Month: August 2016

I know what you’re thinking, but really, I do repair other brands of vintage synths other than ARPs!

In this video I rebuild the power supply and repair some other problems like tuning issues, broken trimmer pots, and hiss, noise and static in the output.

I recently restored and repaired a pair of ARP Pro Soloists that used to belong to Bernie Worrell and made some videos along the way.

In this first part, I take a look at the two keyboards, come up with a plan of attack to restore them, and begin disassembly.

In this second part, I troubleshoot the first of the two ARP Pro Soloists.  There’s a rather interesting problem, the notes are getting lower as you move up the keyboard!  Also touch sensor effects are dead and I get to the bottom of that.

In the third part, I repair some broken welds on one of the Pro Soloist cases with a two part epoxy.

In the fourth part, I disassemble and recap the second of the two Pro Soloists.  We fire it up, but we’re not as lucky as with the first one, so we troubleshoot and get to the bottom of the problem.

In this fifth part I repair the Voltage Controlled Filter.  The second Pro Soloist has a dead 4034 VCF submodule (the Moog patent infringing type), which unfortunately is sealed up.  We cut it open, excavate it out, troubleshoot and repair it.

In the last part of this video series I show you the final product–two Pro Soloists working great and ready to start making some funky music again!

 

I have the pleasure of being able to restore and offer for sale this early ARP 2600.  A true collector’s piece, this is one of approximately 35 produced “Grey Meanie” ARP 2600’s and is extremely rare!  It comes with the matching 3604 keyboard (not pictured).  If you have been looking for this rare piece of synthesizer history, please contact me while I am able to customize the restoration plan with your input.