Hi everyone, I’ve got an Ensonic ESQ-1 that has a couple of problems. I’ve followed some advice found in the gearsluts forum, but so far without noticable improvement. So I hope to find some help here.
First of all, it’s a metal Case ESQ-1 running OS3.5.
The battery was dead but successfully replaced.
There’s no output, or rather super low output (have to crank up the gain on the recording preamp really hard to hear some sounds), apart from the noise when switching it off, which is normal volume. I’ve already replaced the old volume slider (hoping for the easiest fix), but that didn’t help.
I can hear all 8 voices playing, so I’m assuming the voice chips are okay, but since the sounds are sooo quiet, it’s a bit hard to tell.
I then realized the filter tuning shows 000 for all filters. In the Gearsluts threat are a lot of good tips and tricks that I’ve tried, like replacing the following IC’s: 084, 4051, 74LS377 and 7524, but unfortunately without any improvement. The filters still tune at 000 and the sound is barely audible.
Since nobody there replies to my comment, I’m at a loss now, without any idea how to get this great Synth to work.
Also, not sure if that problem could be related - if I select any OSC, Filter or basically any menu point, the selected value jumps up and down very quickly. I first suspected the data slider to be broken, but a replacement didn’t solve the issue. Then I thought it might be faulty up/down buttons, but they only trigger when you press them, so I assume they’re all good. I’ve reseated the molex connectors on the PCBs (all of them), and reinitialized the synth, but none of it helped.
I’m really running out of ideas now (apart from recapping the PSU, even though the measured voltages seem well within range.), so if anyone has an idea what the problem(s) might be, I’d be incredibly grateful for any leads!