Rackmount help

[maxrossell]

Hi! I need your advice or clarification, if anyone out there owns rack gear (must be a few of you).

I'm going to buy some rack gear shortly, and I have a piece of furniture which I believe would be ideally suited to housing it, although it's not actually a rack. It's like a couple of little Ikea shelf units, with open backs. The opening is 17.7" wide, and the sides are 1.4" thick, for a total width of 20.5", so not only should there be enough room to house 20U of gear, but I should also have enough room on the sides to screw them all in place.

I believe that the standard size for a rack unit is 19" wide across the front panel, and 17.36" wide for the back part (i.e. the width minus the "ears"), is this correct? If someone could grab a tape measure and let me know, that would be totally awesome.

Cheers!

[BigRedX]

Be careful. Some rack equipment is side-ventilated and relies on there being the full 19" width minimum inside the rack case to do this.

[OldGit]

There's studio racking made from IKEA "Rast" bedside tables on the [url="http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/2007/09/hack-bedside-tables-into-music-studio.html"]IKEA Hacker [/url]site

Edited November 18, 2009 by OldGit

[NickH]

You might want to put a thought towards the total weight of the thing too, especially if there's to be any kind of power amp involved.
Depending on the kind of wood it is you might be thinking about some very hefty screws.
I take it this is for a home / studio recording setup and not going on the road at any point?

+ 1 to the thermal issue mentioned above.

[maxrossell]

[quote name='NickH' post='658799' date='Nov 19 2009, 01:23 AM']You might want to put a thought towards the total weight of the thing too, especially if there's to be any kind of power amp involved.
Depending on the kind of wood it is you might be thinking about some very hefty screws.
I take it this is for a home / studio recording setup and not going on the road at any point?

+ 1 to the thermal issue mentioned above.[/quote]

Yeah, it's for home stuff, no power amp as I have powered monitors. To be honest I can't see myself getting an awful lot of rack gear, maybe some mic preamps and comps and EQs, a patchbay, possibly replace my audio interface with a rackmountable I/O, stuff like that. It'll still be quite heavy but I don't plan on moving it around. I'll bear in mind to check the ventilation and I've planned to leave good gaps between the gear and get mesh panel blanks for the front. If necessary I'll install additonal cooling fans. I'm pretty sure that the wood's solid enough to hold everything fine as it's made out of big thick pieces of veneered high-density chipboard, which in my experience is tougher than real wood. As long as I'm careful to pre-drill everything properly and get some long screws it should be okay.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='maxrossell' post='658819' date='Nov 19 2009, 02:06 AM']... To be honest I can't see myself getting an awful lot of rack gear ...[/quote]

Yup. That's how it started for me, too.

[Dood]

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='658863' date='Nov 19 2009, 08:15 AM']Yup. That's how it started for me, too. [/quote]


Yes, we both now go to weekly meetings to talk about it..

"Hullo, I'm dood - and I have... I .. I..."
"It's ok, we're all friends here, take your time..."
"uhhh.. I'm a rack gear fiend...."
"Well done, you've taken the first step....."

[maxrossell]

[quote name='Happy Jack' post='658863' date='Nov 19 2009, 08:15 AM']Yup. That's how it started for me, too. [/quote]

I know what you mean. Every six months I say "Right, time to streamline" and eBay everything, and then six months later I've somehow accumulated twice as much gear as I had before.

I'm terrible like that, I always think I don't have enough. The other day I was moaning that I didn't have enough microphones, so the girlfriend pointed out that five dynamics and two condensers is more than enough for a little project studio, especially considering I only even record one sound source at a time.

I think the worst thing is that at the moment I'm getting obsessed with vintage valve gear, so it's all three times more expensive. And older racks have fewer features, so you end up having to get more, and it's usually bigger so it takes up more room.

But I love it so much.

[BigRedX]

OK so who's got the most rack-mounting gear?

I've just added up all mine and including patch-bays and rack-mounted power distribution units I've got about 80U worth.

That does include 12U of rack-mounted mixer and two synths which are 5U and 4U respectively. Everything else is 1 or 2 U only.

[Happy Jack]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='659368' date='Nov 19 2009, 04:12 PM']I've just added up all mine and including patch-bays and rack-mounted power distribution units I've got about 80U worth.[/quote]

I've just had a "Panama" moment.

That's when you lean back in your chair, stare at the ceiling, and then say very loudly [b][size=3][color="#FF0000"]Far Canal[/color][/size][/b].

My total rack capability is 2x6U, plus 2x4U, plus 1x2U, plus a weird Mixer rack that's both a 2U and a 4U depending on which way you look at it. Grand Total is therefore a maximum of 26U, but I'm currently using just 17U of that capability.

If the guy who is testing my spare feedback suppressors decides to buy them, that'll drop to 15U.

Edit: PS I must point out that my kit includes the entire band PA (mixing desk, power amps, feedback suppression, vocal processing, etc.).

Edited November 19, 2009 by Happy Jack

[Dood]

[quote name='BigRedX' post='659368' date='Nov 19 2009, 04:12 PM']OK so who's got the most rack-mounting gear?[/quote]

Well, I'm down to 3u now, but I just had a think about rack gear that I own / have owned and it looks a bit like this:-

Warwick Quadruplet
Ampeg SVP (black face)
Ampeg SVP (hammerite face)
Ampeg SVP-BSP
Ampeg SVT 2 Pro
Trace Elliot V-Type
ISP Beta preamp
TC Electronic G-Force
TC Electronic G-Major 2
TC Electronic Triple-C
TC Electronic C300
Alesis 3630
Alesis DEQ-224
Line6 Bass POD Pro XT
Powersoft D2004
Yamaha P5000
Yamaha P3500 (old style)
BK 450W Power amp
Marshall IBS 200W Head
Marshall 9004 Preamp
Marshall 8080 poweramp
Marshall 9050?? 4u 50W+50W valve power amp
Zoom 9050S effects rack
Alesis Reverb thingy unit
BBE 362 Sonic Maximiser


Makes me wince a bit when I think of what I have spent and all of that gear has gone to a better place!!!

[Happy Jack]

Well the Powersoft 2004 [b][i]certainly [/i][/b]went to a better place.

[BigRedX]

I must point out further that most of this comes from my time in SugarBox where I owned all the equipment except for drums, the singer's stage microphone and the bass guitar of the person who took over from me when I became the guitarist. Our rack gear filled 6 cases 6-9U in size and loaded front and back (and top in the case of the mixer and effects rack)!