Mellotronists

hi folks...

the mellotron at our studio, the one which had some wiring snipped
by some idiot trying to tap a signal directly for some reason, is
acting up again. just a month ago i spent an evening making the
usual keyboard/pressure pad/pinch roller adjustments, and had the
thing purring way nicely - the engineer said he never heard it
sound so good.

then they moved it across a parking lot on a small furniture
dolly a few days ago, and now the only sound that comes from it
is white noise... not even a hint of real audio from the tapes.

so i unplugged everything, checked for obvious problems, tried
plugging it all in again and still nothing but white noise.
the level of the white noise IS affected by the volume knob.

since the battery in my meter decided to die, and there was no
local place to run and get a fresh battery, i decided to take
the whole control box assembly home with me to see if i can
find a problem with it [wires coming loose from my previous
repair etc]

so, after that long-winded explanantion of where i am at, is
there any risk in plugging that unit's control assembly into
my own m400. [mine is serial 364, the other is, if i recall,
either 1189 or 10xx something or other] what i mean is, has
any of the circuitry changed that would cause any damage to
either my m400 or the control panel electronics?

i don't know of any mods done to either, other than what i
did when i replaced the motor card in mine with a circa 1993
mellotron archives motor card [can't remeber the model off
the top of my head and i don't feel like moving the minimoog
off it now - it's 2:00 am and it would wake the wife].

are they freely interchangeable?

i just want to see what it does when connected to my m400.

thanks in advance for the expert advice i always get from the list.
...and some of the usual abuse and sarcasm is expected ;0)


...jeff

On Fri, 27 Jan 2006 jeffc@... wrote:

>
> hi folks...
>
> the mellotron at our studio, the one which had some wiring snipped
> by some idiot trying to tap a signal directly for some reason, is
> acting up again. just a month ago i spent an evening making the
> usual keyboard/pressure pad/pinch roller adjustments, and had the
> thing purring way nicely - the engineer said he never heard it
> sound so good.
>
> then they moved it across a parking lot on a small furniture
> dolly a few days ago, and now the only sound that comes from it
> is white noise... not even a hint of real audio from the tapes.



yup - i am replying to my own post.
senility can be a wonderful thing...


so i gave the whole control panel assembly a good going over,
making sure the pots were dialing in the proper values, the
signals were getting through the wires, etc.

in examining the circuit cards, i noticed that one transistor
had a lg that had lifted from the trace a small bit. so i put
a small bit of solder on to secure the leg, and just this
evening put the control panel back in, fired it up and voila!
[or should that be "viola"?]
it's working again.

i spanked the engineer for moving the machine that way, and
left it in fine working order. until they do something else
stupid to it...


also, thanks to everyone for the off-list tips on the minimoog
pitch wheel problem. i'll be picking up some deoxit ASAP and
hope that solves it... [cramolin is no longer available, at
least in these here parts...]

smooches.
jeff