Hi, all. I jsut picked up an MG-1 for $25 and after opening it up and cleaning out the melted foam as best I could (took me by suprise!) I determined that most of the faders are broken, and possibly some of the switches. I know that people are selling refurb kits for the MG-1, but if possible I would like to get the parts directly from a supplier - $70+ for kit seems pretty steep. I’ve spent a couple of hours looking online, though, and I haven’t found any leads. Anyone know of a manufacturer or wholesaler that carries MG-1-compatible faders and switches?
as far as i know, ebay user: chipsforbrains is the only guy with the mg-1 parts. I was surprised when you said $70+ for a kit, because I bought a slider kit for around $30-ish a couple years back. I checked ebay and realized that the kit you’re referring to includes the sliders, the switches and all the slider caps. Mine was just the sliders. I guess that’s not too bad of a deal… especially when you scored the thing for $25 bucks in the first place. After that upgrade, you’re still up about $300
True, it’s still a great deal (I swear I saw one go for some ridiculous $700+ price on ebay recently, but I’m probably just misremembering a huge starting price as a huge sale price - either way, somebody screweed up on that one!), it’s jsut that money is pretty tight lately, and even a $20 or so difference would mean a lot. If I’m goign to restore it, I’ll probably want to replace ALL of the faders, knobs and switches even if it means waiting a while until I have a bit more cash.
They must be out there somewhere, unless he is fabricating them himself (which is possible, I guess - I know a guy who builds good ribbon mics from scratch in his basement, including the capsules and ribbons themselves).
dude…seriously go for chipsforbrains…I cannot stress enough how awesome that guy is. I am fairly certain he had a large lot of those parts made custom or he came across a crapload of NOS.
I haven’t gotten the entire kit for the MG-1 but i did get all the sliders from him about 2 years ago and they fit great. In addition, i got one wrong slider in my kit and he IMMEDIATELY replaced it for me no cost!!! Therefore, this guy is clearly good for customer assistance.
Time and time again he has had exactly all the replacement parts on my synthesizers that I’m looking for …he even has the TOS chips on the MG-1 which always seem to be fried.
Plus, since you got such an amazing deal on your MG-1 there should be no problem getting those sliders…it’s like a drop in the bucket…
Whatever you have to do…borrow the 70 or whatever…then fix the MG-1 and sell it 3x what you paid for (25+70)…
Either way…you aren’t going to find those switches/sliders anywhere else, i promise…
Yeah, I’m definitely into supporting a good parts merchant, I just don’t have much cash so I figured I’d check. I’ll probably be able to order from him in a few weeks, though. Thanks for mentioning the TOS chip, too. Is that the “splitter” one that makes half the keyboard go dead when it goes bad, or is it something else?
Chipsforbrains gets a lot of his stuff custom made. You aren’t going to find it anywhere else.
You mentioned that you went on the net for a couple of hours to find parts. How many other hours will you spend looking for parts (probably to no avail). How many hours will you spend trying to get a better deal than $70?
$70 is cheap and well worth the cost. I am not trying to be an ass here–I sincerely mean this when I say it—spend the search time mowing lawns or painting or some other kind of manual labor. You will earn the money for the parts in no time, rather than lament that you don’t have the cash. If you spent the time working that you have already spent searching, you would have the cash already.
I am all into saving money, but when you find parts for some of these old synths, you just buy them. There aren’t a lot of options.
It is a pet peeve of mine that people spend so much time on the internet trying to save $30 or $40. You have to change your mindset. YOUR TIME is worth money. Don’t waste it by surfing the net!!
ended up working out well. He sent me the wrong package the first time around, and it was $120 in the end (HUGE shipping charge, over $30USD) but the parts are great quality and he was very nice. Installation was pretty easy The casing on the replacement switches doesn’t bond with solder, so I wasn’t able to solder the corner posts to the board like the original switches, but seems solid enough. The coper came off of the board at one point when I was desoldering it, but I was able to connect to a nearby point and everything works great. I’d definitely recommend him to anyone who got a good deal on the original keyboard.
EDIT:
I’m thinking about getting a cabinet maker I know to make some wooden endpieces for the thing, too - the chasis actually has mounting holes drilled in it already, so it would just be a matter of cutting, routing and finishing replacement endpieces. If I do this I’ll post photos.
That’s a pretty cool idea I thought about doing that for my Rogue, but instead ended up designing a carry case / “performance” platform (see my signature). I have an MG-1 now as well… I’ve thought about having another case made for it.
I’m glad to hear those switches and sliders worked out well. I need to get some replacement sliders for my Rogue. I just hope I don’t bungle them up… maybe I can have my stepdad install them as he’s an electrician.
Get one of those cheap desoldering syringe things (the ones with the spring-loaded plunger that you use together with a soldering iron, not the more expensive self-heating one) and use a 30 watt iron and you should do fine. I’d done virtually no soldering on PCB and absolutely no desoldering on PCB before I did this. I didn’t screw anything up (but watch out for the copper - it was starting to peel at some of the solder points on mine) and now feel pretty confident about soldering PCBs. Took about 3 hours, but I didn’t have a free workbench and had to work on a keyboard stand with a board on it, which slowed me down.
I thought about doing that for my Rogue, but instead ended up designing a carry case / “performance” platform (see my signature). I have an MG-1 now as well… I’ve thought about having another case made for it.