BlahBlahCafe - Jean-Michel Jarre forum

Hi,

I´ve decided to put up my images of my Synth restorations projects. These are restorations done both on my own equipment and for Clients.

Among them you will find: PPG Wave 2.2, Two CR-78, Roland RS-09, Fairlight CMI IIx.

More to come as I get time to edit my images (Over 250 of the to crop and resize). Among them Oberheim Ob-X, TVS-1 and so on ...
I also hope to add some information later on usefull for anyone interested in restoring old Synthesizers.

The page can be found at:

http://www.itsahit.com/rikard/Restorations/

Please excuse the poor webdesign, but I am not aiming to win any prices in good design.

Best regards,

Oh Yes! I love this type of websites

If i knew this earlier i could help You. I was repairing D50, Vermona Synthesizer and Elka Rhapsody 610

Awwww that's lush!!!! I love the CR-78 work!

That's indeed quite an interesting page you made, Rikard Congrats!

I really wonder if you'll get that fairlight working again

good job !
good site !

you rules, it's an amazing work, and it is very very well done !!!!

Great, excellent, wonderful !!
I know who to contact if I have a problem with a monster synth

jarrekid wrote:Awwww that's lush!!!! I love the CR-78 work!

I strongly recommend Synthx and will without doubt ask him first if any of my older gear need service! My CR-78 is as good as new!

Hi!

Neat work on the restauration! Currently I'm restaurating my Farfisa Compact Duo. I did my X-705, 2600 and Synthi AKS some time ago. I still need to restore the JX3P. It has this odd habbit: when turned on it works fine a few minutes later it's over.... I don't have a site about it though. I also have to maintain my other equipment wich takes time too...

I wonder do you know where I can get new sliders for my ARP 1611 sequencer? I really don't care if they are genuine parts as long as they fit...

PS: you still have the Fairlight or is it back to your client?

J.

Hey,

LeoDaV wrote:Hi!
Neat work on the restauration! Currently I'm restaurating my Farfisa Compact Duo. I did my X-705, 2600 and Synthi AKS some time ago. I still need to restore the JX3P. It has this odd habbit: when turned on it works fine a few minutes later it's over....

Cool, I am actually going to buy a 2600 this summer, it is the grey model with moogfilter.

How do you mean it is over. Does the synth power down ? Or does it simply stop sounding ? The fault you are describing sounds like a bad transistor, they usually work for a time then sudenly go dead if they have not gone completely dead that is.

LeoDav wrote:I wonder do you know where I can get new sliders for my ARP 1611 sequencer? I really don't care if they are genuine parts as long as they fit...

These parts do come up on Ebay from time to time. Actually it wasn´t to long ago I saw these for sale. I could ask a friend of mine if he knows anyone selling replacement sliders as he is an ARP freak.

LeoDav wrote:PS: you still have the Fairlight or is it back to your client? J.

It is still here, I had to order parts from three different places for it. I am afraid this restoration might take a long time to complete as I am taking it bit by bit. First thing is to get it to display the Fairlight menu after that the rest is just re-caping the various cards, PSU, Monitor etc.. The B-drive didn´t work a few years back according to my client. It remains to be seen if it is due to the battery leaking or if that is a problem on it´s own. I have located a source for the 8" drives, but they are freaking expensive

Hi LeoDav,

Found some ARP sliders :

http://cgi.ebay.com/2-ARP-100K-Audio-Sl ... dZViewItem

These seem to be quite hard to come by, as are the different slider knobs. Might be worth a cloning project and selling them on Ebay

Can I ask you how you learnt to repair those synths?

I dream of being able to do that!

jeremy wrote:Can I ask you how you learnt to repair those synths?

I dream of being able to do that!

Same here

But I think you have just (hum, well...) to know many things in electronic and to know how a synth work, I don't say it is easy at all, it's the opposite of that, for sure, I don't think I'll be able to repair an ARP2600 tomorrow in 1 hour...

jeremy wrote:Can I ask you how you learnt to repair those synths?

I dream of being able to do that!

As one of my friends, which developed electronic circuits, sayed to me years ago (regarding the same question): "It´s all based on logic"

But, as i can say from my side, it still needs years to get involved into it. I´ve started back somewhere around 1995/1996 with the programming of Microcontrollers under Assembler, but even the best Microcon needs electronics around it. Then came Resistors/Caps/Transistors etcetc. Then i started to learn how the different 4xxx and 74LS/HCxxx series works and what they provide, then, with the first death Music device that i´ve got (Minipops), how to repair it (for the price which i´ve payed was it a -must- to repair it. In first order was the Transistor death, which produces the noise for instruments like snare/OH/CH etc. ). Then came the EX8000 with defect OpAms, then the CR78 with programmer problems etcetc (by the way, Rikard, i would still need a CR78 EPROM, don´t you have a Prommer to read it out ?)

So, all in all is "Synth repairing" something which can´t be learned from one day to another, but, if you search for a new hobby and if you have fun to handle with electronics, simply do it. Buy some hole raster plates or an experiment board, some LEDs, a res/cap/tran assortment, a adjustable power pack and, -in any case-, a good adjustable soldering iron (not the cheapo 5€ soldering iron which you can buy eveywhere).

Stef

PHASEREFFECT wrote: (by the way, Rikard, i would still need a CR78 EPROM, don´t you have a Prommer to read it out ?)Stef

Jupp, thought about doing just that, but I do not own a Eprom burner my self, So I called a friend of mine and asked him to help me since I was anyways going to read the Eproms of the Fairlight and provide the binary files on my site.

Unfortunately my friends burner has died. So I need to find someone with a burner first. I can PM the Bin file if manage to get hold of a burner.

Best,
/RL

jeremy wrote:Can I ask you how you learnt to repair those synths?
I dream of being able to do that!

Well, I´ve spent a lot of time reading schematics and theories on how circuits work. I took a class in digital electronics learning logical gates and bolean algebra (Juck !!!).

The most important part is to understand the very basics of these things. Learn to know the components first, then a small aplication. And do not view it as something very hard to learn. There are books on general aplications, and how to do for example a wha wha pedal or phaser. In the end you will eventually understand how it all works in the bigger perspective.