One of our reconditioned synths, a Juno 106, just opened for the Rolling Stones playing with Rami Fortis. Check the link below the photo.  

http://www.haaretz.com/life/music-theater/1.589627

The Univox EC 80, 

Just a little tape head cleaning and bias adjusted to bring back this killer delay unit.

Hammond vibrato and oilers

In this video peter discuses rebuilding the vibrato / chorus  function of Hammond. A lot of detailed info on the oil distribution system,and a little on dendrites.

cae sound ham vib from BillyBatesVideo on Vimeo.

Hammond jr 20

check out Peter discussing the Hammond Jr 20 tone cab amp transformer repair.

Hammod jr 20 2 480 from BillyBatesVideo on Vimeo.

Carlos Reyes and custom violin with
built in boss RV-1 delay
and our own CB-1preamp 

Carlos Reyes custom Electric Violin with CB-1 Pre amp and delay unit.

     Carlos is one of the top Violin around the world and is frequently flying. Tired of bag checks and worried about the safety of his equipment he came up with the idea to put all of his pedals electronics in his violin and contacted us knowing our long history of custom design.  

      We began with the pre-amp our Cb 1, its is designed to sit between the pickups and the output jack and to be “in circuit” at all times. Originally designed by John Cutler for Jerry Garcia, CB1 is a true Hi-Fi wide-band guitar preamp. It buffers the high impedance output of the guitar pickup and provides the low impedance drive necessary to send the signal to the effects pedal with no tone loss. 

the cb1 in action click photo for link to store

   Then the signal goes into the electronics of Boss RV-1.  The electronics are mounted on a removable board cut out of the bottom of the violin. We mounted the pots of the pedal on the top of the violin. we kept the four adjustable parameters and disregarded the on/off function using the wet/dry to control the amount of effect.  The foil around the unit is added to remove any hum. 

the guts of the Boss Rv1

the Boss Rv 1

                                                                                                                                                   

For more info on the CB1 preamp (and two other preamps CB2  and the Jangletone pre amp) you can go to our Web Store at www.caesound.net

CB1 Specs

Frequency response 10Hz to 200K Hz
Output Z = 600 Ohms
Input Z = 500K Ohms
Phase = 0’ Non-Inverting
Power Requirement = 9VDC Duracell MN1604
Current Drain = 5mA
Size in inches = 1" X 1" X 5/8" Tall
Weight = 10 grams
Gain = 1X (Unity)

Fender Rhodes Bass Key replacement

    We had a Rhodes Bass with really bad action.  On most keyboards this is an easy fix for us.  But this one had some missing aluminum parts that we needed to remanufacture.

    I made a mold for forming the blank strips of brass by taking two of the stock parts that had fallen out of the piano action. These parts were then glued to a rod. The rod and old parts were placed on a Tuna Can. The tuna can had little snips cut out of the sides to allow the rod to fall into the snipped groove. I used a filler product called "FixAll" as a mold compound. Filling the Tuna Can just to the top, and then laying the original parts into the mold compound made the shape of the parts I needed to copy.

                                                   

     I took the original parts out of the piano action. These are glued to the Key pedestal, and makes the hammer speed up when it hits the bump. If some keys have the part, while others are missing the piano action will behave very differently from key to key. In order to copy the missing parts, I needed to make a mold to replicate the missing pieces. I did this by taking two other parts that had fallen out, bet were still inside the piano. These were glued to a rod.

                                                                                                                                                                     

   

     Once the new parts had been formed from the brass strips cut from a sheet, and pressed into the mold. I glued them back on the keys. This was dome with some clamps and other misc. wood blocks I had laying around. I needed to clamp both ends of the brass strip firmly onto the key, without flattening out the bump we made with the mold.  

 Another cool thing about Rhodes this old is the tines are square as opposed to the flat ones used in later models.

We have begun working on a series of repair videos Here is the newest one,
cae moogparts with music 480 from BillyBatesVideo on Vimeo.