One of my favorite rack mount units in my studio is my Avalon 737 preamp/channel strip. It has a nice analog sound with out the pushed mid range frequencies that many other units use to simulate “tube” or “retro.” It adds just enough to make vocals (or anything else really) feel thick and up front in the mix– It also broke recently.
Avalon VT-737SP
I tend to add just a little compression on the way to tape. This means I am using the VU meter to see how many decibels of reduction are happening. I tend to adjust my threshold until I’m getting about 2-3 db reduction at whatever ratio I selected for the instrument. Since this is an integral part of my process, you can imagine my dismay when the VU meter stopped working. The rest of the unit still functioned, but the needle no longer moved.
Y U NO METER!!?!?
So after trying the usual quick fixes (hit it, turning it on and off) I got on the phone with Avalon support and asked them how much it would cost to get it fixed. They were very nice and very professional, so this is not an insult to them in slightest, but they wanted waaaay too much money to even take a look at it.
So I decided that before I sent it their way, I would pop it open and see if I could figure out what was going on. It turned out to be something so simple, I was embarrassed for having actually called them. So I figured I would share my results in hopes of saving other people the time/money of mailing their unit in.
The problem: The glass, which was glued to the front face, had detached, and was leaning up against the vu meter, preventing it from moving. So what should have looked like this :
Side view of functional Avalon VT-737SP VU meter
Looked like this:
Side view of broken Avalon VT-737SP VU meter
Now, I would like to point out, that the scale of these drawings was adjusted to make the point clear. The actual distance between the glass and the needle was so minimal that nothing seemed to be wrong from the outside.
So the solution was simply to glue it back in place:
I used some glue meant to go on acrylic that I happened to have laying around. You could try to use super glue, but it might make the glass frost over.
Good luck, and I hope this saves you the $450 or so that it would cost to have Avalon service the unit.
I have this issue too. I am afraid to undo the bolts on the meter frame since I don’t know if that will remove the faceplate freely. How did you get to the glass?
Thanks!
I had an issue too! The VU worked on compression but not level. All I did was to remove the plate and give the needle a tweak. Now the VU works both level and compression. I know that this does not seem to make sense but it’s working.
This was exactly what I had! You saved me the money, thanks a mil