication of what is actually going on
the mixer is slightly larger than a standard 2 channel mixer, measurements are 280mm wide by 350mm deep, the same depth as a technics turntable. the knobs however are larger, much larger than normal. Unfortunately the kill switches is what inspired me to design this, as allot of new mixers have stopped doing this and it has always been one of my favourite features on the older mixers. with knobs you can only ever do 2 at a time, with kill switches you get a far more complex mix on the eq and drops have more punch. just my opinion.
100% definitely a toy, probably with a pinch of nostalgia and a kick ass sound card. i have a korg Zero 8 mixer and i really miss the kill switches on my old numark, the zero mixer comes loaded with fx, just seems i can never achieve the result i want
