From the Bench

No fault notes, just the unit. An intermittent mains cable fault on a 1980s TC Electronic SCF — one of the most copied effect circuits ever made, still all-original inside.

In for a clean-up. Left with a loud mains hum, scratchy pots, and a pulsing on both channels — diagnosed and resolved, the culprit a dry joint hiding on the underside of the board.

RCA socket failures, filter cap degradation, and a tremolo hiss — what started as a reverb job became a full service.

A £4 LM386 kit, a scrap enclosure, and an afternoon. The bench amp that exists so the real amp doesn't have to.

Sounding thin and weak — a saturated Q1 transistor, still passing a bench diode test, tracked down through DC bias voltage measurement and confirmed by substitution.

An intermittent Speakon input on a well-used bass cabinet — worn contacts confirmed, discontinued green Neutrik replaced with the current black NL4.

A completely dead ESQ-1 — no display, no sound. Heat damage from a failing transistor had destroyed solder joints on the display board above it. Display restored, audio recovered.

A dead power circuit, two failed surface-mount ICs. Removed under magnification, pads cleaned, fresh components reflowed. A piece of Moog history back in action.

A seized Speed pot and scratchy controls on a boutique Korean chorus — opened to find a resin-potted circuit. Some controls cleaned and restored; the Speed pot remains inoperative.

Someone stomped the Hot Tubes indicator LED clean off the board. PCB intact, pads cleaned up, matched LED soldered back in — both channels confirmed working.

A vicious crackle every time the gain knob moved. Contact cleaner wasn't going to cut it — the pot was too far gone. Correct replacement sourced and fitted, clean sweep restored.

A loose screw shorted the supply rail, a BD677 transistor failed open, and 50V ran into a board designed for 30V — taking out four TL074 op-amps in the process.

A power button that was sticking and a CD drive that had stopped reading discs — two separate faults with a common cause: age and lack of movement. No parts required.