RME Fireface 800 Repair

Yesterday evening is was working with Remy Stroomer in my studio on our upcoming collaboration album. When we done and still talking about all kinds of stuff suddenly a loud bang occurred in the studio, followed by another one and it smelled very burned. So something broke down, but I could see right away what. Then suddenly I saw that all the lights on my RME Fireface 800 started flickering and it went dark. I immediately cut the power from it and unscrewed it from the rack. It was very hot to start with, which wasn't a good sign. When we opened it up. The first thing I noticed was an capacitor that seem to have exploded.

It was already late so I called it a night and started looking further this morning. Since we heard two bangs I suspected there must have been another capacitor that exploded. The first thing to look at was the power supply. And I found it quickly. I expect that the first capacitor that blew was in the 48 Volt circuit of the microphone input I used last week, since that input was already acting funny. Probably after that one blew it also took one out on the power supply that feeds the 48 Volt to the input. And my suspicions were correct.

After this I de-soldered these two broken capacitor and some other ones that looked suspicious and drove to the local electronics store. Unfortunately they didn't have two of the capacitors that I wanted to replace as a precaution, but they did have the rest and most important the replacements for the exploded ones. After carefully screwing the main board and power supply back in place I first put power on the power supply without the main board attached to it. I could measure some stable voltages on the connector so I reapplied them and everything seemed to work based on the led sequence that I'm used to when it powers on.

I left it running on the bench for a while and nothing got abnormally hot or anything so I decided to put it back in place. And guess what :) It worked perfectly again. It is always nice when you can repair something like this yourself. Feels very satisfying and of course saves an expensive repair from RME. If they would actually repair it in the first place. My experiences with them are not that good actually in that sense. OK I guess I can take a cup of coffee now to reward myself :) Back to music!

TC 4000 Reverb and RME ADI-8

Recently I added two new devices to my studio. My friend Hans found a very cheap deal on two TC 4000 Reverbs, so we both bought one. I didn't use it until now, but I can tell you it is very good. I missed the VSS3 and NonLin2 algorithms since I sold my PowerCore X8, but they are back :) And more! This reverb really sounds top notch. I also bought a very cheap RME ADI-8 AD/DA converter that was traded in at one of the music shops I come a lot called Live Music in The Netherlands. Both of them are now in the spot where my Eventide H8000 was before. This one is now on it's way to the USA for repair. When it gets back I'll have to find another spot for these two, but they are here to stay for sure :)

RME HDSP MADI broken again :(

And again it looks like one of my RME HDSP MADI cards is broken :( This is already the third time. I really like the way these cards work when they do but this is the third time I have one going out of order. The last time by the way I credited RME for their support and lending me a spare card. Unfortunately they screwed up really bad after that. They wanted to have the load card back when I was in the middle of the production of a new album, so I said 'not now'. But they wanted it back. Then I asked if I could buy the card from them for spare. At first they didn't want to do that at all and then finally they decided to sell it but for the FULL price of a new card. Being under pressure I agreed. Then I asked if I have 2 years warranty like normally and at first they didn't want to give warranty at ALL!! Of course I didn't agree to this and finally it looked like it was settled. Well UNTIL this card broke down as well. They didn't want to repair it at all and they let me supplier Live Music buy a new card for me eventually. REALLY BIG FAIL if you ask me. And it took a whole YEAR of E-mails back and forth to get my card. Live Music will probably never sell any RME product ever and I can understand that very well. Well I still have this card now as spare so I'll try to replace the broken card next week, because I'm working on another project with a deadline right now. But if you are considering to buy something from RME I would really think TWICE!!