How Much?

Since this site has been set up, the most common question asked is, not surprisingly, how much will it cost? This page attempts to answer that question.

The short answer is it will be the cost of all the major components plus 50%. Since CTC is intended to be non-profit this 50% covers all the minor components, nuts, bolts, internal cables etc. plus a contribution to the cost of development equipment, development expenses and a small contingency. My time you get for free. Since everything is paid for in pounds sterling, all costs are worked out and quoted in pounds sterling.

So, the question becomes, what are the major components and what do they cost? For the last ten years, the answer was in the form of a list of costs for major components that you could add up yourself and an example of how to do this. This approach was appropriate for fully customised consoles, but now that I build just three basic types of mixer plus lunch boxes, the process becomes much simpler. Each basic product becomes a major component, so there are just four base line costs:

Poor Man's Tube Mixer

The Poor Man's Tube Mixer is still under development so firm costs are not yet available. The target base line price for the Poor Man's Tube Mixer is just £3,000. For this you get:

  • PMTM custom enclosure (excluding woodwork) with an internal power supply

  • Two mic pres, each with phantom, phase and 20dB pad switches, gain pot, HPF, impedance balanced direct out, pan pot and slider fader. Up to 60dB gain is available

  • Four line balanced line inputs each with pan pot and slider fader

  • 24 balanced line level )+4dBu) stem inputs on three dB25 connectors (12 routed to left bus, 12 routed to right bus) with rotary trim control

  • Left and Right bus expansion inputs for cascading with other mixers

  • Master bus amplifiers (Left and Right), master output fader (slider) and monitor level (rotary)

Lunch Box

The most basic Lunch Box product is the Classic, the price of which is £4000. For this you get:

  • Fully screened 3U enclosure with integral power supply

  • Four Classic mic pres enclosed in individual fully screened plug in modules. Switches for mic/line, phantom power, 20dB pad and phase reverse. Up to 70dB gain is available

  • Transformer balanced mic and line inputs and transformer balanced mic pre outputs

  • 12dB/octave HPF and master gain control

Compact Recording Mixer

The base line price for the CRC mixer is £8,000. For this you get:

  • CRC custom enclosure including woodwork

  • Six 70mm wide channel modules with mic/line/phantom/phase and 20dB pad switches, stepped gain control and HPF

  • Unbalanced channel inserts

  • Three band REDD PLUS EQ

  • Pan pot, mute and PFL (monitor) switches

  • Rotary channel faders (ALPS Blue beauty)

  • Master bus amplifiers and rotary master level control

  • Twin buffered VU meters monitoring master bus (overridden by PFL)

  • Monitor output (following meters)

  • External power supply

Mark 3 Mixer

The base line price for the Mark 3 mixer is £24,000. For this you get:

  • Mark 3 custom enclosure including woodwork

  • Eight 35mm wide channel modules with mic/line/phantom/phase and 20dB pad switches, stepped gain control and HPF, transformer balanced insert points and direct out

  • Four band REDD PLUS EQ

  • Separate per channel tape return input with trim control and automatic mix-down and tracking switching

  • Routing module feeding four groups and four Auxes with mute and solo or PFL

  • Four Aux return modules

  • Comprehensive monitor section with buffered VU meters, monitor level, solo/PFL switching, Mix-down switching, talkback to groups, master or Aux, groups to master routing and Aux send masters

  • Slider faders on all channel and buses.

  • External power supply


A certain degree of customisation of all the above is possible. See the Products page for further details.