mackie 32 ch 8 bus. not a great mixer. has a lot of knobs and inputs and BLINKENLICHTEN. nice for leaving a lot of synths in perpetual-monitoring mode, but i’m on my 3rd replacement. (4th? i can only keep track by counting the trophy collection of vinyl dust covers- one per.) From what i understand, a supplier cheaped out on the ribbon cables. They’re on revision G. i assume that means they cheaped out 7 times. the terminating headers… well, sometimes don’t. and then one channel or another goes dead until i blast hot signal to its input from say, the headphone amp
tech on the phone said that would be able to replace most of the cables just by removing the back panel. you can’t. so I have a box of 13 out of 15 of the latest version, which i’ll probably never install, since just pushing on the cable headers seems to have fixed the problem. beats pulling off all of the knobs.
i also replaced the blower in the power supply. bearing went on the old one. the replacement* mackie sent was louder than anything else in the room, so i got the cheapest 80mm fan in stock at You Do It.
*by replacement, i mean they sent the whole power supply. the whole boat anchor. because of a worn fan bearing. yeah.
keys on the pro-one were a mess.
got the P-R bushings in the mail yesterday. they were completely slimy with Dow Corning DC 7 silicone lubricant, in case you needed the # to form a proper mental image.
turns out my synth has the oft-maligned membrane keyboard, not the stalwart and respectable j-wire version. so even after
the repair, the key action is kinda crappy at worst. maybe some longer adjustment screws will press on the switches better. perhaps some other day. no need for take-apart sequence shots;
detailed examples already exist on the web. as do photos of the trippy mushrooms in solder on the pcb.
ordered. all the old american synthesizers with their j-wire Pratt-Reed key actions are now crumbling at the bushing. or at least exhibiting very wavy and not-responsive key action. this little guy (and 36 of his comrades) will fix.
not that i use the local keyboard on this synth, much… Kenton ProSolo midi-CV/gate takes care of things nicely - but it will be damn fine to have the keycaps all line up in a row for a change.
i’ll comment on the vendor when i get the goods.
i opened up the simmons sds 8 and 9 to make sure there was actually enough clearance in the boxes to accommodate some screws in the side panels. lara made some nice measurements and drawings for the mounting hardware, and we’ll probably take them over to the friendly machine shop in south boston once my car comes back from the friendly body shop in south boston.
it just occurred to me that i forgot to reconnect the ribbon cable in the sds9. eh. i have to go back in to replace the battery sometime, anyhow. it was in strange fabric-covered pieces, rattling around the chassis, in a typically English manner.
i’m just looking forward to filling up this aluminum open-frame computer room rack with knobby things, instead of that lamp from Bradlee’s, Caldor, or Zayre. which you can’t actually discern in this photo, because some presumptuous jerk expects me to be using this phone outdoors.
now that i have this weblog underway, and i got the work bench cleared off… and a de-soldering pump… and i made the cr-8000 do the marginally-interesting thing i wanted it to do… until i find a source for switches
i think the next project is replacing the plastic bushings in my Pro One. I found at least 3 suppliers, and the one with the best price just got back to me saying they have them in stock. risk paypal. i’m also figuring out how to rack mount the Simmons SDS 8 and 9. fab the metal? looking that way. i don’t even have a tap/die set to attach it. maybe there’s room in there for a nut?
specific events leading up to this post will remain undocumented.
workbench is clean, and out of the TV room.
weblog engine is running on a server here in the loft.
weblog theme superficially modified.
check.
