Strong Wrong and key contacts thread from AH

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Technician Larry
Posts: 79
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 5:07 pm

Strong Wrong and key contacts thread from AH

Post by Technician Larry » Mon Jun 06, 2011 3:36 pm

I'm going to post this email thread from Alanog Heaven here for those of you that do not read that list. There are issues of interest, concern and value mentioned - perhaps there is more useful input to come from this forum. The format is primitive, so you will be reading the thread backwards. Check out the Strong Wrong video on Myspace for some very unique synth work, great chops and no key contact problems!

analog heaven
It was probably played by a serious musician who played a lot of notes. Like this guy here:

http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/598951 ... id_OEV_P_P

Strong Wrong (Jeff) would have trouble with those contacts. For 25 years he has only used the two instruments seen in this video for performance controllers. He is able to wear out pitch bend pots, but since Chris Brandt and I put these custom rigs together for him back in the 80's, I've never heard about any contact problems.


----- Original Message -----
From: Ross Kelly
To: [email protected] ; Dee Church
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2011 11:15 AM
Subject: Re: [AH] Pool of Memorymoogs - was Oberheim OB8 Advice...


Thank you for the info on Bob's disc's. I think that after all the effort I have put into this keyboard, this is going to be the correct solution for this particular unit. I have 2 polysix keyboards with the same mechanism. Occasionally one or 2 keys will go out on them, but that is only if i dont play them for long periods of time. The OB8 unit must just be a lemon.



--- On Mon, 6/6/11, Dee Church <[email protected]> wrote:


From: Dee Church <[email protected]>
Subject: [AH] Pool of Memorymoogs - was Oberheim OB8 Advice...
To: [email protected]
Date: Monday, June 6, 2011, 12:43 PM



Sound Doctorin' contact disks are a 100% fix for the bad contacts discussed in this thread. Detailed information about doing this repair can be seen in Technician Larry's Facebook album "Pool of Memorymoogs" here:

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id= ... 9346962525

Bob @ sound Doctorin' advocates cleaning those rubber pads with acetone. I was very reluctant to do this as my experience has been that any chemicals on these conductive pads tends to further reduce the conductivity of the material. Bob assures me that acetone will not cause additional harm and that it is a good method of preparing the surface for sticking on the pads. There are some additional tips on restoring the "life" to these Panasonic keyboards. Carl Solovox said this about what was done to his Memorymoog:

"Technician Larry is a GENIUS. I am so honored and thankful for all the magical work he recently did on my MemoryMoog. It is now in tip-top shape...perfect actually. He rebuilt the entire keyboard, fixed long-since-broken buttons, and completely repaired the internal tuning and oscillator issues. I highly, highly suggest him as your resource for any vintage keyboard (or gear) work that needs to be done!!"

Regarding the loss of conductivity on these contact pads, it has been my observation that age or contamination may have little to do with it. Yes, sometimes individual keys will develop problems due to dust that worked its way under the actuator cup, but that is easily removed without using solvents. I've cleaned up drink spills that caused serious problems using only water and a towel. A pencil erasure will restore the metal traces to their original brilliance, but those issues are not what we are discussing here. It may be the key depression count that takes the toll. The conductive rubber surface picks up a visible impression of the pcb traces on the high traffic notes, and the loss of conduction can be measured with an ohm meter by carefully probing across the circumference of the contact pad. Years ago I tried some conductive paint, but it was not formulated for this application and just made a mess of things. That was back when replacement contact strips were still easy to get, so I did. Now, I have a lot of faith in the Sound Doctori' contact pads. I'll be doing one of those jobs on an OB8 later today in fact.

By the way, some early OB8s had the Pratt and Reed keyboard with j-wire contacts. When they were building OBXAs with this keyboard they decided that a glob of silicone on each wire contact would be a good idea. I've seen many of these wires break inside that glob, causing extremely bad stuttering of notes. It almost seems as though the silicone glob promoted broken contacts. The silicone glob prevents the broken wire from falling away so the note just keeps on stuttering. They figured this out by the time the OB8 came down the line though as I believe I only saw this on previous models (OBX and Xa). Broken wire contacts was certainly the inspiration to move to the new, improved (?) Panasonic keyboard.


----- Original Message -----
From: [email protected]
To: klosmon ; ana
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2011 6:52 PM
Subject: Re: [AH] Oberheim OB8 Advice...


I gave tried old crows eraser cleaning method. It did not help. Does anyone have experience with the sound doctorin contact disks?

Sent from my HTC on the Now Network from Sprint!


----- Reply message -----
From: "klosmon" <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, Jun 5, 2011 6:38 pm
Subject: [AH] Oberheim OB8 Advice...
To: "Ross Kelly" <[email protected]>, "ana" <[email protected]>


I've done a few hundred of these type keyboards, and the most consistent results were obtained using the pencil eraser cleaning method listed on Old Crow's website. My experience (for what it's worth) is that this works much better than alcohol for these keyboards.

There are always some that won't respond to ANY cleaning -- these are the ones that need some kind of recoating, like the system Sound Doctorin' offers.

~GMM


Ross Kelly wrote:
I am definitely confused as well. I have dealt with this problem in a ton of other synths over the years and never had this problem. Usually one solid thorough alcohol/cotton swab cleaning does the trick, but this one is a real dud. The contacts are similar to the ones in the Polysix if that helps.

--- On Sun, 6/5/11, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:


From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [AH] Oberheim OB8 Advice...
To: [email protected], "Ross Kelly" <[email protected]>
Date: Sunday, June 5, 2011, 6:21 PM


I use rubbing alcohol on a Q-tip to clean the PCB contacts, then I swab it lightly on the carbon contacts in the bubble strip. (Don't get the alcohol on the rubber itself.) For keys that still have problems, sometimes there will be a nearly-microscopic bit of grit on the PCB that swabbing didn't get off; inspecting the contacts of any bad notes with a magnifying glass will help identify those, then a fingernail or careful use of a knife will get those free.


For any notes that still refuse to work, cut a small square from a cereal box, and tape it to the underside of the key where it presses down on the bubble strip. This will usually shim it just enough to get it going again.



I'm not sure which strips the OB-8 uses (maybe you could post a photo?), but we might have some replacements at Syntaur. I'm a little perplexed why your previous work on the contacts was good for just a couple of days....


Sam




On Sun, 5 Jun 2011 14:56:17 -0700 (PDT), Ross Kelly wrote:


Hello all! I have an Oberheim OB8 that has a keyboard issue. The Key contacts are extremely flaky. Initially when I got the unit, no a single key was working. After two rigorous cleaning, they all worked for about 2 days before half them failed again. I have now cleaned the contacts about 10 times in the last 2 years and every time I end up with the same result. Almost all keys will work for a few days after the cleaning but inevitably half of them are unresponsive or within a day or two. Does anyone else have similar issues? Has anyone tried this solution--- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7j3FFPDzh0

cliffman
Posts: 154
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:08 pm

Re: Strong Wrong and key contacts thread from AH

Post by cliffman » Mon Jun 06, 2011 8:47 pm

Ah, yes, the man with the Shoulder Piano!
Jeff is a true monster on the keys, and an amazing guy with the gear.

And just to keep it relevant, afaik he still owns a MiniMoog Model D, which
he purchased new!

cliffman

Technician Larry
Posts: 79
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 5:07 pm

Re: Strong Wrong and key contacts thread from AH

Post by Technician Larry » Mon Jun 06, 2011 10:09 pm

cliffman wrote:
And just to keep it relevant, afaik he still owns a MiniMoog Model D, which
he purchased new!

cliffman
Wow cliffman - could that be what is left of the Minimoog that I chopped for Jeff back in the early 80's? I had forgotten all about this, but in a recent conversation with him he reminded me about his Mini that we made into a module, discarding the keyboard and the wooden case. He tells me that, after asking him 2 or 3 times if he was absolutely certain that he did not want that case for anything, I smashed it into the concrete floor in the shop shattering it into splinters as a "road-ability test". Sounds like something I would do alright.

cliffman
Posts: 154
Joined: Tue Nov 04, 2008 1:08 pm

Re: Strong Wrong and key contacts thread from AH

Post by cliffman » Wed Jun 08, 2011 1:31 pm

It might be the same one - I recall it appeared to be back in the stock case, with attached keyboard.
I know he did still have the separate keyboard from the remote.

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