Can you still get Old Rack FX serviced?

[dumbassbob]

I have a few old rack roland and yamaha DDL my yamaha D1500 is making a hum and the volume has gone real low .It started doing this over a weeks time...I am guessing a filter cap or caps are going...Can I still get it fixedIt is a nice delay when it works still lights up, just lost the volume and it hummmmms

[soundguruman]

There are certain techs that service them, but they usually charge about $75 minimum plus parts.

[Mark Hammer]

Actually, getting that old gear up and running smoothly again is a big part of what these forums are for.

[soundguruman]

Actually, getting that old gear up and running smoothly again is a big part of what these forums are for.

Well, as you know, taking the old caps out and putting new ones in is a major part of making old stuff work like new again. Electrolytic aluminum capacitors go bad with age, and I am more into replacing the old ones, then worrying about testing the existing ones.
And at the same time i LIKE TO USE BETTER CAPACITORS...such as, but not limited to higher voltage, higher temp longer life rating, etc...
clean all the controls and jacks with a high quality control cleaner such as deoxit D 100, lube the controls with a high quality fader lube such as caig deoxit fader lube...
and then test a lot...
many times just this alone will have an old unit up and going. The failing capacitors will for sure tend to produce hummmmmm.
The replacement of capacitors will require tools, soldering station, and the knowledge to use the above. If you do not have the tools and soldering station, you must first develop the commitment to purchase the necessary equipment and parts...and then learn how to use them. OR find a tech willing to do the job for you.
Learning is on a curve, as most learning is. Don't believe that learning this is an overnight process.
At first you are likely to fail and damage or destroy the equipment you are attempting to repair, (everybody falls the first time). Or perhaps you will shock yourself, the circuits can retain a charge after they are unplugged.
But gradually, according to the commitment, over time the skill will develop. And some people get quite good at it from practicing.

[Mark Hammer]

Another area we tend to neglect is trimpots. They may be used to bias FETs, or used to bias bucket-brigade chips, among other things. They can develop grime over a couple of decades and not make proper contact. Or the equipment may have been jostled enough that the settings are wrong now.

I have a blue MXR Digital DElay, and one of the big issues in restoring that beast, apart from all the other things mentioned in this thread, are the radio-button push switches (i.e., any button you push makes any other button pop back out), that have plenty of ways to get dirty, are not easily replaceable, and an absolute bitch to get at and clean.

In some instances (and this is most certainly true of the MXR D Delay) there can be cards that plug in to edge connectors. Those connectors certainly don't tarnish/oxidize quickly, but they do oxidize over time. One of the products that some of us here like to use is called Stabilant (Untitled Document), which is a contact enhancer (not a cleaner). It's not cheap, but a small amount lasts a long time. When paired with an initial cleaning of contacts, it can restore switches that have given you trouble. Also does wonders for restoring old pots to crackle-free state.

It also warrants mention that if jacks in such a unit get used a LOT, they can get a bit loose. That might be due to being soldered to the board (and cracking the joint over time; I have a BBE 402 that suffers from this) or simply bending the contacts on the jack enough that they have yielded a half millimeter over the years. The jack may still "work", but any movement gets you crackling.

[Steve Conner]

I hear you Mark, I hate those radio buttons too.

I was once restoring a piece of gear where they were all faulty, and no amount of contact cleaner helped, so I decided to replace them. It was a struggle getting the old switches out of the PCB, and then the original buttons wouldn't fit on the shafts of the new switches.

So I got some new buttons, and then those wouldn't fit through the holes in the front panel. It was a piece of lab equipment, and I wasn't too concerned about looks, so out came the Dremel.

Back to the original topic, any half-decent tech should be able to fix a rackmount effects unit, assuming you can find a half-decent tech. A blown microprocessor or ROM chip might make it uneconomical to fix, but the symptoms don't suggest that sort of problem.

[dumbassbob]

It is a nice DDL.... Slash used one for Welcome to the Jungle They cost about $900.00 new in 1986..It worked perfect until last week the volume started to drop and hum ..Anyone know of a good tech in So Cal....

[Enzo]

Circuits are circuits. Troubleshooting is troubleshooting. I troubleshoot a brand new tube amp the same way I would a 1938 tube jukebox amp. A digital circuit may be smaller now than before, but they all work similarly. IN fact the older stuff tends to be simpler.

SOme of us here are assuming it needs filter caps, it may not at all. These rack effects are not full of tubes, they don;t bake their parts. But consider this, if your filters were failing it would introduce a lot of hum, but it wouldn't likely drop your output real low, it would result in real high hum. Just as a guitar amp with its filter cap cracked free of its solder does. Now it could need filter caps AND have a volume problem. Then again it may have an op amp slammed over near a rail squashing your signal AND making hum all in one swell foop.

Agree with Steve, your problems sound perfectly analog rather than digital. SO I doubt you will run into some unobtainium ROM or anything

They come to my shop, it is time and materials just like anything else I fix. Guys fix old FX all the time.

[Mark Hammer]

Fixable? Certainly. Worth fixing? Depends. There are plenty of things that included exotic options back when that are simply one more patch in today's technology.

Again, I'll use my MXR DDL as an example. Sounded pretty decent but was limited to 320msec, using a single memory card, and what I believe is 12bit resolution, plus a very narrow sweep range if you were down in the short delays. Was there something it DID do that is comparatively rare? Yeah, pull the Rate knob out and it multiples the speed by 100x, so you could get quasi ringmodulator sounds. But not many used that option. It may cost $80+ to fix it, but be easily replaced by a $50 behringer pedal with even more delay capability.

On the other side of the coin, you can have something like the A/DA Stereo Tapped Delay, whose parameters I have yet to see replicated in ANY contemporary piece of gear at virtually any price. Definitely worth fixing.

[dumbassbob]

It is worth fixing to a point.you can still get them on ebay for $50-$125usd...If I start to poke around inside of it and all I have is a DVM can someone give me a few tips,what to check I don't want to start pulling something apart that I can't put back I dont want to short a IC chip

[52 Bill]

It is worth fixing to a point.you can still get them on ebay for $50-$125usd...If I start to poke around inside of it and all I have is a DVM can someone give me a few tips,what to check I don't want to start pulling something apart that I can't put back I dont want to short a IC chip

Find a schematic and start by checking the power supplies. See if you have all the right plus and minus voltages. Also check to see how much ripple in on each of the lines.

[Enzo]

See if any op amp output pins have unexplained DC offset.