u/helpusdrzaius

u/h0tz3R4

I've been working on restoring and modding a DJ mixer. What's seemed really daunting was the pots. Each of the 3 channels has 6. 7 pins on each, plus two mounting pins.

I had tried using deoxit fader lube on them, didn't do much in this case. About a month ago, I was at a friend's and saw him use a hakko desoldering tool, making short work of taking a slide fader out of a pcb. Was impressed, picked one up and tried it here for the first time. I had pots of each channel removed in a minute or two!

Then came the next challenge. The exact parts were no longer easily obtainable. I did order a few compatible parts, though they needed some modding (shortening shaft). However this was only for 3/6 pots for each channel. So I tried taking apart one of the pots to see if it could be restored, it was actually not too bad at all. Took it all apart, cleaned it out with a q tip. Then applied some nyogel 767A (first time I used it). Put the grease inside the metal bushing and the main housing (inside blue piece). Put it all back together. Went from super stiff to nice and smooth tracking. Pretty happy with the results!

The Xone:32 is hands down my favorite mixer. I really like its layout, everything isn't squeezed together. It also has this feature which is not seen on many (if any) other mixers - transmute. It's a momentary mute if you press and hold down the red button for either side (channels 1 and 3). This is really useful for quick drops and cuts, and can be used rhythmically in that way as well. I used it quite a bit with the mixer stock; with line faders. With rotary it's that much more useful as rotary mixers are better suited for slow transitions. With the transmute you can press down button for either channel, put rotary pot to position desired, release to bring in the channel at that volume.

Anyway, MC Audio has a kit for the Xone:32 but it removes the crossfader and transmute buttons (both connected to a single pcb which mounts to the stock faceplate). I wanted to do a rotary conversion, but losing the transmute was very much a dealbreaker. So I decided to try do the conversion myself.

First and foremost the faceplate. I designed custom overlays through front panel express and had them fabricated. They are the blue panels. This was done for the channels as well as the Filter (which is a slide fader in stock form). The stock faceplate had to be machined to allow installation of potentiometers (I used alps RK27 for channel and Bourns for filter).

Then came figuring out the pinout of the channel faders and the filter fader. This was a bit anxiety inducing as I had fried a dj mixer years ago doing this. You can't just guess and hope it's right, haha. But it's not that hard to figure out with just a multimeter. Props to MC Audio Solution as I had a question about the resistors on channel fader PCB's (if they need to be kept or omitted), he was very generous to answer that. They can be omitted. The filter fader was a bit trickier, but got that down as well. I've listed the pinouts in another post of mine, might list it all in a singple post after this project is done.

What is next? The crossfader! At some point years ago I got my hands on a rotary rane empath. I didn't really like it, the EQ pots didn't feel good. This is another area where A&H really excels. Also the alps channel pots on the empath were suspect. Anyway, on the empath I plugged in one of the channel pots into the crossfader, and it was really interesting it's just different turning up a channel using two pots vs one. The other reason I want to try it is channel summing works differently when using the crossfader. I have a pot coming for this purpose and hope to have that done soon, though besides the pot itself a replacement panel would need to be fabricated. Luckily the stock crossfader panel unscrews and lifts out, so the original faceplate wouldn't need to be machined again.

Besides that I'm also looking at replacing some of the stock EQ and balance pots on this. I'm in the US, most vendors that might still have those pots are in EU or UK. But I may have found some alternative that will work with slight modification. This is 1/3 Xone:32's I have. I might do rotary conversion on another, keep the 3rd stock.

Hi Everyone, wanted to share a Deep House Yoga event I'm DJ'ing at this Saturday at 6:30. It will be at Urban Sanctuary, 2745 Welton St, Denver.

Deep House music works well to set a steady base for one's yoga practice. It's there, nothing over the top, at the same time very interesting if one wants to tune into it.

More info and signup link here - https://urbansanctuary.love/the-workshops

Hope to see some reddit friends there! Will be a special night <3

Hi Everyone,

I'm working on converting a dj mixer's line faders to rotary. It's an allen and heath xone 32. I've got the channel faders sorted.

There is filter slide fader. I ordered a faceplate for that to convert it to rotary. For the filter I know the pin layout of the slide fader, it's the same as show here, I was planning on removing the slide fader and wiring the pot connections to the pcb. Making it easy. What I didn't consider is the pcb would get in the way of the rotary pot if I wanted to use the faceplate I ordered. So I can either get another faceplate made, a bit pricey, or remove the pcb and wire the pot directly to the dj mixer. The issue is that the connections here are a bit more complicated.

Two inputs shorted, connected to pin 3
output channel 1 = pin 6
output channel 2 = pin 4
gnd channel 1 = pin 1
gnd channel 2 = pin 2
nothing connected = pin 5

What I'm a bit puzzled by is if measure impedance between the two gnd pins I'm getting 19.5kohm. I'm actually getting this value with various connections.. Don't understand that. The slide fader is 10kohms. If I short a dual gang rotary pots two gnd pins I get nothing. This is what makes me hesitate to just connect it up as is.

Any advice on proceeding with this would be appreciated. Don't feel most confident reading schematics, don't want to fry the mixer because I didn't connect correctly.

Besides the filter board there is a cue/mix slide fader also sitting on a pcb. This I wasn't planning on swapping to rotary. But the one I have is not completely working. The little car inside is broken, so the pin that sticks out keeping popping out. This is a dual gang pot, I thought 10k but I'm also getting reading of 15k between some pins. The pinout of this slider is different, there are two outer pins, and one in the middle, on both sides. There are also four pins on the very outside which connect to the shell of the fader, seem more like they are used to mount to the pcb. This specific slide fader is no longer easily attainable. Considering converting it rotary, Another option is to get a comparable slide fader. It's 45mm length, with travel of 30mm. Center detent, though that part is not crucial for me.

The 15k reading is throwing me off, as it's not common. Any advice on how to proceed would be appreciated. I've tried gluing with epoxy, super glue, no luck. Another option is the just not use it. I don't use this slider very much, but it would be nice to have it function right. Physically this seems to be a match, but again - 10k. I also am not sure the pins are placed the same to fit this pcb.

Many thanks!!

About 1-2 years ago I picked up a preamp that had this unique knob installed on the volume pot with a finger indent where the indicator line would normally be. Thought that a cool feature and found myself using it often when adjusting the volume.

Wanted to try something similar on my embattled xone22 conversion. Found the knobs pictured on MGS website, gave them a try.

They are much bigger than I thought they would be!! Way oversized for this mixer, they stand-out, goofy-looking in a good way. You do get more travel for the same level of volume adjustment. They do put the squeeze on the channel cue pot on this particular mixer, but you get used to it.

The finger pads themselves are interesting in this application. It acts like what I would describe as a tracked line fader, or a hybrid between rotary and line. You can move your finger from bottom to top almost the same as you would with a line fader, and you will get to 12 o'clock on the dial, but it does it smooth like a rotary would. Of-course you can also just use it like a normal rotary knob (you don't have to use the finger pad), when making fine adjustments it's better to do that. The finger pad does allow for quicker fades in and out, that is it's stand-out feature.

All in all very much useful, you still have a rotary knob with the full functionality of a rotary knob - allowing for smooth fades, in addition the finger indent allows for quick fades. A bit of fun and function.