Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: The Mellotron Group

Hey Terry,

Andy's comment about replacing the pitch control pot got me thinking. That was really painful, but it happened. My experience has been that 99.9947% of the time, give or take a digit or two, (did I just refer to "digital?"), a quick shot of good contact cleaner will fix any bad contact in the pot, unless it IS a bad solder joint - but that's actually pretty rare - and you'll be up and running in literally a minute or two. 

Not long ago, I saved our keyboard player a couple hundred dollars to a tech guy with his Kurzweil 2661, when a key or two went out. A few minutes of minor surgery, some reference to a "Kurzweil Guru" online, and my trusty contact cleaner, and we had all his under-key contacts AND while we were there, all the other electrical/audio/PCB connections, cleaned and working perfectly in short order.  Not much unlike cleaning, de-magging the heads and other such sorta tedious-but-not-unpleasant maintenance in your Mellotron, except cleaning the pot's that much easier.  Definitely give it a try before going into surgery for a pot transplant!

Note: I'm SURE it needn't be said, but do keep in mind, considering my above reference, that contact cleaner, tape head cleaner, WD-40 and/or alcohol, etc., are NOT one and the same.  I've seen people cross-use those things (my keyboard player would be one to do that, God love 'im), with disastrous results.  The contact cleaner is what you want.  "DeOx-It" [sp?] is one of the best.  Save the alcohol til your 'Tron's working perfectly again, then apply liberally and systemically if you'd like, preferably with friends or S.Os. That COULD be compared by some to "head cleaner"... or not.  (-:  A pint of Guinness works nicely in that regard.  Here's to your Happy Pitch Control!

Cheers!