Tag Archives: hobbies

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.

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).

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.

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)

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.

Bak Into It

Posted by anachostic on August 10, 2025 No comments

As part of my usual morning routine, I checked Woot today and saw they had Canelbaks today. And,as part of my usual purchasing routine, I can’t pass up a good deal on quality stuff. I mean, have you seen the prices of Camelbaks lately? WTF. Even the prices of reservoirs is like $35, so when Woot is selling a Camelbak for $30, I’m going to pause. Because that’s a good price. Like my mom was fond of saying, "they paid me to take it."

Let’s have a look at the existing family member and the soon to be family members. But first, let’s stretch the leg muscles out (more on that later).

Here’s the first one I bought – the Classic. Camelbak has gone through tons of design changes over the years and mine is like 15 years old. But this is the design I have, except in blue.

So the first problem I had with it, actually really the only problem I had with it, is that it had no storage. It has a little side zipper and room enough to hold maybe your keys. No wallet, no phone, no room at all.

And I was just getting into hiking at the time. I didn’t really know much about the different models and I wasn’t really keen on spending a lot of money on one of these new things, back then when they were the only hydration pack out there, they commanded a lot of money. I suspect I probably paid $60-75 bucks for this one. Probably retail at a sporting good store.

But I didn’t spend a lot of time with it. I moved on fairly quickly to its big brother.

The big brother is called the Rogue. Again, the design has changed over time, but again, this is the design that I have. It doesn’t look much different than the Classic, but it is. The lower part is a zipped pocket that holds a decent amount, and the top flap is also a pocket that holds even more, larger things, like a modern phone.

This one was good enough to use most everywhere and it has remained my go-to pack for riding. Again, I’m pretty sure I paid retail for this, in a physical store (so retro!). The details elude me. I probably justified it by saying the reservoirs were the same size, so it was just like buying a backup.

But around this time, I was getting into a relationship with someone who was pretty outdoor-savvy. She also had a Camelbak she’d used for many years. And hers was like full backpack sized, and she carried a lot of cool stuff that you might need for outdoors and for geocaching, which we were doing a lot.

I won’t say it was envy that made me upgrade, but it was the realization that having more on the trail was important and useful. Obviously, I didn’t want everything with me. We weren’t camping overnight, but more storage space would be welcome.

But I was also happy with what I had, so I just kept an eye out.

And after a short while, Woot came to my rescue. In May, 2015, they had a sale on… Camelbaks! And this one only cost me – once again – $30! this one is the Daystar 18, which is the "female" version of the Cloudwalker model. Something about the shoulder straps and boobs or whatever. It fits me fine and it is my current choice for hiking.

You can easily tell that has a lot more cargo capacity. This holds everything I need and still has lots of room to spare. My Frogg Toggs, whistle, compass, knives, multitools, maps, hat, whatever. If I need to take a fleece or if I end up shedding a fleece along the way, there’s room to hold it.

Like I said, this is my current choice for any hikes I make. And all three of these packs are holding up well. Maybe the Rogue is wearing out a little. The letters of the logo are pretty much rubbed off, but none of them have holes, so they’re all perfectly usable.

So let’s quickly meet the newcomers.

Here are the ones coming soon: The Arete 14, Arete 18, and another Classic Light. I expect the Arete 18 will have the same capacity of the Daystar, and the Arete 14 will be a possibly "just right" size, which will eliminate the extra unused space I have in the Daystar. Both of the Arete models are 50oz reservoirs, whereas every other Camelbak I own is 70oz. So it was a little calculated to get two 50’s, so they could share a reservoir should something happen to one. And so far, I have never drained a 70oz on a single hike, so it will be interesting to see if I can get by with a 50.

But what’s up with getting another Classic? I don’t like or use the one I have now. Well, part of it is to give the latest design a try. Part of it is the bright color, which would be useful when riding on the bike, and part of it is that all of these were $30/ea and I can’t get reservoirs for that price, so having an extra 70oz, with the new hydrolock design, even, is good, even if I hate the pack itself.

So what did I do to celebrate this purchase? Grabbed my Daystar and went on a hike. It’s been so brutally hot here I haven’t been outside doing much for months. Sometimes I could get in a couple miles after work if the weather wasn’t threatening, but this was a longer planned hike. Up to my local state park, purchase an annual pass – might as well, maybe the guilt of the money spent will make me go more – and get on one of their longer trails I hadn’t been on in years. It was mostly cloudy, which meant there was a chance of getting rained on briefly, but I lucked out. On the drive home, I saw other areas around did get rain. Awesome FL weather.

I got to try my new fitness band on the walk and quickly remembered what I hate about hiking with fitness bands. I wear a long-sleeve sunshirt for sun and bug protection. This shirt gets soaked in sweat fairly quickly. After all, they are designed to wick sweat. The sweat soaked sleeve rubs against the face of the band and the stupid thing thinks that I’m touching it to pause or end the workout. That has happened with every fitness band I’ve ever had. It’s not a new thing. So you just gotta roll up the sleeve to avoid contact. So annoying.

And the hike itself? Shorter than I thought (by a mile), and the recovery I expect to be longer than I thought (by a mile). I’m out of practice, but I still remember how to do it. I have the tools (with more tools on the way!) and progress shall be made.

The Happiness Of Having No Timeline

Posted by anachostic on May 11, 2024 No comments

One of my growing hobbies is synth repair. Buying broken devices and trying to fix them. In the early days, it was because I wanted to play these devices. I was building my studio and I needed and wanted these devices to work right now. Now that my studio is filled, that urgency kind of drops off and things can sit around for as long as they need to before they get fixed, if they ever get fixed.

This Kurzweil keyboard I purchased over a year ago has been waiting for a donor board for a year, and when I finally got one, it had problems too. So now I have two unusable boards. But, due to the lack of urgency to fix them, I’m able to take the time as a learning experience and allow myself to make mistakes and try to learn as I go. So while the end result might be that neither of them work, I’m learning things that lead up to the final diagnosis of unfixable.

When I started, the one board sad it had bad ram and the other said it had a bad CPU. These are not solvable problems (for me). However, there are other problems that I can try to solve in the interim. For example, both boards have bad backlights in their display. I’ve discovered they use CCFL bulbs instead of EL sheets. This is new to me, so I’ve learned about the parts and repair of those.

After swapping the bulb, there was no real change. I could have given up right there, but based on past experience, a symptom like that suggests a power problem. The vast majority of electronics problems are power-related. The extent of my knowledge on that topic is changing capacitors. I had recently purchased a capacitor tester to support this limit of my knowledge and my tests showed that yes, a cap was bad near the backlight assembly as well as on the power supply section. Parts ordered. Days go by.

After replacing the caps, the backlight was better, but still not perfect. So I was on the right track, just needed more digging. Something most techs start with, but isn’t really in my troubleshooting list is using a multimeter to test voltages. I usually bypass this step because I don’t really what is good or bad. I test the voltage at the cap I just changed. It’s like 4.8 volts. I have heard and read that most devices either use 12 or 5 volts internally, so it looks to me that there’s an underpower situation. I probe farther back and its the same low voltage all the way back to the main power section. I test some of the capacitors in that area and find one that reads bad.

One of the things I’ve started doing is buying excess of any part I need, assuming that if I needed it once, I’ll probably need it again. And sure enough, I have a replacement for this cap on hand. When I flip the board over to unsolder it, I see the soldering points for the voltage regulator right beside it are darkened. The pieces are starting to fit together. Capacitors fail from exposure to excessive heat. Voltage regulator nearby getting hot enough to discolor the circuit board. Voltages are not to spec. I pull the voltage regulator and order a replacement (and spares, of course).

So all this time, I have all these parts and tools scattered all over my kitchen table. It’s a disgusting mess, but I live alone, so who cares? If I had another spare room, I could have a workshop, but all my rooms already have purposes. And again, this may be all for naught. Maybe I do get the backlight working fully and it doesn’t matter because the mainboard is shot. But the value in learning has been gained. I did some troubleshooting steps I hadn’t done before and identified issues that I might have made me give up before.

Rack Redux

Posted by anachostic on April 27, 2024 No comments

Last year at this time, I was building my studio and acquiring gear at a pretty good clip. Some of the new synthesizers I was buying were rackmountable. and I was a little turned off at the cost of buying a prebuilt rack to house them in. After consideration, I thought maybe I could build one of my own. It shouldn’t be hard. It’s a freaking box. It’s got four sides. You have a saw and screwdriver, you should be able to do this.

I do have all the tools you would need to accomplish this, and I had a few minor woodworking projects under my belt already. I had built a shitty platform for my washer and dryer. I had built a couple of sunglasses racks as well. I think I was ready to try this. Spoiler alert, it’s not exactly cheaper to do it yourself, but the satisfaction sort of makes up for it (that’s always what they say, isn’t it?)

And so I built my first rack. It was 12U rack with an extra shelf.

Oddly, the stain I chose was supposed to be a light grey (kind of like the floor) and was actually blue. Whatever, it’s fine. It’s not like once I started applying the stain I could just undo it.

And this rack served me pretty well for that year. I outgrew it quickly, though, and I wanted more space. I needed more space because I was starting to gather up rackmount effect units. So I began making mental plans to build a second rack. This old rack would then be dedicated to effects and the new larger rack would be all synthesizers.

The old rack had a capacity of 12U. I decided to go big this time and bought 22U rails. Another thing I didn’t like from v1 is that the floor and shelf of the rack are from some extra scrap wood I had around and this time I wanted the whole thing to have the same wood finish, so I bought extra panels to cut up. I ended up using 3 of the 4 sheets, so my wood cost went up by only 50%.

I got by by using my 20v tools the first time, but the circular saw was pretty underpowered for the job. More than once it stalled out cutting through the wood and it never seemed to keep a straight cut. So this time I bought a high-power corded saw, which is an additional up-front cost, but will be used much more in the future, I’m sure. I also have a corded drill and when I need that level of power, it’s very nice to have that option. And the saw did a tremendous job. i was able to cut the slant on both sides sheets at once, so they are perfectly matched.

I have wheels from a previous project that I can use, and I’m going to use pocket screws again because they seem really strong, and also because I have a lot of them on hand. I’m going to double the number of screws I use for extra strength this time. I’m not going to forgo the wood glue this time. It makes a world of difference. I have poly sealant from last time, but I didn’t think I had enough blue stain to cover the new larger size (48" high instead of 38"), so I bought some new stain. This time, red. Not red like cherry wood, I mean cherry RED.

Taking some cues from Nord Keyboards, for sure.

Once this is done, as is tradition, it’s only the start of the purchases. All the equipment from the old rack will be moved to the new one, and that will work as-is. but when I add more devices, I’ll need to add a second rack mixer. There’s going to be more devices to power, but I already purchased a larger power strip for install from Woot, who listed one recently, conveniently enough.

Then, looking at the population of the old rack with the effect units that are piling up in my closet, I need to buy a new patchbay to route them. I have a power switch that I had purchased a while ago from the same place I bought the Roland U-110 and my 32 channel mixer. And additional power will be available from the power strip already installed in it. Other than that? Cables. Bunches more cables. Cables to connect the effect units to the patchbay, and maybe some mid-length cables to route between the synth patchbay and the effect patchbay.

And here’s the new rack:

With all the gear swapped out and organized

Of course, like every picture, it’s always out of date. The FX rack now has a patchbay to route to the synth rack and an improved power switch. The synth rack now has a new entry as well. So now it’s time to update the 2024 studio purchase log.

The Kurzweil Money Pit

Posted by anachostic on April 26, 2024 Comments Off

A little over a year ago, my purchasing of keyboards for the studio was peaking, and I was grabbing whatever struck my fancy. One of the things that came along at that time was a Kurzweil PC3. It "had problems". Professional diagnosis said that the main board was bad and would need swapped out. So I left the device in my rack and waited for another PC3 to come along that needed repair so I could merge the two into one working device.

And it took over a year for something to appear. This one was the PC3x, which is the 88 key version of the model I had – the 76-key version. The description, along with demo video, said and showed that the display did not work. And that was ok with me, because I had a display that did work. The asking price was $450, which is a little more than the $300 I paid for the first one, but if these things only appear once a year, I guess I have to get it and go.

I arranged to pick up the device the next day and explained I didn’t care about the screen, but I wanted to know if it had sound. Time moved slowly and eventually, the seller said they couldn’t confirm if it had sound or not because the display problem prevented any testing. Well, ok. I’ll still take it.

And I really overpaid. I didn’t get what they were saying if I wanted it, just come and get it. And when I tried to pay them the $450, they were like, no, no, we don’t know if it works or not. They wanted to give it to me for free. I drove a hard bargain and gave them $300 instead. Hindsight is painful, but I’m still ok.

First thing this morning, I started it up. Initial diagnosis, the screen works. There’s no backlight. However, the device is stuck in a rebooting loop. That’s the repetitive clicking the seller was hearing. Later in the morning, I have it all disassembled and am running the built-in diagnostics. The device spontaneously reboots when testing the RAM, but all other tests pass. Audio can’t be tested because it relies on the RAM, so it reboots on that test as well.

Ok, so let’s get device #1 and see what we can transplant. I disassemble the 76-key version and take out the screen. I figure it will be at least easier if I can see what I’m looking at while testing. The backlight for the screen is hard-soldered to the main board. Ugh. I desolder both, then solder the working screen into the new 88-key. I go to plug the display board to the main board and… fuck. The ribbon cable is too short. Because, duh, a 76-key board is not near as long as an 88-key.

Ok. Plan B. Let’s replace the backlight. I disassemble the display and am very nervous because there’s like no wires to the screen. It’s some kind of conductive rubber sheet that connects the circuit board to the glass screen. Then I find out that there’s no EL sheet there – it’s just a big white box with two wires going into it. I don’t know what that is or how it’s getting lit. So I go drastic and cut the leads to the existing light and solder them up to an EL sheet I have. I have to make significant modifications to the metal frame to accommodate the placement of the wires. Lots of dremel work and hot metal. This is spiraling out of control. I get it all put back together, enough to fire it up and… no light. That was a damn waste.

Let’s step back a little bit and do some isolated testing. I take the 76-key display and wire up the power with some extension wires. I power up the board and the backlight comes on for a brief moment, then goes out. Hmmm. Maybe my old display is flaky too? Or is it possibly a problem with power delivery?

I go back online and do more searches for replacement displays. Like everything else PC3, there are NO replacement parts available anywhere. But I found a post of someone who had fixed their backlight and actually provided pictures. And the replies had even more good info. Using this info, I bravely cracked open the box on the display board to find the light inside. It’s not LED, it’s actually fluorescent (cold cathode fluorescent). Weird, but you know, a lot of computer monitors used CCFL for backlight before LED became cheap enough.

I had cut the leads completely off, so I resoldered the leads back, then soldered that disassembled display to the 88-key board. When I turned it on, I could immediately see that the bulb was only about a third lit and what was lit was extremely dim. And like their full-size counterparts, this bulb had the telltale signs of age with the darkened ends. This is replaceable. And if I hadn’t found that post and the replies, I would have been simply stuck again.

A site called CFL Warehouse, stocks these bulbs, and they’re not expensive, like $11 each. And shipping is obscenely cheap, like $2. So I bought two. Maybe I’ll fuck one up, and if I don’t, I can replace the bulb in the other display too. And when parting out the remnants, that should be a decent selling point.

So for now, I’m waiting on parts, like I’m waiting on parts for two other devices sitting around. And once that’s done, will I be able to go to the next step of swapping components or will both devices have different failures on the same board, making it all pointless? That remains to be seen.

Anachostic