Hello everyone,
I recently got a Sonic Six and it’s having a few issues.
- The keys will only trigger notes and the envelope when playing alternately different keys,
if I play the same key twice it will not trigger.
- The only Gen X shape that works is Square. Gen Y seems to work great.
- White and Pink Noise has stopped outputting sound.
I’m going through the service manual and have started with the key triggering issue first.
Has anyone run into this issue before? Going through the suggested parts with “Probable Defects” as stated in the
service manual hasn’t been fruitful so far.
Thanks,
Eric
I’ve repaired many Sonic Sixes and most have been very difficult to tame.
Some are filled with a type of resistor known to drift over the years to values far away from their intended values.
This can result in such poor tracking, no calibration attempts will help.
They have that hokey center inteconnection bar and wiring harness that can cause problems.
Some models had boards that required soldering a component to traces on both sides of the board due to a lack of plated-thru holes.
In short, most have been total mindf**k to work on and despite this being my lifelong profession, I wouldn’t take one in for repairs now if someone paid me triple and gave me a gold pony.
Granted, some S6’s are harder to work on or in worse condition than others.
I can’t say what you have there.
But take it from someone with a bit of experience to be tempered to the notion that yours may take a lot of work.
This work may involve normal repairs, but also considerable study of the circuitry and looking for errors or situations outside the norm.
Good luck.
If you’re successful, please write back to explain what you did in hopes it might help others in the future.
Kevin
Thanks for the heads up Kevin.
Yea, this is the fun solder both sides board. Yum.
I was thinking I should probably just reflow all the joints on the floppy cable harness. That thing makes terrifying noises if you flex the boards even ever so slightly.
I’m hoping it all works out because this is one of the most organic sounding synths I’ve had my hands on. Love it. And the wide range of sweet spots in it is heaven. The pulse in particular is a beaut at any width.
Anyways, I will let you know if I can track down this strange trigger issue. I can play as many notes as fast as I want to but as soon as I want to play one twice, no trigger…
Good thing I got it for an ok deal. I’m guessing sending it off to a tech in Brooklyn or NYC will be very pricey. I have $1 x 3 and a plastic pony spray painted gold.