Hello-
new to this forum. Long time synth player with a boatload of analog gear. This is my second Axxe I’ve owned. This one is perfect, except for one thing: the noise does not work, which is why I bought it (great surf fx!)
Anyone know if this is an easy fix?
cheers
It’s going to take some probing and soldering to fix. Most likely the noise source transistor has failed or one of the other active components in the noise circuit. You can check with a multimeter or oscilloscope if you’re up for it. Also if yours has the original tantalum capacitors still in it, it’s about time to replace them, they fail as short circuits causing all sorts of problems. It could be the cause of this problem.
If you have any questions about where to get started feel free to ask or if electronics repair isn’t your thing then your best bet is to take it to a service center. Here is a list of service centers we know of.
https://syntaur.com/service_centers.html
Thank you Travis!
I would rate myself someone not so good as a tech guy. I had heard about the tantalum capacitors generally needing to be swapped out. my original Odyssey had some interesting short circuiting that I liked as ‘unplanned modulations’ but it grew too much after a while.
Is that list fairly current? Berklee College/Mass would be my first choice as they have a legendary collection of vintage synths in their e-lab.
Thanks again for prompt and helpful response
cheers
It is rather current but unfortunately so many synth repair places are closing up shop these days so your mileage may vary, you will have to call a couple to see. Luckily with Arp synths most of the components are still widely available or can be substituted with modern parts so most repair shops should be able to help.
My first look would be here; the two yellow marked caps 1uF/16V … the 1uF seem to fail a lot and if they do are a short circuit usually - in the case of the noise gen will make it stop completely.
On the board itself - top right corner:
Wow! Thank you Werner. Great information, and will try that first. I will pass this along to repair guy (when I locate one still working on vintage stuff….)