FADE IN:
EXT.
A nondescript industrial-building surrounded by more of its ilk in the Tsing Yi enclave of old Hong Kong's New Territories…
CUT TO:
INT.
An atelier rife with tube-amplifiers of all manner stacked and stashed in every nook and cranny and amongst those stacks gaps are effects pedals, rack-units, mixing boards, even a synthesizer or two — some with their guts spilling, open gaping wounds, others upside down and their tubes jutting out, a few tagged “finished” or “fixed”. Entering further into the warren, we take what is barely a path, cleared from the door to two brightly-lit mobile work-stands made from old amp-cabinets with casters; on one, a vintage ’60s Telefunken multi-band radio, on the other a Mesa Boogie MKI, out of its chassis, and a reverb pan with fumes emanating from it — three men surround it, intently absorbed in the three springs’ wire-connections being soldered…
NARRATOR:
Last week, on Mistress-Mystery Theatre, the dynamic duo Dr Valve-Amp Sifu and his right-hand nurse-ratchet assistant, the Boy-Blunder Feral Feline, had cracked open a malfunctioning EHX Electric Mistress and vowed to return her to her former glory. They had but barely started to plumb the depths of her malignant-mystery and wished to wend their way through the rest of her circuit’s secrets this week to wrest the wayward whirling-whoosh of flangelic-waves from the Mistress’ womb —
But, wait! What’s this? An interloper interrupting the mending of the Mistress with a miscreant Mesa Boogie behaving badly? Ahh it’s Sifu’s long-time friend and guitar surgeon, just back from a storage-sale blow-out of four Mesa Boogies — what a score! Yet… Why so serious gentlemen, why the bad vibe? Is the MKI not picking up the reverb pan’s good vibrations? Could there be an output-transformer trepidation also preying upon their psyches as they suss out the signal’s incapacity to forthrightly sally forth?
What gives, FF?
FERAL FELINE:
Oh, hello! Salutations fellow soldernaut-viewers. Sorry to break the fourth wall (4th today, anyways), but if I’m only good at one thing, it seems to be breaking things.
Indeed, last week Sifu and I determined the Mistress’ 741 chip was hunky-dory and managed to find a suitable replacement for a toasted transistor. We messed around with the 4558 as well, but the problems it seemed to be having were negated. Checked some power and determined the pots were doing something, just no flangering was getting out. The one chip we’d not had a good look at was the 4013, so I said I’d check my stash as Sifu had none in stock. I had plenty, but Sifu had already gone out and picked up the little DIPer.
It’s been a heckuva week, and I arrived a wee bit later than usual this Friday night. Work was already well underway on the Boogie’s reverb conundrum; time was already tight so I thought it little-likely that we’d get another peek under the Mistress’ skirt, what with pressing amp repairs at hand. I assisted as best I could, swapping out 3 different reverb units, but in the end the transformer proved to be our biggest stumbling block.
In between reverbs, I had found an old answering-dicta-phone device amongst some amp transformers… the Reticon SAD1024 was used in such voice-activated units back in the day so with permission I made an exploratory recon — alas no magic-smoke-filled chip inside. We hit the wall with the Boogie’s transformer. Sifu’s second-in-command would be charged with transformer transformations for tomorrow. That left us about a half hour — barely enough time to bring the Mistress out and set her up, were it just me. However, Sifu works at a confident competent experienced speed.
So we swapped in the new CD4013 chips, checked voltages, checked SAD1024 pins and worked our way through the rest of the circuit. Seems the 4013 was not the culprit, it had 100kH+ going and that seemed crazy and wrong — not only beyond human ears but beyond dogs and probably bats, I dunno. So I checked the datasheet of the SAD1024 and its sample rate is 150kH, and so another piece of the puzzle clicked into place in my noggin — got to think beyond the human ear’s audible spectrum (I’ve zero previous electronics experience going into pedal building/repairing). Tick-tock said the clock, time’s a-wasting…
Sifu’s Mesa-Boogie buddy strummed the strangs of the Shop Strat while we probed every possible path. The clean signal was getting through, but somewhat distorted and muffled, not quite right, but there. The clock was tick-talking to the rest of the circuit and the whole 339 section was functional. Bit by bit we broke it down into its component parts and determined the circuit was operational up to, but excluding, the SAD1024. That was it. The last thing left. A defunct $AD1024; End of the delay-line.
We sat back and joked about how many more hours it would take to work through the circuit again with a fresh Reticon, if we could find one. Sifu’s more at home with amps, not as familiar with analogue pedals, but he’s as tenacious as a bulldog with a bone and Sifu wanted a taste of the Mistress’ marrow. Mulling over the reticent Reticon’s datasheet he pulled the chip and checked some of the socket’s pins and Godot knows what else as buddy and I chilled — Sifu popped the chip back in and with a test-signal blaring started probing again with a quick adjustment to a trimmer while monitoring the oscilloscope — I thought I heard a distinct blip of a difference at some point of the trimmer’s travel, but Sifu was too absorbed in prodding the underside of the PCB. So I dimed the controls and got buddy to strum strangs again while I fettled the Mistress’ trim…
Noting where the trimmer was parked, so I could get back to ground zero if need be, I started twisting the flat-blade into the Mistress’s guts. I hit her g-spot, she sighed, I squealed — there it was! At last! Zombie Alert! Back from the DEAD!
Buddy had never heard an Electric Mistress in person before, he was smitten with her charms and checking online prices within a heartbeat of handing off the Strat to me. Sifu had a mile-wide smile, and much trading of the Strat back and forth ensued while dialling in lush to lunatic-fringe… I think we were there for at least another half hour beyond when we were s’posed to make like a tree, branch off and leave.
EPILOGUE: EBULLIENT JUBILATION ! ! !
So, naturally I was too excited to keep last week’s promise and remember to take the pics this Friday-night. After more than 3 decades of slumber, Sleeping Beauty has awoke with a tender, long kiss. Mwah! … Mwah, dahlings, MWaH mwAH!
After being up since about 3am, I was bagged but so pumped I couldn’t sleep. Instead, took advantage of the time difference and chatted with my buddy who had bequeathed me the Mistress, but she’s always been his in my mind and still is. So, we’ll have a great ownership debate when I return to Canada. If it’s “mine”, I know a guy who might be willing to look after the Mistress, ;-) he’s been looking after my SG for the last couple of decades (didn’t want to risk theft/breakage/humidity-damage bringing it to HK). ’Twas 2am before I finally hit the shower, the tub’s resistance was futile.
Thanks for reading, thanks for your support, huge shout-out to ChuckDBones!
.
