TUTORIAL

be purchased for as little as $3 from an electronics parts shop.

Rotary switches can also be utilised to create an attenuator,
however, being a switch, the final volume control is not
continuous but rather, moving in discrete jumps as the switch
is rotated through its positions. Readily available and affordable
switches that could be used for a stereo signal have a maximum
number of six positions, which really isnt enough to give the
range and incremental steps required for speaker volume
control. 23-position switches get close to giving you the control
required but these are very expensive and less readily available.
The approach for this project will therefore be to use a pot, with
the recommendation that, while you can experiment with the
$3 part, ultimately you should lash out and purchase a very high
quality pot.
Currently theres a particular Alps brand pot available from RS
Components that retails for just over $50 (www.australia.rsonline.com part number 219-9130) thats of a very high quality.
The fundamental thing gained by spending the extra $47,
besides reliability, is the accuracy of the tracking between the
two sections of the dual-ganged pot. With one section handling
the left audio signal and the other handling the right, its pretty
important that at all positions of the left audio signal match
that of the right. While Alps quotes a maximum error of 2dB
between the two gangs, Ive found in the dozens of these pots
Ive used that the error is in fact less than 1dB and usually less
than 0.5dB over most of its range. This is very good!
CUTTING TO THE CHASE
Heres the schematic for the passive volume control.

ON THE BENCH

LEFT IN HOT

DIY MONITOR CONTROLLER

If your studio monitoring
is currently managed by
something you inherited
from your brothers 80s
Dick Smith hi-fi, isnt it high
time you faced the music
and found a more accurate
means of listening to your
system?
Text: Rob Squire

In amongst the seemingly infinite variety of

audio gear thats available to improve your life
in the studio, theres one item thats often
overlooked. Its not the latest vintage microphone
or that cutting-edge sound polishing plug-in. Rather,
its like many things that escape our attention in life
something quite simple. This device is usually
found firmly planted right between our recording or
mix platform and the speakers. Its the humble
volume controller.
Historically, the studio speaker volume control
was part of a set of monitoring controls found
smack bang in the centre of a large-format mixing
console, which invariably formed the hub of
every professional studio. Then, as new methods
of recording and mixing, aided by changes
in technology, shoved the traditional mixing
console out the door (with some help from able
bodied volunteers), the essential volume control
disappeared along with it. However, being able to
control the volume of studio loudspeakers isnt
something fashion or technological advancement
should have much influence over. Everyone who
listens to speakers should be able to control his or
her volume regardless of the studio setup, to say
nothing of the other handy functions often found
in console monitoring control sections such as
selecting a variety of sources, potentially a couple of
different sets of speakers and facilities like mono-ing
and muting.
So in this final instalment of On The Bench for
2010, I thought it high time we heated up the
soldering iron, designed and built our own monitor
controller, and for a modest outlay and some effort,

AT 52

4K7

LEFT OUT HOT

CLOCKWISE ROTATION

LEFT IN COLD

put together something that suits our requirements

thats of a high technical performance and quality.
Since the monitoring control generally sits across
the path of your entire means of hearing what youre
doing, it doesnt make a lot of sense to skimp on this
device.
If you currently find yourself reaching over to a
tiny knob on your multi-purpose audio interface
or nudging a virtual fader with a mouse to turn the
speakers up and down, this DIY article is for you.
FIRST PRINCIPLES FIRST
Its often the case with audio design that the simplest
solution is the best, and this is certainly the case
when it comes to monitor volume control. The
simplest way of controlling the volume of a pair
of speakers, whether they be passive speakers
running off a power amplifier or a pair of selfpowered monitors, is to use a passive attenuator.
The advantage of this is two-fold. Firstly, there are
no electronics involved due to the complexity
of active circuitry significant attention to design,
choice of parts and powering would otherwise be
paramount. Secondly, a passive control is very easy
to construct. This makes it a simple and safe DIY
project. Probably the biggest decision youll have to
make during the course of its construction is what
type of case to put it in, and how funky you want
the master control knob to be. If you can solder
well enough to make cables, you can make a passive
monitor volume control.

RIGHT IN HOT

RIGHT IN COLD

4K7

4K7
4K7

LEFT OUT COLD

RIGHT OUT HOT

RIGHT OUT COLD

STEREO VOLUME CONTROL

In the diagram above youll see that four 4K7 (or 4700) 1%
metal film resistors and a dual-gang 10K log pot have been used
to create the volume control.
Below is a photo of one of these wired up.
The combination of the two fixed-value resistors wired between
the inputs and the pot form the attenuator. Technically, this
is a variable pad and with the pot rotated fully clockwise for
maximum volume it will still attenuate the signal by around
6dB. This is not a problem, however, and in fact generally
speaking we want to throw away quite a lot of level between the
output of a typical recording system and the speakers. If youre
operating your system at healthy professional levels as has been
discussed a few times now in AT, your average signal level will

be around the same mark as the maximum level that amplifiers

or self-powered monitors will accept before clipping. By that
I mean; the average level will be running the amp/speaker
combination flat out and as loud as theyll ever get. Youll be
wanting to turn it down, and turn it down by quite a bit!
THE DOWNSIDE
Is there a downside to this design? Sure. Theres no free lunch in
electronics design, and good design balances these compromises
in a sensible manner. The only practical issue with a passive
design such as this one is the potential for high-frequency
loss should very long cables be used between the output of the
volume control and the amp or monitors. Having said that,
in practice, for cables less than 10m long youll have a volume
control with a frequency response from DC to over 50kHz and
more headroom and a lower noise floor than anything youll
hope to own that you can actually attach to either end.

Also, if youre keeping count youll notice that the schematic

doesnt mention the signal ground wire, just the hot and cold
wires. In this design all the ground wires simply join together
in the monitor controller but not to anything else. While this
design is balanced in and out, it will work with unbalanced
equipment. However, unlike the beauty of a fully balanced
system, it requires more attention to the manner in which the
external equipment and connectors are wired together to avoid
hum. In particular, ensuring all equipment is powered from the
same mains outlet and that all the audio cable connectors have
their shields connected.
BUT WAIT, THERES MORE
While a means of reliably, conveniently and accurately
controlling the studio speaker volume is pretty fundamental,
that isnt the end of the wish list for most people. So while our
soldering iron is still hot, lets look at what other functions we
might add to this basic volume controller to make it a more
powerful tool in the studio. As it turns out, many of the other
functions we might expect to see on a typical monitor controller
phase flipping, mono-ing, muting etc are really just about
signal routing and switching audio signals around. Once again,
this is easily achieved passively, only this time using readily
available switches rather than pots.

The switch Ill focus on here is a rotary switch, meaning that

you turn it to select different functions. Just like the volume
pot, a rotary switch also accepts a knob so you can mix and
match the styling of the knobs for these switches with the
volume controller to suit your studio vibe. There are two types
of readily available rotary switch: the open style wafer switch
and the sealed type. I prefer the open style switch available
from Altronics myself. These yield a satisfying positive click
as theyre rotated from one position to another, and have large
tags for easy soldering. Such rotary switches are available in a
combination of possible positions selected and number of poles
or individual signals that can be dealt with in the one switch.
This combination of poles and positions always equals 12. Thus
you can have a two-position switch with six poles, a threeposition switch with four poles, a six-position switch with two
poles etc. As well see, a three-position switch with four poles is
going to be pretty handy for most functions needed on our new

The basic passive attenuator is formed around

a potentiometer (pot) and for stereo this will
consist of a dual-gang potentiometer. These can
AT 53

masterpiece.
Lets chip through the possibilities and examine how each one is
wired shall we?
SOURCE SELECT / MUTE
To have left and right balanced audio being selected requires a
four-pole switch. This means we have three positions available
and can thus select one of three inputs. In this example Im
selecting between two different inputs at the extreme switch
positions (lets call these positions A and B) and placing a Mute
facility in the middle position. This allows the monitoring to be
muted within one switch position whenever either A or B inputs
are being monitored. In a practical setting the A input could be
your master stereo bus and the B input an external source such
as a CD player. The switch wiring scheme thus looks like this:
RIGHT A IN HOT

LEFT B IN COLD

RIGHT B IN HOT

LEFT A IN HOT

RIGHT OUT HOT

RIGHT OUT COLD

LEFT OUT HOT

RIGHT A IN COLD

LEFT B IN HOT

LEFT OUT COLD

LEFT A IN COLD

RIGHT B IN COLD

INPUT SWITCH

OUTPUT SELECT
Once again, to deal with stereo balanced audio requires at least
a four-pole switch. This would allow up to three different pairs
of monitors to be selected. In the example below Ive used a
six-pole switch to select just two different pairs of monitors and
simply disregarded or not used two of the poles.
RIGHT A OUT HOT
RIGHT B OUT HOT

LEFT IN HOT

RIGHT IN HOT

LEFT B OUT HOT

LEFT A OUT HOT
LEFT B OUT COLD

RIGHT A OUT COLD

RIGHT IN COLD

LEFT IN COLD
LEFT A OUT COLD

RIGHT B OUT COLD

OUTPUT SWITCH

STEREO, MONO, PHASE REVERSE

There are many other facilities we could put on our master
monitor controller. For instance, having stereo, mono and
phase reverse functionality available when monitoring a mix is
handy for some engineers and crucial for others, particularly
mastering engineers. As well as normal stereo operation, the
ability to mono the stereo signal (where left and right are mixed
together and sent to both left and right monitors), and phase
reverse the left and right channels and listen to this combination
in mono, can provide all manner of information to an audio
engineer. Reversing the phase of the right channel and monoing it with the left and sending the result to both speakers is
particularly useful for assessing the width content of your mix
and distortion characteristic by effectively replacing the centre
image with the out-of-phase information. This is how such a
switch is wired:
RIGHT IN HOT

LEFT IN HOT
LEFT OUT HOT

RIGHT OUT HOT

RIGHT OUT COLD

LEFT IN COLD

RIGHT IN COLD

LEFT OUT COLD

STEREO / MONO / MONO REV

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

You can pick and choose the individual elements that you
require for your own personalised monitor controller, however,
its important that the elements are in the correct order. Quite
AT 54

specifically, the function of the stereo/mono/mono reverse

switch must follow after the volume control and relies on the
design of the volume control for its correct operation. Below is
the block diagram of the order of the various elements:
INPUT
SELECT
A MUTE B

STEREO/
MONO
CONTROL
MON
REV
ST

VOLUME
CONTROL

FREE PHONE: 1 800 251 367

email: [email protected]
website: www.ambertech.com.au

OUTPUT
SELECT

INPUTS

OUTPUTS

If half the fun of this project is that you can build a very highperformance monitor controller the other half must be that you
can use the information here to custom design exactly what
you require in your studio. This can range from simply having
a high quality straight volume control to increasing the number
of inputs, including the mono switch or leaving it out and
providing one, two or three outputs.
GETTING IN & OUT
Two intertwined issues remain. Getting your audio in and
out with the connectors you choose and the box that all the
controls are mounted in. Keep in mind that the purpose of
this device is to be close at hand on your work surface, and
especially if you go for the two inputs and outputs youll have
a total of eight balanced audio cables hanging off the box
containing the controls. Also, differing connectors require quite
different amounts of panel space. At one extreme using all XLR
connectors will require close to 77 square centimetres of panel
space while using one Dsub connector will provide the same
amount of audio connections in nine square centimetres. Theres
no reason why the audio cables cant simply fly out of the box
through long cables directly to the sources and speakers. All
this requires some planning, measurements and exploring the
options of connectors and cases.

TM7 Loudness Meter

Reference Standard Family

AWS 924/948

Nucleus

BM5A MKII

CM

MY

601A Active Studio Monitor

CY

CMY

In the example presented here Ive chosen a Dsub connector,

which allows the unit to be easily set free of any wiring and
when installed I can use a modified off-the-shelf Dsub-to-TRS
or modify a Dsub-to-XLR cable, by taking a standard Dsubto-male XLR cable and replacing the first four male XLRs with
female XLRs.

HEAR

BELIEVE

Heres how the Dsub connector is wired (below).

IN A L
G C

13

12
25

IN A R

G C

11
24

IN B L

G C

10
23

IN B R
H G C

9
22

8
21

OUT A L

OUT A R

OUT B L OUT B R

G C

G C

G C

7
20

6
19

5
18

4
17

H G C

3
16

2
15

Spark

Workhorse 5000

Recoil Stabilizer

1
14

H = HOT
C = COLD
G = GROUND

Like all good projects, some planning and having the right tools
at hand will typically lead to a successful outcome. Map out the
functions that you require, gather the switches, pot and knobs
and begin thinking about options for a case and how this choice
might influence what connectors you can use. With summer
holidays on the way this could be an ideal opportunity to put
to good use the tin can left over after you eat all the Christmas
cake.
If there are some specific needs for your own custom master
controller, and the wiring for this idea is unknown, drop us a
line at AT and well endeavour to design the solution for you.

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