Vintage Synth Repair

Quote:
> It's always good to look out for one's customers and to approach business with an ethical mindset.  However, that also includes giving them accurate information about their synth.  Customers may want to spend the money for a recapping job, especially if it's a synth that's notorious for bad caps.  Give them the information and let them decide. 
> 
> As we mainly restore synths here, not repair them, recapping is standard procedure.   
> I actually find it quite enjoyable work, especially with a cup of tea and a fully charged iPod.  And yes, having a power desoldering gun is a big part of it being an enjoyable job. ;)
> 
> ~Monica
>


Hi Monica, I absolutely agree with you, in any vintage restoration job a re-cap is mandatory. Therein lies the difference between restoration and repair. I do both, and I always give the customer the option to land anywhere along the scale from repair only to full restoration. Any synth that comes in that I feel would really benefit from a re-cap I let the customer know, and I often end up doing it. 

But the other side of the coin is far more common for a synth repairer, as an example: A kid brings in a scrappy OBXa with a couple of dead voices, bad key shims, bad pots and switches, the usual. The machine is a mess, he is nervous anyway as he doesn't have much money, and in the end I have to shave the cost down anyway because I finish up fixing the issues for which he brought the machine in, but I fix a half dozen smaller problems for free because I can't have a machine going out that isn't fully functional with my name attached to it.  Do you think I would bring up the subject of a re-cap in that circumstance? Absolutely not, he would never go ahead, and now he is going to go home and start worrying about capacitors. This is what I meant by "real world" in my earlier post.

It's fine for purists to jump up and down saying that every old machine must be re-capped when the come in for a repair, but they might as well say that every old car on the road should have and engine and tranny re-build next time it goes in for a service. It is a nice idea, but it is just not in not people's budget. 

I agree that customers should be informed about old electro's, but in a service centre you soon learn to know which customers it is a waste of time discussing the matter with, so I don't. I do a lot of re-caps every year, and I enjoy doing it, but I know when not to go there too.