Author: synthchaser

First, we restore a dead ARP Odyssey. Not the new Korg one, a real vintage, 1973 Mk 1 Model 2800 Whiteface ARP Odyssey. We change the ICs, capacitors, sliders, repair a dead oscillator and a damaged power supply. This Odyssey gets the full Synthchaser spa treatment!

Then, we use that ARP Odyssey as a test bed to fix a customer’s Odyssey oscillator board.  Customer was reporting his Oscillator 2 couldn’t be calibrated and was drifting. The trimmer should be adjusted to make a 20Hz square wave, but the lowest it would go was 40Hz. What I saw was cool enough that I had to edit it into a Synthchaser video!

In wrapping up the restoration of an ARP Omni 2, I noticed the sound was ever so slightly off. Together we track down the problem and repair the culprit delay line on the phaser board of the synthesizer.

Shows the importance of replacing all of those tantalum capacitors with my kit:

ARP Omni 2 Capacitor Replacement Kit with 4075 VCF rebuild kit

I was restoring an ARP Omni 2 and one of the leather sides was damaged, as they often are, so I made some replacement side panels from hardwood. In this video I pop them on we see what it looks like when it’s done. My video camera is lousy, and doesn’t do the wood justice, but you can see the panels better in the stills at the end.

I don’t currently plan on stocking these, but if you’re really interested in a pair, contact me, because it turned out so nice, I’m sure I’ll be making more.

I troubleshoot and repair a couple of problems with this ARP Omni 2. First the lower bass voice is dead. Second, a weird problem with the low note priority circuitry of the bass notes is seemingly allowing more than 1 bass note through at a time.

The greatest synth ever, the ARP 2600, is beating the heat in the Synthchaser workshop and getting a little love and minor TLC. I replace a broken slider and identify and replace some bad connectors that were causing the keyboard control voltage to glitch or be dropped.