Vintage Synth Repair

As a synth service tech for the last 28 years, I agree in principle that electros in old synths would be best replaced, and in some machines like Korg MS and PS series it is manadatory because they are all failing now. Minimoogs are the same, they always sound hugely better after a re-cap. As a tech I would love it if every customer that has an old piece of gear came in now wanting a re-cap, I could employ a couple of apprentices and make a fortune, but It would be untrue and unethical of me to start telling people that their old gear needs a lot of expensive work when the truth is that every day millions of people are making music with old un-recapped equipment.

Some machines respond better than others. I re-capped my Roland SH-7 a few months ago, the caps were actually starting to leak. I had another SH-7 in at the same time, and after replacing every electro in the synth is made absolutely no difference sonically in before and after comparisons with the other SH-7. Go figure. It needed to be done of course, the caps were leaking. 

But I also must say that I come across a lot of old outboard gear that has been constantly in service, and when I removed and tested the electros for capacitance and ESR, and they were all in spec. Yes, it would be nice to change them out anyway, but by real-world I mean that very few people have the money to have all of their old gear re-capped, and I don't think that it is really helpful to start people panicing by telling them that they must get every piece of vintage gear re-capped because all electros over 25 years old are completely degraded.


--- In vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com, "John LeVasseur" <jrlaudio@...> wrote:
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> > Did you actually read my post? Your advice sounds like it is coming from a classroom rather than from the real world.
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> Yes I did read your post. And with any machine over 25 years old there is NO REASON not to replace electrolytics, IN THE REAL WORLD. Even if the machine has been operating at relatively low temperatures (under 45 C) they are way past their life expectancy. Particularly in the case of Japanese electronics of this vintage. The capacitors used where not of the best quality from that era. That's the real world.
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> Also, Panasonics are not good capacitors by modern standards, when compared to manufacturers like Cornell-Dubilier or Nicon for instance. Panasonics actually have a relatively high variation in values and lower tolerances to temperature and life expectancy. That also is a real world assessment.
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