The Disco

[Michael Maurice]

Back in the 80's I was doing disco's based on a couple of turntables and a mixer which several years ago I gave away to Ilama.

In 1982 i decided to build an all purpose custom made disco.

It had to have two turntables, two cassette players, a mic input an aux input, 5 band graphic equalizer, Pre fade listen, LED VU meters and a way of going from one record to another which I will explain later.

The unit was constructed on around 27 PCB's (I think) and was built on my parents dining room table, the metal work was made on the kitchen table which until I disposed of it earlier this year, still bore the scars of when the saw went into it!

The next few posts will show some pictures.

Needless to say it took many months of planning and design.

The first picture is of the complete unit


The second is of the main chassis inverted before it is fitted to the cabinet


By loosening two screws either side the main chassis opens up to reveal several smaller plug in boards


Also revealing the VU Meter drive boards and the equaliser controls

[Michael Maurice]

Side view of the driver and LED VU meter boards



The board in front of this picture is the microphone board, behind it the tape replay board and counter


A side view of the plug in boards, the RiAA preamp board and part of the logic which allows the turntables to switch to the other as the record fades out.


The power supply is housed under the turntables, together with the distribution amplifier.


The rear panel with inputs and outputs. It needs a good clean!

[Wendymott]

Those were the days Michael. When the disco gear weighed a "ton" the records too..and with all those records it was.... "Have you got xxxx"... Errrr No sorry....
Now its MP3 or WAV files, Mini disk, CD....equipment that weighs a very small percentage of the early stuff.
Looks like it was a great Build.... I Like modules...... as with my SSB exciter.... mods are done easily and with not much reworking.
No lighting controller

[unitaudio]

The Pioneer PL12-D record decks are considerably better than the type of decks usually fitted to disco consoles. What cartridges did you fit? Is your back better now or did you fit the console with castors? It looks better designed and made than many commercial units. Lovely bit of work.

Regards,
Paul

[paulsherwin]

Yes, the quality of construction is amazing for a kitchen table job.

[Michael Maurice]

The Pioneers were not originals, I think it had the last of the Garrards or BSR's which were quite poor. it has Stanton cartridges.

No lighting I'm afraid.

The original power amp which preceded the disco blew up one day, it was poorly constructed, so I built another one in 1983 its in storage at the moment.

No lights I'm afraid, I never did disco's commercially.

[Diabolical Artificer]

How old were you when you made this? As Paul says it's impressive for a kitchen table build even more so if you were in your teens. Did you make the PCB's too or were the modules based on kits?

Andy.

[Michael Maurice]

I was 23 - 24 when I built this. I designed and made up the PCB's, There was no CAD in those days so the layout was drawn up double size and I found a photographic place to reduce them to the correct size.

I had a UV lamp box for the photosensitive PCB, etched them in the kitchen, and then drilled them.

Most of the parts were bought from Maplin's which had a branch in Hammersmith. At the time they were a true electronic hobbyist and component supplier.

They also supplied the tape and other bits and bobs for drawing up the PCB's.

The basic metalwork was provided by H L Smith in the Edgware Road, London, anyone remember them?

Some circuits were copied from other designs, some designed by myself.

I took a week off work to assemble and wire the whole thing.

Incredibly apart from some minor adjustments, it worked first time!

[Wendymott]

I used to use the X4 Artwork transfers when I started making pcb's at my employment.....Placed on a light box, which was then "up ended" to photograph using 35mm Litho micro grain film. Then into the Leica enlarger......An A4 pcb could take a week to produce from start to finish.. Now.. it takes me a couple of hours from concept to finished pcb..... Thank goodness for CAD. I commend your work Michael, that was dedication.

[Al (astral highway)]

Astonishing work, Michael! Love it!

[McMurdo]

That's impressive and must have cost a bit! A real high end model!

Mind you in the disco era an off the shelf console would have cost many weeks wages and weren't necessarily built that well. I still get the odd one in at work for repair and the last one a few weeks ago made by Cloud of Sheffield and needing turntable belts that were stocked surprisingly by CHS.

[deliverance]

Impressive stuff .

[ben]

Amazing stuff. How did the auto fade work?

I used to do discos regularly whilst a student, and what put me off most consoles was the awkardness and weight. I ended up modifying two direct drive sony turntables and using a standalone mixer and CD player. Before the Sonys I used old Garrards and BSRs which were pretty robust and would seemingly play through an earthquake. I remember it being hard to find turntables that would resist bumps as well as those Garrards.

[jamesperrett]

One of my early electronic projects was a disco console but yours puts mine to shame. My DJ career started by using my Philips N4515 in mono amplifier mode as a mixer with one SP25 and one MP60 deck. It took ages to set up for each gig so I decided to build my own console cobbled together from various designs. Initally the input mixer was a high impedance design with just 4 (2 decks, aux input and mic input) 1 Megohm faders into a virtual earth mixing stage for ceramic cartridges. The following eq was a 3 band affair from an ETI mixer design. There was also a PFL switch feeding an LM386 headphone amp for cueing the next record. These were all just mounted on Veroboard.

For the first console the decks were the cheapest BSR single play models I could find (from RTVC I think) and they were controlled by a couple of light switches. I later upgraded to MP60's fitted with G800's and added preamps to the ceramic inputs.

Unlike Maurice, I used to use this for paying gigs and it lasted for something nearly 10 years before I went all CD.

[G6Tanuki]

Fascinating, and impressive too!

What did you use as the power-amps?? In the late-70s/early-80s the "ILP" modules and power-supplies were popular in this sort of application. I used a few of their "HY60" bricks for sound-reinforcement in clubs and pubs back then....

[Welsh Anorak]

You should have posted this asking if anyone knew who the manufacturer was - I'll bet no-one would have guessed it was a homebrew.
I like the 'Maurice Electronics' touch. I think if you'd have made this system commercially it would have found buyers who were fed up with the orange box BSR units that were all you could get at the time.
Even though you said you didn't use it commercially I hope you filled the floor a few times!
As said above, it puts many of our homebuilt efforts to shame.
Glyn