Wanted help with learning amp repair

[simso]

Hi folks, first I am a musical instrument repairer by trade, I wind my own guitar pickups, we manufacture our own parts for repairing guitars violins etc, I run a small business with two employees.

Currently I work for about 16 music stores, doing instrument repairs. I also pick up a lot of amps that require repair but I send these to a repairer in our area, however he takes 2-3 weeks to do the job and his prices are getting pretty bad.

I would love to learn amp repair and if there are online courses I would enrol me an my two off siders. Can anyone recommend a path or process

Thanks
Steve

PS at the momment I have 4 amps waiting for repair (to be subbed out) from an old fender valve unit which is popping and crackling to a modern marshall, also I have a dynacord mixer and so forth, so Ive got the work just not the skills

[guitarmike2107]

I don’t do repairs but have done a few for friends, I don’t know of any online courses for this sort of thing, and even if you did go through it you would likely need to have a steep learning curve or find that you waste too much time trying to find what is wrong, it’s not always obvious.

Since you run a business and this would compliment your existing services why not hire in an amp tech/repairer with some experience, you would learn allot more working with someone who has some experience and it would allow you to push that service more confidently.

Taking 2 – 3 weeks may seem a long time but when you have to diagnose, then possibly order a part , then fix an amp the days can fly by…. Guitarists are not patient.

[simso]

Thankyou for the reply. Unfortunatley there are only 3 amp repairers in our area 2000 sq kms, one is stepping out of main stream and doing manufacturer warranty work now. One I do not like, the other does all the rest and is running minimum 3 weeks wait just to look at the unit. This is whats facing our repair industry here in australia

I have the contacts and plenty and I do mean plenty of work if I was skilled enough to be able to do it. But I only know the basic of electronics from what I was taught when I worked in the military.

No tafes or universitys offer courses in it either in our locality, so really struggling

[J M Fahey]

Sorry to say so, but for now you will need somebody else to take care of repairs.
You can very well learn, and practice makes perfect, *but* th be able to repair a reasonable amount of what gets in your hands will take, say, over a year.
If you wanted just to build things, it's different because *you* choose what you get into.
There's a logical "ladder" where you can climb step by step, at your own pace.
You may start by building, say, a pedal, then a 1W amp, then something similar to a typical beginner's 15W amp, and so on, or along the tube path, start with something simple and go on, but on repairs, you'll have to deal with whatever they throw at you: today a simple beginner's amp, tomorrow a complex multi-channel amp.
A relatively cheap and very popular mass produced amp such as a Fender FM212, is quite complex; its funny power stage kept a lot of us quite busy for weeks until it could be fully repaired.
You will get lots of *any* brand amps, many of them using SMT parts, or digital effects, etc.
I'm not discouraging you, quite the opposite, but get into it step by step and give it time.
Start by getting a High School Physics book, the one that explains electricity and magnetism, 90% of what you need is there; after that some general electronics course, not forgetting getting a copy of Jack Darr's "Repair your Guitar Amplifier"
And start building things.
Good luck.

[km6xz]

The suggestion of hiring a skilled tech, even if on a short 6-12 month contract, would be the fastest way to learn the details of the gear and testing procedures. Basically being his apprentice during the day and at night studying every book you can get your hand on for basic electronics. If you apply yourself you could do 80% of the jobs that come in the door after a year. To be able to do the next 10% level of complexity might take 3 years and to be able to do the most complex diagnosis needed for the last 3-5% would take 20 years Most shops only worry about the most profitable 80% and suggest buying a new unit for the rest. Most gear that is deemed as uneconomical to repair are just units that the techs do not have the diagnostic skills but a highly skilled tech might find it easy. There are millions of decent pieces of gear going to landfills or stuck in closets because the shop could not fix it....and the customer assumed it could not be repaired or was too costly, incorrectly.
Don't worry about any but the 80% typically easy repairs, let the other shops have your headaches.
You are going to need a few thousand dollars in test gear, better gear ends up making you more money because there is less ambiguity in measurements. Luckily many electronics service and manufacturing have gone out of business so there is a lot of precision test gear available industrial surplus for a fraction of the original new price.
You can also repair more units and have less down time if you stock a lot of parts for the most common units in your area. A decently equipped shop is not cheap to do right but most start out on a shoestring, hoping to redo their facilities after they become successful. Not being set up properly at first often prevents them from ever becoming successful.
How much are customers willing to pay in your area? It might be a good opportunity or it might be a losing proposition depending on what the prevailing rates are.

[simso]

Thankyou for the reply's, yes I wish I could find someone to apprentice and learn from, but thats not available. I would be happy to continue sending these out indefinetly if I had a reliable repairer, but my repairer is good, but 3 weeks min before looking at them is killing me (and Im a regular customer). Ive been using the same guy for about 3 years now.

I like the idea of starting by buying a amp kit build that and learn from there, the cost of tooling and spares is not an issue, the lack of expertise is..

I will order that book today. Is there any one on the net that does online tutorials

[Enzo]

We appreciate what you want to do, Somso, but here is what you are up against. You ask us where - I assume online - you can learn amp repair. I return teh favor. Tell me where I can learn to do instrument repair online? it is not a matter of simple information. I can drum Ohm's Law into you, and I can teach you resistor color codes, but what you need is experience. Likewise, you could describe to me what is needed to overhaul a clarinet, but that doesn't mean tomorrow i could hand you one with nice, well fit, securely glued pads, nor would I likely have the action running smoothly. That comes from experience.

Same with amplifier electronics. You might understand how a tube (valve) works, but that doesn;t help much if you don't know how to get the inner part away from the outer to gain access.

I have hired many technicians over the decades, and I can safely say I almost always prefer practical experience over schooling.

You understand the care that must go into a violin repair, things must line up properly, no voids in the glue work, etc. There is a similar level of detail and nuance to electronics.

As Stan said, 80% of the repairs are simple, and you can get up to that pretty quick. Like I could learn to clean and restring violins pretty fast. But if I had to reglue the top onto a violin, I won't be ready for that in a couple weeks time. If you learn how to solder on a circuit board without doing damage, you can do a lot of repairs. Most common are resoldering or replacing jacks and broken controls. And of course noisy controls can be cleaned with a spray cleaner.

If someone brought you an older Fender tube amp that hummed, we might suggest you replace all the electrolytic capacitors. You'd need to be able to identify them, then unsolder the old ones, and install the new ones in their place. This is basic work that you can learn straightforwardly.

But it also occurs to me that you plan to do these repairs yourself. Either you have extra free time now, or you plan to do less instrument work to make time for amp repair.

Maybe there is not enough work in your shop for a full time tech, but what about someone coming in part time as a contractor? You say there are only 4 amp techs in the whole area. If I understand, they are guys who do it for a living. But there may be other guys around who know something about it, but just don't offer it as a business. And consider that electronic repair is pretty much electronic repair. Someone who does consumer electronics repair (stereos, TVs, etc) could easily adapt to guitar amps and PA system. Someone in that business might want to work some off hours, or maybe an older experienced retired tech might find a few hours a week enjoyable.

[simso]

Thank you I do understand your point. If I could hire a full time repair tech, I would, hands down no issues there.

I also understand that its a difficult if not maybe impossible thing to learn via an internet turorial service, however with modern technology and video linking its becoming easier to teach via the web.

I do know how to solder, I was taught in the military as part of my electrical engineering component for a mechanical engineer. But the difference I see is that we are working with 240volts (it can kill you), where as fixing a clarinet or a sax or a guitar is relatively safe, just the machinery isnt.

I like your ideas regarding ,maybe someone that is an electrical repairer not an amp repairer, I will enquire with the local employment office and see if someone is out there or put a request in for someone with electrical credentials like old tv repairs.

Thanks

[Enzo]

You might also ask local musicians if they know any likely candidates. I first started learning about how amps worked when I was in a local rock band. I already knew electronics, but had no idea how to open up a Fender amp at first. There may be a local soundman or roadie with some skill. And for that matter, in addition to some guy in a band, if there are any sound companies in your area, they may have a tech guy.

[Alex R]

Man, even when you have learned, you'll soon be on three-week turnarounds yourself I promise. In a high-demand market with just one man to meet the demand and one electronic repair bench in your business, that ain't too bad at all! If that turnaround time you keep mentioning as a problem is the only reason you want to go to the considerable trouble of learning the skills yourself, you will I think find the effort not worth the results for your business. So I would agree with the more positive responders that hiring someone in who has some if not all the skills already is your best plan, as however many obstacles there are to making progress in that direction, they pale into insignificance compared to the tank traps that lie ahead as you try to acquire the skills yourself, gradually discovering that in truth you weren't getting such a bad service after all with that three-week wait!

Best of luck with it but it is not a skill you can learn quickly. People who can do both instrument and electronic repairs are a rarity because both skills are complex and take a while to develop. As Enzo said, think of what you know and can do in the instrument repair line and think how long it took - electronic repair is not simpler or quicker to learn.

Another thing to warn about is that until you are really highly skilled, electronic repairs can be very time-consuming indeed. Most of us are somewhere on a learning curve, and we all know that the jobs we need to learn from can suddenly clog up the bench for days as we struggle with them - which is why it is sound advice that you should leave the 20% of more difficult jobs to someone else if you can. Howver, the problem there is that you can be a good few hours into a job before you fully realise its complexity!

[Alex R]

If you want to teach yourself, or just find out a bit more about what you are proposing to learn, it might be worth getting hold of the NEETS modules - US Navy electronics course from back in the day. Google for them. They are thorough and cover the tube technology you will need to understand in detail, and they are designed as learning tools.

[simso]

All good info guys, but 3 weeks is attrocius, we repair (3 of us) musical instruments here in perth, we pick up from the store today and return the instrument sax/oboe/guitar returned the next day repaired, we also strip all keys and parts of the instruments ultrasonically clean the bodies and re-assemble them, we each turn about 6 instruments a day.. now we do this picked up repaired delivered back to store in 24 hr period, our work ethic is high. For this reason I keep getting amps pushed in my direction, I kid you not when I say if I had a repair tech for amps on board we would have minimum 10 amps a day coming in minimum..

Ive already contacted the local employment service and put a want add in for electrical repairer, circuits, preference given to those with amp experience. So hopefully Ill get a bite. I posted a while back almost a year ago on an australian guitar builders and amp builders board looking for a repairer and there were no takers, even offered part time after hrs work etc

But I appreciate everyones replies, in the mean time I do intend to buy some amp kits that each one of us can build so we have at least an appreciation of whats going on..

[Enzo]

How do you decide what is a good turn-around time?

I appreciate the skill and art that go into instrument repairs. But it is a craftsman effort. In other words, you take something familiar and rebuild it to like-new condition. But I think you probably always have what you need on hand. I assume you have a collection of pad shapes and sizes already in the shop. COntrast amp repair. It takes a ton of very differnt skills and art. Not saying one is better than the other, just different. FUndamentally, repairing amplifiers and other electronics is a matter of problem solving, not a matter of applying craftsmanship.

There are others on this board who do tons more volume than I, but I have a pretty well stocked repair shop for electronics, and I still have to order things weekly. I stock several hundred types of transistors, but there are thousands of types in use. I stock a good selection of jacks, but different ones keep showing up. I cannot remotely stock all the controls I might need. Just as the pads on a saxophone vary in size along the instrument, all the volume and tone controls and so on on an amp are different. And each brand of amp has its own types. None are generic. I don't know for sure, but I'd wager that if you service 10 different brands of alto sax, you wouldn;t need to stock 10 differnt types of pads. One or two selections of sizes covers it? perhaps my examples are poor, but I/we do have to order parts for a lot of repairs. And that takes time.

I know you can't repair and return certain things overnight, since things like glue on a violin body takes time to cure. I don't hold that against you. But the nature of electronic problem solving is that sometimes it doesn't come together instantly. Sure, any competent tech can crank out a bunch of simple repairs - broken jacks, blown speaker, whatever - but some problems are intermittant, only show up now and then. SOme problems can be maddening to solve, especially in some circuits where the whole thing feeds back on itself, so the circuit is one big loop. These take time. You know how long it will take you to strip down, clean, and refit a saxophone. And if you need to bump out a dent, you know how much more time it will need. Electronics is not always so cooperative.

And some things just are labor intensive. A while back I had a large church bring me their mixer from their sound system. A large 32 channel mixer with a 24 channel extender. I had to replace all the ribbon cables in it. I had to remove over 900 knobs from it of various colors, and when I was done I had to put each knob back - correct color positions. There were also over 250 nuts on various jacks to remove and replace. Hundreds of screws, etc, etc. A job like that takes hours and hours. In the time it took for that I could have done a pile of smaller repairs, but my choice is either to put off the big job, or let the smaller jobs wait their turn. Point being that when an amp comes into a shop, the tech can either drop what he is doing to start on the new repair, or he can put it in line to wait its turn. And until he opens it up, he has no idea whether he will have to order parts for it - and parts orders add about a week to the repair time - nor how simple the work will be.

But what appears to be a simple bad jack from the outside could turn out to be a broken circuit board once inside.

What if I have eight hour-long repairs to do? I can do that in a day, certainly. Now what if 20 of them come in today? I won't get them all done. And I am the owner of the business. If I hired a man to do this, I sure couldn't expect an hourly employee to stay on the job 20 hours to get them all done before he got to go home.

[simso]

Its all good, my current repairer bills me by time taken, nothing has ever taken longer than an hr so far, as I said Im happy with his work but the waiting time for him to look at the appliance is indicative of how bad the industry is in at the moment here in australia, hopefully I can find an electronics repairer.

As far as stocks, for me thats not an issue, we would gear up accordingly, example to repair saxophones we have just in saxophone pads about 15000 dollars worth of inventory, and thats just the pads for one instrument nothing else.

The tooling to repair musical instruments is ridiculous in price, so far easily 1/4 mill in tooling, buying and setting up an electronics division is not a biggie IMo..

[Alex R]

it's clear that electronics repair is a very different industry from musical instrument repair.