EML 101 fixed!

Thanks to Mike Bucki my EML 101 is back and it sounds great.

It still looks fuckin' ghetto but there isn't too much that I can do about that besides buying a nice handle for it. Sorry Mike, I can't be rockin' the rope.

Minimalist

Admittedly there is more to my home studio then what meets the eye but still this is a very simple feeling work set up and I hope that it will do for my what the all white did for John and Yoko.

The tags lets you know what's not visible.

it's like dominos

Sometimes things just go bad one after another.
Usually it happens when you are tired and repairing something with stiff wiring.

I was on the road to fixing up my EML 101. I had sought out replacement knobs and actually found 10 that a nice guy was willing to sell me at a fair price. The main reason for the need for spare knobs was that the range knob for OSC 2 was no longer working and the actual knob was refusing to come off peacefully.

I opened up the unit, braced the range knob and successfully removed the old knob, replacing it with the new one. Mission accomplished. But wait, just what I feared, two wires had come loose.

Although getting them back in place would have probably been easy with a couple of alligator probes the power died. Having no idea as to what type of fuse is in the unit I tried to unscrew the board with the transformer. Sadly one red wire came loose and I decided to give up.

Between not knowing where that red wire goes or what type of fuse is in there I feel that just giving up is about the best thing I can do right now for this instrument.

The picture below shows the yellow and green wires that came loose. One went to the range, although I'm not sure which lug, the other went to tuning.



Should anyone know the fuse type, have a detailed photo of the board with the transformer or happen to be damn sure about these two loose wires please let me know. In the mean time I will be repeating the words "I suck" over and over again, while I debate sending it to a tech or finding another one and using this for parts..

EML 101

Every good instrument has it's own personality. The EML 101 has definitely got a special thing to it. Mine was in the Caribbean at one point and later a closet in the US. it's not a perfect example and "needs some work" like the range knob on OSC 2 but as it is I'm tempted to leave most of it the was it is.

I remember reading about how Brian Eno would mark his VCS3 to make sure certain things were not repaired because the flaws appealed to him.



The EML is not a pretty looking instrument, nor does it have as much hipster cashe as other semi modulars like the ARP 2600 but what is does have is an extra oscillator and enough routing choices to make patching less immediately important in searching for interesting sounds.

Here's a little clip of it making some noises