Anachostic

This Isn’t Even My Final Form!!

Posted by anachostic on February 14, 2026 No comments

Picture a Saiyan warrior, standing alone, screaming his head off, trying to raise himself to the next level of power. Such is my experience with my home studio. It’s been about 3 years now since I first began acquiring gear, initially to remaster some old tracks, then to create new tracks in a more traditional, non-in-the-box fashion. And there seems to be no limit to the amount of gear that is available due to aging, the abundance of new gear, and more people’s choice to go in-the-box for music creation. So, my choices have been plentiful and I’ve taken advantage of that.

It’s a little reminiscent of when I started collecting CD players from thrift shops. It was something I never could have entertained in the past, having the ability to experience different players and notice their sonic differences – something reserved for audio reviewers and people with tons of cash. But now, I can experience all these different synths that I never would have been able to before. So it’s a golden era for experimentation.

But growth comes with challenges as I’m sure any Saiyan warrior would know. Like where do you put all this muscle? I am literally out of room in my bedroom studio. I just completed assembling my third rack unit and I don’t have anywhere to put it. It’s just kind of in the middle of the room. But it’s on wheels, so it can go wherever. And this brings me to the next evolution in the studio.

Discovering patchbays and their functionality was a total gamechanger for me. Once you come to terms with the cost and quantity of cabling you need to purchase up front, everything becomes easier from then on out. My current bottleneck is that I have a rack that is physically tied to my mixer and my keyboard stands via MIDI and audio connections. The goal is to make racks "Red" and "Deep Wood" uncoupled from everything. Rack "Grey" (formerly "Blue"), which contains effects and guitar processors, has always been uncoupled and it’s been an excellent model for where I want to go. So how to accomplish this? More patchbays!! And another "rack".

The end goal is to tether the keyboard stands to a new patchbay located at the main mixer. Each set of stands will have their own MIDI interfaces, coincidentally the same make and model – 2x Edirol UM-3x units giving 6 ports to each stand. Then the rack at the mixer will contain that patchbay and the audio interface. I also plan to relocate the recording PC onto a shelf in the rack. So that’s one "unit": the mixer, the patchbay connected to the keyboard stands, and the audio interface connected to the PC and the mixer. In a world with no racks, that would a complete setup.

Racks Red and Deep Wood will be identical in design. Each will have a patchbay, an 8 channel mixer, and a MIDI interface. The audio from the devices in the rack go to the patchbay, which map, normalized, to the 8 channel mixer. Devices in excess of the 8 channel capacity can be patched into any channel as needed, which is how a patchbay is to be used. The output of the mixer goes to the local patchbay, which then routes to the patchbay at the main mixer. The MIDI interface in the rack connects to the PC. This setup means I can easily play up to 8 devices from each rack at a time, and that’s not a hard limit. I can patch more devices from any rack over to the main patchbay as long as I’m willing to handle cables being strewn about. I can patch Rack Grey in anywhere, even directly to the main mixer. Complete flexibility.

But I did say "uncoupled", didn’t I? Having a USB cable and a TRS cable tying each rack to the main patchbay is hardly uncoupled, right? And that’s where the most clever part comes in. Each rack will have jacks mounted at the back to quickly connect or disconnect them so they can be rolled in or out or where they may need to be placed. This is done with these pieces:

I mount the TRS and USB Neutrik jacks into the brackets and mount the brackets on the side of the rack. The jacks connect to the internal patchbay and MIDI interface. Then I have quick-disconnect jacks. Elegant. This little detail excites me the most about the new setup.

The parts are slowly coming in. The last bits that I’ll need to do is fabricate the new rack to sit underneath my mixer that will hold the audio interface, patchbay, and shelf for the PC. The 8ch mixer for Rack Deep Wood is on backorder, which is probably just as well, since I’ve been spending money like an American. As far as the latest rack goes, I have about 7U of space left in it. God forbid I fill that up and have to bring Rack Blue out of retirement.

You Get One Chance And You Have No Idea If You’re Doing it Right

Posted by anachostic on February 9, 2026 No comments

Today on my drive to spend $75 on a device (which turned into spending $300 for a lot of stuff I didn’t want or need), I had the classic thought of, what if you could start life over retaining all your current knowledge. That’s typically an exercise in recognizing life’s regrets and identifying what you’ve gained and learned in your life. One of the things I wanted to gain in my youth was the ability to be self sufficient. Like now, I’m able to diagnose problems and fix things and don’t have fear or worry about breaking things. When I was younger, I always took things apart, but never had any guidance, so I just ended up breaking them and never putting them back together. I didn’t even have any instruction for how to analyze what I was looking at. Of course, the internet didn’t exist back then, and while I did go to the library, I always saw the library as a bunch of books, not really a place to gain knowledge. Again, I was not taught how to best utilize resources that were available to me.

Anyway, that mental exercise led me down a particular path with a specific question: "What did your dad teach you?" The question was in the context of the nostalgic image of a father and son fixing or building something together – passing skills to a younger generation. In my recollection, I couldn’t think of anything. I had no memory of my dad sitting me down and explaining how something worked or how to do a task, or any life skills, or any special knowledge. I’ve lamented in my past how my dad was multilingual and never raised me to be. I suspect it might have been my mom’s influence that she didn’t want her kids to be "different" in that way.

So as I mulled on this, I became a little jealous of kids who had a handyman dad that could show them these life skills. And as I mulled even longer, I came to the realization that I didn’t have any mentors in my youth. I was completely self taught on everything. So oddly, my request for self-sufficiency was actually granted, it just didn’t have the end result I wanted.

I don’t want to paint my parents as bad, because what they did provide me was any tool I needed to help me figure things out, and professional training too, but most of that was wasted because I can’t learn in a structured fashion. Additionally, what my dad was was a good role model, if not a good instructor. He was well-mannered, respected, a stable provider, and technologically curious. I guess my upbringing was not "do as I say, not as I do", but more "do as I do, because I have nothing to say."

There’s a lot of stories and videos that talk about Gen X and how they grew up without supervision which became formative to how they grew up as adults. And now I find I really had nothing guiding me at all. It’s sort of a miracle I ended up how I did. And not really a surprise I would look back and wonder if it could have been done differently.

I Finally Figured This Out

Posted by anachostic on February 8, 2026 No comments

So the failed purchase of the synths in GA kind of got me thinking. After breaking my heart telling me all his synths were sold just the other day, the guy said, in consolation, it shouldn’t be hard to find a K2000 or a Quasar. And you know what, he’s right. And he’s smart, too. For many, many of my purchases, I’m spending so much more to buy the devices because of my time, my gas, wear on the car, in extreme cases, lodging costs. Like driving 8 hrs one way and $200 on a hotel room to spend $500 on a keyboard? It’s now an $800 dollar keyboard and you can get them for cheaper than that shipped to your house! And I’ve been thinking about that and I have my answer. Why do I do this?

The reason is because buying a new device online is too easy. Seriously, it’s the easiest thing you can do – spend money and wait. And when it arrives, it’s like, eh, it’s here, what else can I buy now? My in-person purchases are limited availability items, in both time and distance (granted my distance threshold is much higher than normal people’s). But, the REAL reason is that it takes effort to make these purchases. I am committing to driving 18 hours for 3 devices. Just today, I drove 6 hours for a $450 device. Tomorrow I’m driving 4 hours for a $75 device. It sounds insane, doesn’t it?

But when you expend the effort, you have equity in the device. You have a stronger connection to it and it means more to you because of it. That sounds dumb – why would you ever want to "care" about a product? It’s just a product, you can get it anywhere. And that’s the trap in which modern convenience and consumerism has gotten people. They aren’t attached to their purchases, they don’t mean anything, so there’s no desire to keep them, cherish them, maintain them, or even use them with purpose. It’s just stuff – entirely disposable stuff.

You know, it wasn’t always like that and I’m refusing to let it be like that for me, at least when it comes to my collectable items.

Just as a side story on the effort that went into today’s purchase, this device was the same as one that I missed out on in GA, and it was $50 cheaper to boot. It was listed on a weekend and damn it if I didn’t see the listing under Monday. I messaged the guy and said I would like to buy this, but I wouldn’t be able to come up until the next weekend. He said he wouldn’t hold it for me and I agreed he shouldn’t. But he did say he would be coming by my area over the next weekend which would work out awesome in that he could practically deliver it to me (if it didn’t sell by then). I anxiously waited and the device hadn’t sold by Thursday. I messaged the seller and said I was still interested. No response. I messaged twice on Friday. No response. Oh well. That sucked.

Today I wake up and see the seller replied at 10:30 the previous night. He had a buyer who no-showed, but he was also not coming to my area now. I immediately replied and said I’d come get it. No response. GAHHH! I start doing other work in the house and he finally responds at like 1:30pm saying, sure, I can come up. Man, I did not want to deal with afternoon/evening traffic. I wanted to get started first thing in the morning, but fine. As I’m travelling, I’m giving him updates and I swear he didn’t believe I was coming. He would take so long to reply. Luckily I had 3 hours to get his actual home address.

Once there, the deal was completed and he was a cool guy, but the drive home was a lot more stressful than it should have been. At least I got a good dinner in Orlando out of it. And luckily, my house didn’t flood in my 7 hour absence (that’s a story for another blog).

Studio Purchases Log And Future Plans

Posted by anachostic on January 22, 2026 No comments

Ok, let’s just be direct about the post title. I need to log all the shit I’m purchasing and how much i got it for so I know how much money I’m losing when I sell it or destroy it.

The last real log was at the beginning of December when I bought a drum machine and a couple boards. Since then, I mentioned that I found two Roland D-5’s for $100 that needed work. They’re all fixed up now and I had to buy new power supplies, some capacitors, some tactile switches, and a new key. Roundabout total cost for those two: $60, so they cost about $80 each. They aren’t selling for $150 on Craigslist, so it’ll be good to know how low I can go.

Then later, I bought another Kawai K3m for… shit. I’ve forgotten already. But it looks like I withdrew $650 from the bank for both the k3m and the k5m, so maybe $250 for the k3m and $450 for the k5m. Another Kawai I bought was a K1 IIr, which needed some repair. That was from eBay for $80, plus shipping.

And now, to log in advance, I’m heading to ATL this weekend to get three more rackmount units. A Kurzweil k2000r, a Quasimidi Quasar, and I’m pretty sure I’ll get a Korg 03R/W because it’s so cheap. That should be $500+$400+$100. Maybe he’ll cut me a break, but I’ll never assume that. I’m not a haggler. I’ll post the trip details separately.

Just as a note, my racks are literally full, so that means I need to build another rack, which means more shit has to be purchased. The known list:

Rack rails
Two sheets of wood
Wood stain. This time I think I’m going classy dark wood grain and it shall be named Deep Wood
Wheels

Then in order to make the rack serviceable, I’ll need:

Power strip
Audio patch bay
MIDI interface
Midi thru box (maybe, let’s assume not)

The primary rack (Red) has the audio interface for the computer as well as a midi interface, line mixer and a patch bay. I’m not going to duplicate the audio portion in the new rack and will just connect the two patch bays for whatever audio I need to record or playback. I decided some time ago that every rack I build will be as independent as possible. The effects rack (Blue) I can roll anywhere I want after unplugging the power cord. I want that kind of flexibility throughout my studio. If I wanted to roll Deep Wood around, I’d have two cables to disconnect: power and USB midi interface, but it’s not as bad as a snake of 24 audio cables going to it like Red does. Obviously, Red has a lot more dependency because it’s tied to the mixer and has the computer audio interface and has MIDI and audio ties to both keyboard stands, but at some point that may change. Maybe I’ll make a fourth rack and extract a lot of rackmount synths and design it like Deep Wood. I don’t have the room for a fourth rack, though…

Anyway, back to money. Hardware for the rack will be about $40+$30+$10+$15 = $95. Electronics for the rack will be: $50+$80+$100=$230. So a little over $300 to start filling up with more devices. Oh boy. And lets see. By next week I will have 11U of synths sitting around and 3U of rack "infrastructure" to purchase. Red is 22U and Blue is 12U, so I’m already at 60% capacity if Deep Wood is built to Red’s specs.

And here’s something pretty hilarious. I have SO much electronic stuff in that room, I can only power on a TINY fraction of it at one time otherwise it will trip the breaker. I only have 10 amps at my disposal for all outlets.

Postscript: The trip to ATL got cancelled at the last minute as I was messaging the seller to ask about payment methods. He had sold everything the previous day. That was pretty uncool. So anyway, I got a day and a half off work and I soothed my depression by buying some other devices I didn’t need or want. I got an Emu Classic Keys for $100, a Kurzweil Micro Ensemble for $70, and a non-working Emu Proteus for $50. Proteus needed a new battery and factory reset, but it’s not really that great. I can replace my Proteus 1 with it, since it has all the sounds from Proteus 1 & 2 in it and maybe I can sell the Proteus 1. There’s a million of them out there for sale, though. I haven’t been charged for the hotel stay yet and hopefully I won’t, so maybe it will be kind of a wash.

Kawai Me? Kawai Now?

Posted by anachostic on January 10, 2026 No comments

Something I did not expect in my acquisition of keyboards is the prevalence of the Kawai brand in what comes in the door. And of those, I am surprised at how many are not working.

A quick rundown of what I have right now at this moment. A Kawai K3 was the first purchase and it was in ok shape, if poorly neglected, with a mouse nest inside it. I followed that up with a K1 desktop module and wasn’t thrilled with it, so it went to the closet. A later attempt to reconnect with it made me decide the sound wasn’t all that bad and if I could get the rackmount version, I would. I did – the K1R. That one was purchased as not working, but it only needed a new fuse. Then I bought a K3M, the rackmount version of the one I first purchased, sold as probably working, does not. Then I bought a K5M, which seems to have trouble with sysex – hoping a firmware upgrade resolves it. And I bought another K3M so I can troubleshoot the broken one against the working one. And I bought another K1R, which was sold as broken with supposedly an easy fix, which it was until it wasn’t. And that’s where this story starts.

The latest K1R was sold as broken and would not power on. The seller assumed it was the power jack broken off because it pushed in when he plugged in the power cord. He was correct. It was a simple soldering fix. However, when I had opened the case up, I found the device was not in good shape. The top cover had rust on the inside, the rack ears had rust as well. So I figured I’d try to fix those problems and clean everything up while it was all disassembled anyway. My mistake. For some reason the front panel wouldn’t come off. When I did get it off, this is what I was faced with.

The buttons were taped to the switches with some really super-sticky tape, which was also stuck to the front panel. Ok, no big deal, I can take the tape off. Wait, no I can’t. Why not? WTF, the switches are glued to the tape with rubber cement. I carefully worked each button off until, just like my last repair, the last thing I touch breaks. I broke the switch off trying to free it from the button. Ok, so we’re going to do a full switch replacement. No big deal, I just did it twice on the D5’s.

After buying the wrong size switches (of course), then finally getting the new switches soldered in, the buttons are all floppy, some just sinking into the frame when pushed. Jesus. Is this what the previous person was trying to fix with the cement and tape? Why did it happen in the first place?

Some of the buttons are completely mangled inside, they seem like they were burnt and melted with a soldering iron. So after scraping off any remnants of rubber cement I could find, I’m at the point of using superglue to raise the contact surface of some of the buttons so they have less gap with the switch. Some buttons are ok, some are not. It’s entirely baffling why it’s so inconsistent.

Fortunately, I haven’t broken anything further yet in this process. You can see if you look closely that the panel board is corroded badly at the top from whatever caused the rust on the top case. The ribbon cable is on its last legs and I’m trying to bend it as little as possible because it’s not going to hold out much longer. (Also, look very closely and see if you see the mistake the previous "tech" made. Answer at the end.)

Hopefully I can wrap this up tomorrow and move on to troubleshooting the K3M. Then hopefully the K5M firmware chip will come in and I can get some sounds loaded on it. Then what? Time to purge. I have an M-Audio Oxygen 25, two Roland D5’s and three Kawais: a K3M, a K1M and a K1R to part with. Answer: Look at the "No" button.

How’s It Bin, Lately?

Posted by anachostic on January 3, 2026 No comments

This week I had the opportunity to stop at a store I hadn’t been to in years. The store? Staples. Yeah, you’d think I would be able to go to one regularly, and I used to, but well, they closed down the one near me and I’m not driving 30+ minutes to buy some office supplies. And I only stopped because I was in the area and something just popped into my head – I needed a pad of junior ledger paper. That’s pretty much all I needed. And why not just hang out for nostalgia’s sake, too?

When I go there, I was kind of surprised to see that Staples had merged with Party City? Or something like that. Staples is UPS, Party City, Amazon, and who knows what else inside (this is foreshadowing, BTW). I get in and start my browsing. Right at the entrance was something unexpected, a bin of random stuff – looked like returned products. Maybe this was part of the partnership with Amazon? Weird.

I find ledger pads. WTF? $14 and I have to buy a pack of 5? That’s like a lifetime supply for me. I keep on browsing. Nothing really catching my eye. Finally I found single pads, of which there were only two left. Now there’s one left. And while I was there I picked up some felt pads for a very special reason.

Nearing the back of the store was a big surprise waiting for me. Bins. Lots of bins, with people pawing and sifting through them like they would rummage through trash. It was, to put it lightly, unappealing. I think I blogged about my first and only experience with a "bin store" that lasted less than 5 seconds. Walk in, see what was happening, walk away quickly. And this wonderful experience was now here, at Staples! How the mighty have fallen! And also, how society has fallen.

So let me try to justify what might be a touch of hypocrisy. Yeah, I go to pawn shops and thrift shops. I have visited a Goodwill outlet a couple of times and have once sifted through a bin of media looking for any CDs for my collection. For the record, I didn’t like that experience. And I don’t like the experience or the visuals of people scrounging. This is fucking AMERICA. We are not supposed to be barbaric like this. I try to live by the motto "leave the world a little better than you found it." And believe it or not, I tried to add some organization to the pile of CDs in the goodwill bin. I straighten up and organize CDs at thrift shops. This is NOT what I see when I see people bin shopping. This is NOT the America I want to see. But sadly, I guess this is where we are. This is where capitalism has brought us, fighting over discarded scraps.

I don’t think I can recover the bleakness of what this post became, so I’ll just close mentioning that special reason for the felt pads. Maybe it will end with a smile.

My two indoor cats, Null and Sky, do not get along, so they each get half the house at a time. Usually for half the day or so, I will switch them so they get to experience the other half of the house. Null is usually in the living room area and Sky gets the bedroom area. When Null gets tired of his time in the bedroom and wants back into his domain, he scratches at the door. But Null is not a small cat, so what he ends up doing is banging on the door. It is not tolerable and not ignorable. Until now.

These felt disc pads, which I have cut into half circles, have been affixed perfectly to the door frame, so the door has no give anymore. So today when I heard him wanting out, it was just the sliding of his paws on the door, not the door repeatedly being slammed against the door frame. Peace at last.

Roland D5 Repair Log

Posted by anachostic on December 25, 2025 No comments

Last weekend, I found on FB Marketplace a pair of Roland D5 keyboards that were being sold as needs repair. Price was right, only $100 for both, so I picked them up. Surprisingly they both have the same problem, and less surprisingly, it’s a problem experienced and recorded many times online. The problem is the patches sound like the modulation wheel is perma-cranked. Online, they are described as "warbly".

Before I had done my research, the first thing I did was disconnect the pitch/mod wheel assembly and clearly, it didn’t fix it. I looked around the board and it didn’t look bad, but it seemed to have what I would call "suspiciously oily dust" on the circuit board. You know, it’s not dry dust. Although it didn’t look like the capacitors were leaking, they just seemed like they were carrying a little extra dust on their legs, which doesn’t happen with dry circuitry.

So I made the decision to recap the whole board and I made a parts list for anyone else looking to do it. While I waited for the parts, I did more research and found that yes, the warble is caused by one capacitor in particular – C49 – so I expect my complete replacement should solve that problem. Additionally, it’s a very common problem that the tactile buttons are worn out and should all be replaced. I ordered those parts as well. The volume slider is in pretty good shape so I won’t be replacing that.

Anyway, on to the parts list!

Tactile buttons:
38 of 6mm x 6mm x 5mm, 2 pin

Capacitors:
11 of 16v, 10u (C7, 8, 12, 15, 19, 24, 25, 28, 31, 35, 49)
5 of 25v 10uf Bipolar (C53, 69, 70, 76, 80)
4 of 16v 1000v (C2, 3, 4, 68)
2 of 50v 1uf (C45, 66)
2 of 25v 47uf Bipolar (C54, 60)
1 of 16v 100uf (C33)
1 of 35v 47uf (C78)
1 of 50v 4.7uf (C1)

Coming Full Circle, All Wrapped Up In A Bow

Posted by anachostic on December 14, 2025 No comments

There’s this story I have that I love to tell, and although I feel certain I’ve relayed it in this blog at some point, I couldn’t find it, so I’m going to tell the story again. The difference this time is the ending.

When I was younger, maybe 10-12, my parents somehow thought it would be interesting for me to try archery. I guess a neighbor was into it and was willing to teach me and get me all geared up. So I got a bow and some arrows and some gear and I kind of sucked at it. Despite that, I still outgrew the bow that I had and so my parents got me a bigger, fancier one. It was a Bear Whitetail Hunter. A crazy contraption that could alter the pull weight with a series of cams and pullies.

But I still kind of sucked at it. And I never really got any better because I couldn’t really practice. I would have to have my dad drive me out to a range, I didn’t have any guidance as to what I might be doing wrong, and it was just all demoralizing. So my bow and gear just kind of sat around and gathered dust.

When I went to "college", I was broke like everyone else and at a low point, I took my bow and gear to a pawn shop to sell. The sales guy gave me the sad story, you know it’s too bad hunting season is over, we’re going to have to hold this for some time and so we can’t really give you much for it. I took what they offered, $30, but I was not happy about it. A few days later I stopped in to the same shop and there was my bow, up on the wall, but it had a sold tag on it. The price on the tag? $300. I was livid and I swore that day that I would never sell anything to a pawn shop ever again.

That story has stuck with me all my life, and I tell it whenever I can, like the ancient mariner. I’ve kept true to my promise (mostly, I don’t consider selling something I would just as easily throw away, like CDs, to be the same thing).

Yesterday, I was in a tiny town to pick up a synthesizer I found on FB Marketplace and I was killing time by visiting pawn shops. At this one shop, to my amazement, I saw my bow. Obviously. not my bow, but the same model, and I’d never seen that model of bow any time in the past, which made it even more surprising. It brought back nostalgia and a lot of good and bad memories. I looked at the price and was shocked. That was an interesting find and I left to go get my synthesizer.

The FB seller flaked out – wouldn’t respond to any messages – and I left the area disappointed. A hour later he contacts me with profuse apologies and I make the drive back to make the purchase. Sale completed, I returned to the pawn shop because something felt important about that find. I made the purchase for… $19. It had been marked down from $59, and I guess they wanted to just get rid of it. I would not have given it much thought for $60, but $20?

So here I am, with the bow that I sold to a pawn shop for $30 and repurchased from another pawn shop almost 40 years later for $20. And again, I have not seen this bow anywhere else in that 40 years, and I’ve been to a TON of pawn shops. Not trying to be all mystical, but there’s something to that. And the fact that it was formerly at a price I would ignore and was marked down to a price I couldn’t ignore?

I honestly don’t know if the bow is safe to use and I’m still kind of debating what I want to do with it, which makes the whole experience even stranger. If you really want to get heady about it, it’s almost like this was all set up to give me some closure and allow me to forgive myself for that bad decision I made so many years ago. I have my bow back, and I gained $10 in the process. I can now move on in any direction I want.

The Repair Logs

Posted by anachostic on December 7, 2025 No comments

As I’d mentioned previously, I’m back on the music equipment hoarding train. I didn’t really want to make that post longer, so I glossed over the details on the repair. So I’ll now do it here, as well as comment on my most recent purchase.

The Akai AX60 was sold to me known to have multiple keys not working. Once home and disassembled, I confirmed that those were the only keys not working. My first assumption was that the rubber domes that indicate the key has been pressed needed cleaning. Cleaning the contact pads did not improve the situation. Swapping the domes with a different rubber dome part didn’t help either. So that means the problem is further along the line.

I traced the key switch back and found a place on the circuit board that had some serious corrosion, from what, I don’t know. Hmmm. I used the multimeter to test continuity on the trace from a point before and after the corrosion and found that yes, there is a break there. I followed the other non-working keys and they also went through that same trace. That seems like the culprit. I took some wire and jumped the trace from the two measuring points I was using and well, that worked! And when I put it back together, it didn’t. Then I took it apart and it did again. I’ve forgotten exactly what the cause was, but I did get it all put back together one more time and it works – mostly. Now, a different key – and only one key – doesn’t work. I’m not in the mood to take it apart for the nth time, so at some point if I decide the replace all the sliders (which need replacement), I’ll address it then.

Then I got a Korg M1R which had a non-working headphone jack. This is not a deal breaker for me, because I’m never going to use the headphone jack, but I wanted to see if I could solve it. I used the oscilloscope and played some notes into the device while looking at the output. It wasn’t showing any difference between silence and notes playing. The problem was further up the line.

I utilized MS Copilot a lot and used it to bounce ideas off of and it was very helpful explaining the things I was seeing and how to troubleshoot. Very much a Copilot, here. I needed to test a different board and when I went to remove said board, I saw one of the screws was missing. Hmmm. This device has been touched before. When I pulled out the board, I looked closely at the back and saw one IC had some residual flux on the board. This board has been repaired before. Hmmm.

Copilot and I had a big conversation about this and the part that was replaced and it was actually pretty funny that copilot was getting a real attitude about the whole thing.

"The A6458S is a dual operational amplifier (op-amp), not a power amplifier — and it is not designed to drive headphones directly, especially not from a 12V rail."

Since I said the part looked like it was replaced, it wasted no time in blaming the previous person for using the wrong part. Eventually, I found the right part that was supposed to be used and that part is… just not around anymore. There’s literally one on eBay and it’s in Spain. Someone makes an adapter board to convert the pinout to a more current chip. Meh, I’m going to live without the headphone jack.

Finally, last night, I purchased a Line6 effect unit that was known not to power up. The seller said he sold it on eBay, but the buyer reported it as not working and returned it. I was eager to see if it was just a simple blown fuse, because I’ve had a simple fix like that before. When I opened the top. one of the last things I expected to see was in there – paper towels and duct tape. What the fuck?

Poking around quickly identified the problem, the power transformer on the circuit board was broken. The transformer is a big block of metal soldered to the board with 8 pins. After removing the towels and tape, I literally just lifted the transformer right up and off the board, leaving all 8 pins still in the circuit board. That’s not supposed to happen.

Looking at the damage in front of me, it seems that the unit had taken a fall with headphones plugged into the front socket. The headphone jack was snapped, the wire connecting the headphone jack board to the main board was damaged, and obviously the transformer had broken away from the main board. It seems odd though, because the transformer should have been secured to the board with a cable tie, two pieces of which were floating around in the case. Had it been cut before the fall or after? No one would ever know.

So this device has been through multiple hands and I have no idea who is at fault, but I still want to fix it. Like the M1 headphone amplifier IC, the power transformer I need is no longer available, probably to be expected for a 25yr old device. So what I will attempt doing is adding a new power jack to the back and using an external 9V AC/AC adapter. which is readily available and used by many products from other manufacturers, and also Line6’s other products. I’m not a fan of external power bricks, but there’s not really any other option. At the same time, I ordered a new headphone jack that I can easily solder in and replace, even though I don’t plan on using it.

Followup: After a couple failed attempts at wiring in the power supply, I did it the right way and I got lights. Some lights, and also got an audio thump, so I knew I was on the right track. No display and no buttons or knobs did anything. Also no output audio. Right from the start in my initial inspection of the device, I had noticed a component on the board that was loose, which is an oscillator crystal that is used for CPU processing. I relayed my thoughts to Copilot who agreed and said if the crystal was broken, the CPU wouldn’t start, which would mean no display or any other button or audio processing.

I ordered and received the new crystal, which I had to order from an arcade machine repair shop because no one else had crystals in that specific frequency, and the headphone jack arrived a couple days earlier. I quickly replaced the crystal component and magically, it all started up. It was a really good feeling. Everything works very well. For a 25-yr old device, it doesn’t have any scratchiness in the pots or the jacks. Aside from that tumble it took, it must’ve been pretty well cared for.

I rank this as my most advanced repair yet, which isn’t really saying much because the failed component gave itself away through physical damage. Still though, identifying (or correctly guessing) and replacing the single broken piece and going from 0 to 100% was pretty fulfilling. And replacing a power supply was not on my list of things I saw myself doing, either.

My Studio Overfloweth (And More)

Posted by anachostic on December 1, 2025 No comments

I don’t know what exactly prompted me to start this bullshit again, but here I am, in the thick of it. Actually, now I do remember. eBay sends me emails every day for my saved searches and one saved search is rackmount synthesizers. In the email was an auction for a Roland MKS-70, a pretty rare and highly desirable synth. I figured, why not, I’d give it a try. It’s been a while. While I waited for the action to draw to a close, I stupidly did some additional browsing and found a Korg M1R, which is something I had on my "eventually" list. It was a buy-it-now and mostly in range with what I would pay, so I put it on the watchlist.

I’ve mentioned this before and I don’t think eBay does this, but they should. They should know that when someone makes me an offer for something on my watchlist, there’s probably a 90%+ chance I’m going to accept it. That is a metric that would be very useful to sellers. But you can see where I’m going with this. I got an offer under $500 and I took it. The big MKS-70 keyboard auction is still days away from finishing and I have a mental top price of $650 for that.

The MKS-70 auction comes up and I’m seeing the interest in it and mentally up my top price to $720. I tried to snipe the auction as I usually do with 14 secs remaining. It didn’t matter. I got outbid by six others in the final 10 seconds. Oh well, I still had the Korg. But wait, someone else saw the big money that was just made on that auction and quickly listed their own MKS-70, so now I had another chance in 9 days.

As I waited for that auction, I stupidly went on FB Marketplace and browsed. And wouldn’t you know, there was another rare synth being offered. An Akai AX60. It had some issues, but nothing that seemed out of my league as far as repairs, so I jumped on it. I’d pick it up the next day. Since I’d be driving to get it, I stupidly went looking to see if there was anything else of interest available in the area.

*Sigh* There was. An 88-key controller with a lot of sliders and knobs and transport controls that I could use with Cubase (hopefully). Price was ok. It seemed to be at a store, so I asked the location and planned to visit the next day to see it in person.

It was a pawn shop, which is not what I was expecting, but I’ve bought synths from pawn shops plenty of times. What I was really not expecting was exactly how many synths this place had- classic synths, collector synths. Better than any music store in the area. While I didn’t have interest in the eMu samplers or a humongous 88-key Korg 01W that dwarfs my Korg DSS-1, what I did see was a Casio RZ-1 drum machine. I struck a deal and got the controller and drum machine for $500. Keep in mind, I haven’t even picked up the AX60 and the MKS-70 auction is still a day away.

To summarize what should be a post of its own, I got the AX60, did some troubleshooting and repair a little beyond anything I’d done previously. and it’s all good. I’m pretty proud of myself. I’m filling in my timesheet for work and eBay sends me a notification that the MKS-70 auction is ending in 15 mins. Oh shit. So I go to my desktop to bring up eBay there and… the computer is frozen. God damn it. Punch it in the nose and it reboots. No wait, it doesn’t. It can’t find the C: drive. It doesn’t see my SSD drive at all. What the hell is going on here? Why now?

So I sniped the auction on my phone with 4 seconds remaining and my max bid was the highest, so YES, I won this one.

But now, let’s step back a minute and look at what’s happened over the past week or so. I have two new rack units coming in the mail, I have a new 88-key controller that I don’t have space for (it will probably replace the QS8), I have a new drum machine, which is cool, and I have a new analog synth that is really neat. My computer didn’t work for a bit, but opening it up and reseating the drive seems to have fixed it.

Today has been a day of successes and failures. One of the biggest failures to go without further detail was my bowels after having Olive Garden for dinner.