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American synthesizers
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American synthesizers
Just a rant, but what is it with American synths? Back in the 70's and early 80's you would have thought that "Made in America" quality would have left Japan for dead, but it is totally the opposite. Roland and Yamaha for the most part made beautiful reliable synths, all plywood and steel, that are to this day incredibly reliable unless they have been abused. When they come in for repair it is usually because they have developed a fault.
On the other hand, when an American machine from that era comes in, it almost always has a litany of faults and is almost a basket case. I have been noticing that when a US made synth such as a Prophet, ARP, Linn Drum, Oberheim OBXa or a 4 voice, Octave Cat or such comes in, that it is basically a dead item that needs a restoration job to get it to make any noise at all. TR-808's and 909's come in with a bad voice, Linn Drum's and Drumulators and Oberheim DMX's come in in pieces.
Compare a Yamaha or Roland string machine with and ARP Omni. The Omni will almost certainly be an utter basket case and will need over 100 caps replaced.
Not having a go at the sound, America built brilliant synths, I love my ARP's and my Prophet, and I know that the pioneers who built the P5 and Linn did it on tiny budgets in their garage in the beginning, but even at their peak, the quality of their boards and casings did not compare to what Roland and Yamaha were producing in that era.
Roland built some dogs, notably the JP-4, and Yamaha for some reason decided to put no decoupling caps on any of the CMOS chips in the CS-80, but in general those Japanese designers and engineers did a wondreful job.
On the other hand, when an American machine from that era comes in, it almost always has a litany of faults and is almost a basket case. I have been noticing that when a US made synth such as a Prophet, ARP, Linn Drum, Oberheim OBXa or a 4 voice, Octave Cat or such comes in, that it is basically a dead item that needs a restoration job to get it to make any noise at all. TR-808's and 909's come in with a bad voice, Linn Drum's and Drumulators and Oberheim DMX's come in in pieces.
Compare a Yamaha or Roland string machine with and ARP Omni. The Omni will almost certainly be an utter basket case and will need over 100 caps replaced.
Not having a go at the sound, America built brilliant synths, I love my ARP's and my Prophet, and I know that the pioneers who built the P5 and Linn did it on tiny budgets in their garage in the beginning, but even at their peak, the quality of their boards and casings did not compare to what Roland and Yamaha were producing in that era.
Roland built some dogs, notably the JP-4, and Yamaha for some reason decided to put no decoupling caps on any of the CMOS chips in the CS-80, but in general those Japanese designers and engineers did a wondreful job.
Steve Jones
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Thirteen - TRM Endorsed
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The Oberheimer Xpander, Sequential Pro5 were amazing synths but REALLY unreliable, you are right Japan had precision
Ross Healy
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- amnesia
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Soundwise I pretty much prefer the American synths of that era.
On a somewhat related note....
I switched on my modular mixed bag this week for the first time in five years. It's been shipped halfway across the world, stored in a tin box in the Sutherlandshire for a couple of years, then stored in a tin shed in The Hunter for a couple of years.
I waited for the puff of smoke, but it all seems to work ok.
It's a Serge panel, some ModCan and Cynthia (all North American) and a Fenix (Dutch).
Full marks to their build quality IMO.
On a somewhat related note....
I switched on my modular mixed bag this week for the first time in five years. It's been shipped halfway across the world, stored in a tin box in the Sutherlandshire for a couple of years, then stored in a tin shed in The Hunter for a couple of years.
I waited for the puff of smoke, but it all seems to work ok.
It's a Serge panel, some ModCan and Cynthia (all North American) and a Fenix (Dutch).
Full marks to their build quality IMO.
Whitten
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there will be new Fenix soon
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Re: American synthesizers
Thirteen wrote:Just a rant, but what is it with American synths? Back in the 70's and early 80's you would have thought that "Made in America" quality would have left Japan for dead, but it is totally the opposite. Roland and Yamaha for the most part made beautiful reliable synths, all plywood and steel, that are to this day incredibly reliable unless they have been abused. When they come in for repair it is usually because they have developed a fault.
On the other hand, when an American machine from that era comes in, it almost always has a litany of faults and is almost a basket case. I have been noticing that when a US made synth such as a Prophet, ARP, Linn Drum, Oberheim OBXa or a 4 voice, Octave Cat or such comes in, that it is basically a dead item that needs a restoration job to get it to make any noise at all. TR-808's and 909's come in with a bad voice, Linn Drum's and Drumulators and Oberheim DMX's come in in pieces.
Compare a Yamaha or Roland string machine with and ARP Omni. The Omni will almost certainly be an utter basket case and will need over 100 caps replaced.
Not having a go at the sound, America built brilliant synths, I love my ARP's and my Prophet, and I know that the pioneers who built the P5 and Linn did it on tiny budgets in their garage in the beginning, but even at their peak, the quality of their boards and casings did not compare to what Roland and Yamaha were producing in that era.
Roland built some dogs, notably the JP-4, and Yamaha for some reason decided to put no decoupling caps on any of the CMOS chips in the CS-80, but in general those Japanese designers and engineers did a wondreful job.
Have you read Paul Theberge's book Any Sound You Can Imagine? He made an interesting point in that book that Roland were the only company to survive the transition from the Analog to the Digital era in the 80's. Not necessarily for the reasons that you've described but it's interesting to note what you're finding all the same.
Peregrin C
- beatmad
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Re: American synthesizers
Thirteen wrote:Roland built some dogs, notably the JP-4, and Yamaha for some reason decided to put no decoupling caps on any of the CMOS chips in the CS-80, but in general those Japanese designers and engineers did a wondreful job.
JP-4 a dog???!?!
I really love mine.
though I had a bunch of tuning issues with it until I undid the CV and gate insert mods it came with, and then took an hour to go through and give it a complete tune up. it's sounding so amazing now.
I'm kinda tempted to get a chk electroservis midi/key matrix converter for it.
so - what kind of goes wrong with them? or do you just not like them as a synth?
My name is Julian Higginson and I approve of this message.
- no-fi
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Re: American synthesizers
no-fi wrote:Thirteen wrote:Roland built some dogs, notably the JP-4, and Yamaha for some reason decided to put no decoupling caps on any of the CMOS chips in the CS-80, but in general those Japanese designers and engineers did a wondreful job.
JP-4 a dog???!?!
I really love mine.
though I had a bunch of tuning issues with it until I undid the CV and gate insert mods it came with, and then took an hour to go through and give it a complete tune up. it's sounding so amazing now.
I'm kinda tempted to get a chk electroservis midi/key matrix converter for it.
so - what kind of goes wrong with them? or do you just not like them as a synth?
I think that they sound great as a synth, (as does the Promars), but they are very fragile, and have some build quality issues. If a JP-4 has had home use only and not been moved around then it is perfectly fine, but if it has been gigged or bumped it is another matter.
Roland synths of that era are normally very robust and can take a lot of punishment, but JP-4's and Promars' don't. Most techs won't touch them, I can understand why, when one comes in they always seem to have a lot of issues. A common problem is that the top panel board tracks are unusually thin and fragile, and any bump on the sliders can put cracks in the earth traces right along the board, resulting in all kinds of erratic behaviour.
The module controller card and the 4 voice cards are loaded into a card cage with the back of the boards to the front of the machine, so unless you have an extender card you cannot test or probe any of the voice cards which makes servicing them pretty much impossible unless you have a LOT of spare time for trial-and-error servicing. I have an extender card, and even so I shudder when one of these machines comes in.
The mother board is a big job to remove, the schematics are a birds nest, the key contacts lose tension, the battery is in a spot where invariably it leaks because people don't know where it is, and there are some rare parts in there. I have lots of spares, but even so, I don't enjoy working on them at all. They are a classic case of a machine where the service tech either has to charge a lot of money, or to wear several hours service time themself to keep the price reasonable.
If you look at the service manual and see how many revisions the voice cards went through, and how many extra caps are kludged onto them it is pretty obvious that Roland had problems with it from day one and had to keep doing serious re-designs over and over and new board revisions.
It is a really nice sounding synth, but mechanically not one of Roland's finer moments.
Steve Jones
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Thirteen - TRM Endorsed
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Hi there,
I thought the problems with US synths were mainly the power supplies being underpowered ??
(I am NOT a tech..so take that with a grain of salt)
Cheers
N
Y
M
O
I thought the problems with US synths were mainly the power supplies being underpowered ??
(I am NOT a tech..so take that with a grain of salt)
Cheers
N
Y
M
O
John NYMo Nyman
Not too old to Rock n Roll...not too young to die !
Not too old to Rock n Roll...not too young to die !
- NYMo
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I have a couple of American synths in my collection. The MiniMoog is just excellent, what can I say?
Mine is one of the very last Mini's and has an original 240v power supply. Steve has worked on mine a couple of times,
to recap it and refresh the keyboard and it just runs like new. It's a design classic and will never be bettered in general.
The other synth is my Sequential 615 Multitrak, which is a different beast. I have a love/hate relationship with it.
I like the sounds, but they are all "wannabe" sounds, that are not quite good enough. The 615 was one of their last synths
before the company got mired in all the stuff that dragged them down. The 615 is totally overengineered and it is obviously
a rush job. It is like they took the 6 trak or the Prophet 600 and dumbed it down a bit. It has a great MIDI implementation
except it does none of the Sysex that the 6 trak can do. It is sort of a synth that asks itself why it exists, as it sits in between.
Then there is the design flaw, that has probably relegated more 615's to the rubbish skip or back of the closet than any other.
The fact is, by default the circuit design allows for a battery that lasts approximately 30 days, before it expires, taking your
data with it. This synth was allowed to be shipped world wide with this flaw. I bought mine NOS in 1988 and it worked for
about a month before the battery died. Then I got it replaced in time to finish a project which thankfully got dumped to
sysex before I lost the battery again. Then I did the show and put the synth away for 10 years as it refused to work again.
Then a couple of years ago, someone reversed engineered the circuit, so that the battery now works with its full life span.
Steve did this job for me too, including replacing one of the non-standard "almost" CEM chip for one of the voices. The 615 doesn't
even use the same chips as the other synths in its class.
But I am still not happy with the synth. I liek the sound but playing it doesn't feel right. It is a runt from SCI's litter really!
It really is quite overengineered and represents the greed and consumption era of the
80's where shipping product was more important than the long term good of the company.... ...hey what's changed?
rachel
Mine is one of the very last Mini's and has an original 240v power supply. Steve has worked on mine a couple of times,
to recap it and refresh the keyboard and it just runs like new. It's a design classic and will never be bettered in general.
The other synth is my Sequential 615 Multitrak, which is a different beast. I have a love/hate relationship with it.
I like the sounds, but they are all "wannabe" sounds, that are not quite good enough. The 615 was one of their last synths
before the company got mired in all the stuff that dragged them down. The 615 is totally overengineered and it is obviously
a rush job. It is like they took the 6 trak or the Prophet 600 and dumbed it down a bit. It has a great MIDI implementation
except it does none of the Sysex that the 6 trak can do. It is sort of a synth that asks itself why it exists, as it sits in between.
Then there is the design flaw, that has probably relegated more 615's to the rubbish skip or back of the closet than any other.
The fact is, by default the circuit design allows for a battery that lasts approximately 30 days, before it expires, taking your
data with it. This synth was allowed to be shipped world wide with this flaw. I bought mine NOS in 1988 and it worked for
about a month before the battery died. Then I got it replaced in time to finish a project which thankfully got dumped to
sysex before I lost the battery again. Then I did the show and put the synth away for 10 years as it refused to work again.
Then a couple of years ago, someone reversed engineered the circuit, so that the battery now works with its full life span.
Steve did this job for me too, including replacing one of the non-standard "almost" CEM chip for one of the voices. The 615 doesn't
even use the same chips as the other synths in its class.
But I am still not happy with the synth. I liek the sound but playing it doesn't feel right. It is a runt from SCI's litter really!
It really is quite overengineered and represents the greed and consumption era of the
80's where shipping product was more important than the long term good of the company.... ...hey what's changed?
rachel
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Re: American synthesizers
Thirteen wrote:
It is a really nice sounding synth, but mechanically not one of Roland's finer moments.
yeah it does look a bit patched together inside. it was their first polysynth, right? I guess they had a bit to learn.
:-)
I had horrible tuning issues with mine when I got it (moving it across the room would make it out of tune! and then I'd have to re-cal with the trimpots on the back, sometimes even go inside and re-tune) but pulling out the CV/gate insert mod (that had been done with the crappiest looking 1/8" jacks EVER) made it a lot happier.
Hmmm.... while i was at it I pulled out all the voice cards and reseated them... maybe that helped too??? I'll keep an eye on it in the future and see how it goes, but for now it seems way more stable than I ever had it before. and I'm pretty sure it was the insert jacks causing the worst issues.
at least with the JP4 if the voices are a bit out of cal, you just run it in mono mode, and it's an awesome wall of fatness... :-)
also the filter S&H mod slider on mine has had issues where it would be fully on at any position. I had a bit of a play with it (basically sliding it up and down, and pushing it around, and I found that pushing it to the right made it work properly... I assumed the pot's wiper might have been bad but quite possibly it's a broken trace on the board... will look into that if the issue shows up again... :-)
I might have a look for the battery next time it's open too. though nothing looked leaky the other week. (was mostly looking at caps though)
My name is Julian Higginson and I approve of this message.
- no-fi
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rachelp wrote:I have a couple of American synths in my collection. The MiniMoog is just excellent, what can I say?
Mine is one of the very last Mini's and has an original 240v power supply. Steve has worked on mine a couple of times,
to recap it and refresh the keyboard and it just runs like new. It's a design classic and will never be bettered in general.
The other synth is my Sequential 615 Multitrak, which is a different beast. I have a love/hate relationship with it.
I like the sounds, but they are all "wannabe" sounds, that are not quite good enough. The 615 was one of their last synths
before the company got mired in all the stuff that dragged them down. The 615 is totally overengineered and it is obviously
a rush job. It is like they took the 6 trak or the Prophet 600 and dumbed it down a bit. It has a great MIDI implementation
except it does none of the Sysex that the 6 trak can do. It is sort of a synth that asks itself why it exists, as it sits in between.
Then there is the design flaw, that has probably relegated more 615's to the rubbish skip or back of the closet than any other.
The fact is, by default the circuit design allows for a battery that lasts approximately 30 days, before it expires, taking your
data with it. This synth was allowed to be shipped world wide with this flaw. I bought mine NOS in 1988 and it worked for
about a month before the battery died. Then I got it replaced in time to finish a project which thankfully got dumped to
sysex before I lost the battery again. Then I did the show and put the synth away for 10 years as it refused to work again.
Then a couple of years ago, someone reversed engineered the circuit, so that the battery now works with its full life span.
Steve did this job for me too, including replacing one of the non-standard "almost" CEM chip for one of the voices. The 615 doesn't
even use the same chips as the other synths in its class.
But I am still not happy with the synth. I liek the sound but playing it doesn't feel right. It is a runt from SCI's litter really!
It really is quite overengineered and represents the greed and consumption era of the
80's where shipping product was more important than the long term good of the company.... ...hey what's changed?
rachel
The Minimoog is an exception, it is very nicely put together. I have a Multimoog, which is definitely not, it is plastic fantastic, but I prefer it to the Mini because it is so versatile and does a great oscillator sync pull with it's aftertouch. The Polymoog stops working if you twist the chassis when you move it too. I love the Multimoog but it is a bitch to work on.
Steve Jones
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Re: American synthesizers
no-fi wrote:also the filter S&H mod slider on mine has had issues where it would be fully on at any position. I had a bit of a play with it (basically sliding it up and down, and pushing it around, and I found that pushing it to the right made it work properly... I assumed the pot's wiper might have been bad but quite possibly it's a broken trace on the board... will look into that if the issue shows up again... :-)
Seen that before... Cracked solder joint or track at the slider mount.
Steve Jones
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Thirteen - TRM Endorsed
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Have you read Paul Theberge's book Any Sound You Can Imagine? He made an interesting point in that book that Roland were the only company to survive the transition from the Analog to the Digital era in the 80's. Not necessarily for the reasons that you've described but it's interesting to note what you're finding all the same.
I think this guy had never heard of the CS80 and the DX7
I think this guy had never heard of the CS80 and the DX7
Ross Healy
Electronic Artist/Sound Designer
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Electronic Artist/Sound Designer
VICMOD RECORDS
http://www.vicmod.net
MODULAR VIDS
http://www.youtube.com/user/cray56
- amnesia
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amnesia wrote:Have you read Paul Theberge's book Any Sound You Can Imagine? He made an interesting point in that book that Roland were the only company to survive the transition from the Analog to the Digital era in the 80's. Not necessarily for the reasons that you've described but it's interesting to note what you're finding all the same.
I think this guy had never heard of the CS80 and the DX7
Oops yeah he does talk about Yamaha but as a major player in musical instrument manufacture and sales. It was the DX7 that drove small companies like Sequential Circuits and Oberheim to fold but Roland survived.
Peregrin C
- beatmad
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beatmad wrote:amnesia wrote:Have you read Paul Theberge's book Any Sound You Can Imagine? He made an interesting point in that book that Roland were the only company to survive the transition from the Analog to the Digital era in the 80's. Not necessarily for the reasons that you've described but it's interesting to note what you're finding all the same.
I think this guy had never heard of the CS80 and the DX7
Oops yeah he does talk about Yamaha but as a major player in musical instrument manufacture and sales. It was the DX7 that drove small companies like Sequential Circuits and Oberheim to fold but Roland survived.
AFIK Yamaha USA bought Sequential and shut it down.
Steve Jones
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I take on board the flakiness factor but happily most older synths seem to work more often than not.
When they are working my top four synths are all American.
Steiner Parker Synthacon, Buchla, Arp 2600, OB 4 Voice
When they are working my top four synths are all American.
Steiner Parker Synthacon, Buchla, Arp 2600, OB 4 Voice
Whitten
- ChrisW
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Thirteen wrote:beatmad wrote:amnesia wrote:Have you read Paul Theberge's book Any Sound You Can Imagine? He made an interesting point in that book that Roland were the only company to survive the transition from the Analog to the Digital era in the 80's. Not necessarily for the reasons that you've described but it's interesting to note what you're finding all the same.
I think this guy had never heard of the CS80 and the DX7
Oops yeah he does talk about Yamaha but as a major player in musical instrument manufacture and sales. It was the DX7 that drove small companies like Sequential Circuits and Oberheim to fold but Roland survived.
AFIK Yamaha USA bought Sequential and shut it down.
That may be the case but I believe by that stage they were very much struggling in the market due to the digital revolution. Anyway, my original point was meant to be that out of these smaller companies that started manufacturing synthesisers basically out of their garages in the early 1970's Roland survived and the others didn't and it's interesting as an addendum to this you note that 20 years down the track the build quality of their synths has proven to be much better than their competition.
Peregrin C
- beatmad
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ChrisW wrote:Was Roland ever a 'smaller company' that built gear out of a garage?
Well I guess they weren't as small as the other synth companies but they were smaller than Yamaha. Wiki said they had 33million yen in backing when they started in 1972. Not sure what that equalled in US dollars. Man you guys are on to me, I feel like a drunk guy at a party playing chinese whispers. I read Theberge's book several years ago so I'm a bit hazy on the details. I don't have a copy of the book but I think he mentioned Roland came pretty close to bankruptcy. The Roland history in SOS magazine mentions financial troubles around 1980. I don't want to go any further off topic but Theberge's book is a very good read and is probably even more relevant today than when it was written.
Peregrin C
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Re: American synthesizers
Thirteen wrote:
Seen that before... Cracked solder joint or track at the slider mount.
awesome!! :-) I was looking into having a go at fixing it, but after a bunch of fiddling with it (had to keep pushing it into its good place to do the filter calibration) it came good again and has been since. if it ever goes bad again I'll be all over the solder joints with my iron.
I was actually worried maybe the slider had taken a hit (it was sent to me via courier very badly packed) and the wiper was bent up a bit or something - was thinking I might have to disassemble the pot. A board repair is much nicer.
My name is Julian Higginson and I approve of this message.
- no-fi
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headman wrote:Roland's financial troubles around 1980:
If I had to guess it would be Roland's foray into the world of Guitar - Synthesiser interface. Was it around this time?
That's what killed off ARP years earlier.
Apparently it was a combination of a strong yen and Roland's European distributor going bankrupt that caused the financial troubles.
Peregrin C
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Re: American synthesizers
Thirteen wrote:...when an American machine from that era comes in, it almost always has a litany of faults and is almost a basket case. I have been noticing that when a US made synth such as a Prophet, ARP, Linn Drum, Oberheim OBXa or a 4 voice, Octave Cat or such comes in, that it is basically a dead item that needs a restoration job to get it to make any noise at all...
That's interesting, as I have a studio full of old (mostly) Roland stuff, that I manage to maintain (with pretty basic electronics knowledge, a scope, and a DMM), but I am also "minding" a rev 3 Prophet 5 for a mate, which is at this time unplayable due to frozen keys (a single voice will play from ext CV/gate control). I'm wondering if I tackle the keyboard problem, what else may be lurking in there for me..?
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If you have a 'scope you can put it on the sawtooth output of each of the 10 Curtis VCO's and see if they are all running, and if so, do they change pitch when you play around the keyboard (best if in unison mode)? Also, press autotune and see if the pitch scans around as the computer sets it's pitch offsets.
Steve Jones
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Thirteen - TRM Endorsed
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Thanks Steve. The voice that plays over Cv/gate seems to respond normally pitchwise although it's not one volt per octave.
I found some info here about the keys problem...
http://obsoletetechnology.wordpress.com ... rd-repair/
(this guy is seriously keen! Check out some of his other work!). It looks tedious but not too difficult. I'm thinking there's gotta be a more elegant solution than the wire wrapping..
I found some info here about the keys problem...
http://obsoletetechnology.wordpress.com ... rd-repair/
(this guy is seriously keen! Check out some of his other work!). It looks tedious but not too difficult. I'm thinking there's gotta be a more elegant solution than the wire wrapping..
-
a.d.a.m. baby - Registered User
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The key bushings should be replaced with proper new ones, they are readily available, the best I have found come from here:
http://home.netcom.com/~arcsound/
So no need to mess around making them out of wire and felt. Order a set, put on some safety glasses when you remove the springs from the back of the keys, clean off the old cracked bushings, slip the new ones on (pay attention that you put them the right way up), re-assemble in reverse order.
http://home.netcom.com/~arcsound/
So no need to mess around making them out of wire and felt. Order a set, put on some safety glasses when you remove the springs from the back of the keys, clean off the old cracked bushings, slip the new ones on (pay attention that you put them the right way up), re-assemble in reverse order.
Steve Jones
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Thirteen - TRM Endorsed
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a.d.a.m. baby - Registered User
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