Vintage Synth Repair

I recently bought one of these off of ebay, but the data entry control
knob behaves very strangely. When I turn it clockwise one click, it
sometimes scrolls backwards, and often, does nothing at all. 

Does anyone here know if this is a major repair job? I know that e-mu
doesn't make synths anymore.

On Tuesday 01 January 2008 20:25, gregggibson wrote:
> Does anyone here know if this is a major repair job? I know that e-mu
> doesn't make synths anymore.

They don't?  When did that happen?

We used to be a service center for them,  until they pulled the plug on that 
and went to "regional" one.  I know the guy where they got it,  he's okay,  
but I wasn't too happy about that at the time.

Are they still in business at all?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

On Tuesday 01 January 2008 20:52, Mike de Vries wrote:
> I'm not too sure if you have the same problem that my EMU 6400 Ultra had,
> but the encoder in mine went a bit like that.. If i spun it left, it would
> often go right!
>
>   there is notes on fixing this, but basically, get 2x 1uf electrolytic
> caps and solder them between the encoder and ground. (A LPF filter to
> eleminate noise)
>
>   I did this to my Emu and it worked brilliantly.
>
>   Here is the link.
>
>   http://www.jsigle.com/musicol/emufix.htm

I looked at that page,  and would differ from what he says in some respects.  
He's taking it far enough to not see noise on the scope,  which is maybe 
going a little too far.  What I'd do is take it only far enough that the 
operation of the thing is going to be okay,  and no further.  Particularly 
without considering the details of the circuit around there,  which I don't 
happen to have a schematic for at the present time.  But that's just me...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

> > Does anyone here know if this is a major repair job? I know that e-mu
> > doesn't make synths anymore.
> 
> They don't? When did that happen?

They got bought out by Creative Labs a long time ago (I think).

On Tuesday 01 January 2008 22:39, GB wrote:
> > > Does anyone here know if this is a major repair job? I know that e-mu
> > > doesn't make synths anymore.
> >
> > They don't? When did that happen?
>
> They got bought out by Creative Labs a long time ago (I think).

I haven't kept up with this business in a really long time.  Like oh,  15 
years or so?  Something like that,  anyhow.  I started working on stuff in 
the 1970s,   stopped in the early 1990s,  after we closed our shop in 1992.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

--- In vintagesynthrepair@yahoogroups.com, "Roy J. Tellason"
<rtellason@...> wrote:
>
> On Tuesday 01 January 2008 20:25, gregggibson wrote:
> > Does anyone here know if this is a major repair job? I know that e-mu
> > doesn't make synths anymore.
> 
> They don't?  When did that happen?
> 
> We used to be a service center for them,  until they pulled the plug
on that 
> and went to "regional" one.  I know the guy where they got it,  he's
okay,  
> but I wasn't too happy about that at the time.
> 
> Are they still in business at all?

The pk-6 family was their last keyboard synth, and it was phased out
between 2005 and 2006 timeframe. They were bought out by Creative
technologies, and now make just software and stuff. I've always liked
them because they are/were one of the few synth makers (along with
ensoniq and yamaha) who bothered to make their synths fully tunable,
so you can experiment with temperaments other than the 12-tone equal.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far. They are very interesting and
useful, and I really appreciate it.

On Wednesday 02 January 2008 21:20, gregggibson wrote:
> > > Does anyone here know if this is a major repair job? I know that e-mu
> > > doesn't make synths anymore.
> >
> > They don't?  When did that happen?
> >
> > We used to be a service center for them,  until they pulled the plug
> > on that and went to "regional" ones.  I know the guy who got it,  he's
> > okay, but I wasn't too happy about that at the time.
> >
> > Are they still in business at all?
>
> The pk-6 family was their last keyboard synth, and it was phased out
> between 2005 and 2006 timeframe. They were bought out by Creative
> technologies, and now make just software and stuff. I've always liked
> them because they are/were one of the few synth makers (along with
> ensoniq and yamaha) who bothered to make their synths fully tunable,
> so you can experiment with temperaments other than the 12-tone equal.

Sounds like fun,  yeah,  not every player wants the same old stuff.  I have 
some real issues with Ensoniq,  they never wanted to part with any service 
info at all on *anything*,  even stuff that'd gone out of warranty and then 
out of production,  and they got an attitude when we were winding things 
down,  and cut us off.  Yamaha seemed to have a problem with crediting 
warranty repairs to the parts account for some reason,  and then right at the 
end they suggested returning some excess inventory we had on hand,  only 
didn't ever get around to mentioning the re-stocking charge,  which I didn't 
appreciate.  And I'm not even gonna get started on Korg...


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin