Mistress Mystery — a repair blog

[Feral Feline]

Hello fellow Soldernauts,

I mentioned in the Boneyard that I came into possession of a Mint-Looking Electric Mistress.

Alas the sordid tale in an EHX nutshell is that a friend bought it new back in the day, and while it still had its new-pedal smell, was left at a band rehearsal space where somebody tried to release the magic smoke. Thereafter it remained in a shoebox coffin for decades before being entrusted to me.

This past Friday night, I dismantled it and proceeded to go through the circuit with my mentor leading the way. I'm still not that great at trouble-shooting yet, but learning lots from my Amp-Dr friend.

After poking and prodding our way through the circuit with schematic in hand:

Re-attached a few wires
Replaced a transistor
Swapped out a faulty 4558
Trimmer supplying power to said 4558 is suspect/intermittent
Determined a definite problem with the $AD1024 .

Then we ran out of time.

It passes signal now, but without any jet-mojo from the heart of the unit. We looked through the stash of vintage pedals in his atelier for something we could borrow a chip from to test the circuit further, but all we could find was a Memory Man Deluxe.


I'll try to get some pics up in a day or two, as soon as I have time, and of course will continue the saga in more detail and update after next Friday's search & repair session.

Now to look for NOS Reticon chips, at ONS prices...

 

[Feral Feline]

 

[Feral Feline]

Above pic, lookin' at the 'scope off camera to the right.

Outside of home, my most favourite place to be in HK, the Amp Atelier.


I've got some short clips of the Mistress making wooshy, but I don't do FecalBrook and don't have a Ute-oob account, so no idea how to upload any of the clips. Besides, it's not like you've never heard an Electric Mistress before...

 

[fig]

An epic tale indeed! I was "in the moment", feeling the friction resonate through the screwdriver as that trimpot turned ever...so...slightly.

 

[Chuck D. Bones]

Great narrative! So was the root cause a bad connection or demonic possession?

 

[Feral Feline]

YES!

 

[Feral Feline]

Well, personally I think it was a demonic connection to a bad possession ... once everything was hooked up and the fried transistor replaced, maybe it needed that little something extra — truthfully might've just needed to have her trim tuned up, but I think the real key was Sifu popping out the SAD1024 and re-inserting it — love always involves generating a little friction.

We'd already tried tuning it before the Reticon was pulled, but once the Reticon was re-inserted dialling it in was easier than tuning a guitar.


PS: I just noticed the Boogie Preamp (left of pic) that Sifu's friend had just picked up. That, and the MKI, but I don't know what the other two Boogies were that he got. I keep missing out on the deals — there was a shop that closed down and I really could've used the caps they were selling for my upcoming amp projects. Ahh well, the Mistress "Ain't Misbehavin'" anymore so I'm still counting my lucky stars.