CV out mod

[darkartois]

I live in the UK an priced the mod with HHB, who moog recommended. It's works out to be about £290 total, but I called a local repair place in my hometown that said they do it a lot cheaper, and minus the pricey postage. Would it void my warranty if they did it and would you chance it with them, or pay the extra for HHB? It's about a £100 difference.

[Sir Nose]

The CV mod is an in house only mod, they do not currently sell a field kit, afaik. If the shop would be getting the detailed instructions and parts from Moog, I would think it is authorized and your warranty is okay. Definitely call/email moog music to verify before surgery. If the tech is going to use off the self parts and thinks they know the inner workings enough to perform the operation, I would not chance it. Especially without a working example and definitely not till it was out of warranty.

[darkartois]

HHB have the kit and sell it at £104. The place in Belfast, said they'd have a 90 day warranty on the work, but if they do something wrong it could be a messy situation. I think I've a 3year warranty with sweetwater iirc, which would end this year. I think you're right and should moog directly, thanks for your input

[audiostatic]

Had my Little Phatty Tribute done at HHB it had the new memory chip and the upgraded OS 2.2T, CV out mod done for £500.0 really happy with it .

[ozfunghi]

Sorry for bringing back this topic from the dead, but it was the first topic about the LP CV out mod i found.

On the website, it says field kits are only available for serial numbers 8100 and higher, unless you call Moog for a field kit for serial numbers 1 to 8099. But in the latter case, soldering is required and best performed by an experienced technician.

On their facebook, Moog says:

To perform the CV Out Field Upgrade, you will need a phillips-head screwdriver and a multimeter. No soldering involved. (CV Out field upgrades are only available for LP Stage II's. Performing the mod on earlier units requires soldering directly to the circuit board and is strongly recommended that the work be performed by a certified Moog tech).

So, i have a Little Phatty Stage II edition (which according to their facebook statement means i don't need soldering)... however, my LP's serial number is SE04793. I'm not sure how the serial numbers add up, but do serial numbers beginning with SE0... come after 8099 or is my Little Phatty one that needs soldering? Which would mean the facebook statement was not accurate. Otherwise, it's not entirely clear from the website if my serial number falls within 1 to 8099. Basically, are those serial numbers actually SE00001 to SE08099 or not?

Thanks in advance! The reason i'm asking, is because i'd do the upgrade myself if no soldering is involved.

[stiiiiiiive]

Hi ozfunghi. Feel free to contact Moog tech support directly; they are the best to answer you

[ozfunghi]

Unfortunately my LP (SII) needed soldering. After ordering and receiving the mod, an engineer i know, who does a lot of electronics, including his own circuit board soldering, agreed to solder the mod. I had asked a price quote from a local service point, and they asked close to $600 (I'm in Europe), so i decided that was a bit much and asked the engineer to go ahead. He wanted to do it for free.

Anyway, after soldering the mod, my Little Phatty now only plays one note, regardless of which key i play. Only by using the pitch bend, can i alter the tone. After disconnecting the connectors from the mod PCB, the problem still remains. The soldering seems to have been done adequately, none of the soldering seems to "run over". So i'm not sure if anybody knows what the problem might be. At first i thought it might have something to do with not having calibrated the pitch yet with an oscilloscope (because we didn't have one at hand at the time), but according to him, that shouldn't matter if the problem persists after disconnection the mod from the main board.

I've send an e-mail to Moog support (but i don't expect them to reply on a saturday or sunday, obviously), but i just wanted to check here to see if someone would know what the problem could be. Obviously, something went wrong, but maybe someone would know where the mistake could have been made. Given the fact that there is no "pitch" in the keys, my first guess would be that something went wrong with the orange wire that is used to control the picth? Or maybe it's not as simple as that. I hope i don't have to replace the entire circuit board if any of the chips turn out to be damaged.

[EMwhite]

Tech support is your first stop so it's good that you are in contact with them (or will soon be).

When you say you removed the connectors, you are talking about the left side of the board (as you face the keyboard, yes?).

It sounds to me like there is either a solder bridge, something is dragging to ground, or maybe a connector elsewhere on the LP is not seat properly. Is it a very high or low frequency, or just somewhere arbitrary in the middle of the range?

Have you tried playing your LP with Midi out to another module or to a synth based plug-in in a DAW? I think that this is stop one. Also play another keyboard or an external sequencer (Midi) into the LP to see if that works? Even if it's analog voltage coming into the PITCH CV jack, that should be additive to key played (transpose). Try that as well.

If you've read the other threads, you may have seen the picture that I attached from a LP Tribute CV Mod. I have very good pictures of the entire setup and it would be good to compare against yours. They will be different for a few reasons, but if you could take some snapshots and post the or forward them, it will be interesting to compare.

Nothing calibration related will make every key play the same note but it wouldn't be a bad idea to do a factory reset and calibrate run. The CV out mod has zero to do with the digital size of of the LP; the OS doesn't even know about it, it's purely analog taps to buffer/drivers.

[ozfunghi]

Tech support is your first stop so it's good that you are in contact with them (or will soon be).

When you say you removed the connectors, you are talking about the left side of the board (as you face the keyboard, yes?).

It sounds to me like there is either a solder bridge, something is dragging to ground, or maybe a connector elsewhere on the LP is not seat properly. Is it a very high or low frequency, or just somewhere arbitrary in the middle of the range?

Have you tried playing your LP with Midi out to another module or to a synth based plug-in in a DAW? I think that this is stop one. Also play another keyboard or an external sequencer (Midi) into the LP to see if that works? Even if it's analog voltage coming into the PITCH CV jack, that should be additive to key played (transpose). Try that as well.

If you've read the other threads, you may have seen the picture that I attached from a LP Tribute CV Mod. I have very good pictures of the entire setup and it would be good to compare against yours. They will be different for a few reasons, but if you could take some snapshots and post the or forward them, it will be interesting to compare.

Nothing calibration related will make every key play the same note but it wouldn't be a bad idea to do a factory reset and calibrate run. The CV out mod has zero to do with the digital size of of the LP; the OS doesn't even know about it, it's purely analog taps to buffer/drivers.

Yeah, sorry, first thing i tried was connect it with USB midi to my laptop where i had some midi files which i played back, but again, all in the same tone/note. I used the same midi files last month and they worked back then, so they should have worked now as well. But didn't.

Here's a video i shot with my celphone (please ignore the noise of my kids in the background): https://www.dropbox.com/s/n4foblzbhix49 ... 3.mp4?dl=0

When i said i disconnected the connectors, i meant the connectors from the soldered wires with the mod pcb. Meaning the mod would be disconnected from the main board.

Oh, and the note that is played, seems to be something rather arbitrary in the middle. Neither high nor low.

PS: are you talking about this topic? http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22831
And it's possible to have the pitch CV linked to the pitchwheel instead of just the keyboard? Because that sounds more interesting to me (personally). Also, the R121 on my board isn't labeled, but the board lay-out was identical to the one in the Moog PDF, so we figured that the label was just missing but that we soldered the wire to the correct point. Maybe we should try moving that wire to TP9 instead, and with some luck that might solve the problem (if we did in fact either did not solder to R121, or did not solder it correctly).

[ozfunghi]

Still haven't heard back from Moog. I'm not sure how long it usually takes for them to respond.

EDIT: i heard back from Moog, but they couldn't help me directly. Thankfully EMWhite was kind enough to contact some people he knew at Moog, and we've now isolated the problem (a damaged resistor which will need tot be replaced).