Repair Room

On one of my daily hunts for broken pedals, I stumbled upon this late 1966 Maestro FZ-1A enclosure that needed attention. The original pots were removed and replaced with jacks, and the original footswitch was replaced. I assume this was some sort of A/B switcher, but crudely made. Since I’ve never built or breadboarded an […]

I had always heard about how there was a problem with certain versions of the MXR Carbon Copy, so I’ll admit there was a bit of excitement when I was approached with this repair. Basically, the pedal would work in bypass mode but did not turn on or pass signal when engaged. The indicator light

The Problem The EHX Freeze is a fun little box used to sustain notes of a guitar. I’ve modified multitudes of Freeze pedals, probably every version there is. One particular design decision that EHX made during the life-cycle of the Freeze is to get rid of the metal lip around the power connector. So what

I received this MXR Analog Chorus on a trade, from which I received 3 other non-working pedals – a Vox V847 Wah Wah, an MXR Carbon Copy, and a Line 6 Constrictor. After plugging in the Analog Chorus I realized it was completely dead – zero output. The LED didn’t even light up when stomping

This post surrounds the repair of a T-Rex Engineering Hobo Drive afflicted with the dreaded “no signal” symptom. I cover the features of the Hobo Drive and some details about its’ circuit. The T-Rex Engineering Hobo Drive The T-Rex Engineering Hobo Drive is a dual overdrive/booster pedal that features a tight, grainy low-medium overdrive coupled

For this edition of Repair Room I take on an Ibanez PUE-5 Tube multi-effects unit. The effect worked, but the switching was completely unresponsive. No change in state, no recalling presets, nothing! Just a brain-dead ON LED staring me in the face. Join me on this Ibanez PUE-5 Tube Repair! Ibanez PUE-5 Tube Not Working Brain-dead. That’s

Today, we have a dead MXR Dyna Comp on the bench. The pedal turns on, as indicated by the LED. The output, however, is completely dead. Let’s figure it out! MXR Dyna Comp Not Working This week an MXR Dyna Comp compressor made it’s way to my bench. The client said that, after attempting to

This post of Repair Room concentrates on a faulty Scarlett Focusrite 2i4. This unit hails all the way from Portland, Oregon, where it decided to inherit an intermittent problem with the Monitor control. I don’t normally take in interfaces, but to expand my repertoire I figured I’d take on the challenge. Let’s get to it! The

The BOSS GEB-7 Bass Equalizer is a convenient, compact 7-Band graphic EQ solution for bass guitarists. In this post, I cover the troubleshooting process taken to repair a faulty GEB-7. The Faulty BOSS GEB-7 In this issue, we experienced intermittent cutting-out of the pedal’s output signal. For some time the pedal would play fine, however

The Ibanez TS9DX is an upgraded “deluxe” version of the Ibanez TS9 Tubescreamer. It houses the original TS9 circuit, along with 3 additional modifications. The modified versions can be selected via a selector switch. In this post, I cover how I repaired one of these TS9DX’s, and the process behind how I did it. Ibanez