Sony DPS V77 Battery Replacement

The last time I wanted to use my Sony DPS V77 it didn't work any more. I though it was broken and that made my quite sad since it is a very nice vintage digital effects processor. I was already looking for a new on on E-bay and saw that prices have risen on these machines. So I thought maybe I can repair it. Then I switched it on and off a couple of times and noticed that sometimes it actually did start up, but the display was looking funny. So first I thought it was some kind of memory problem.

Today I had to take it out of the rack anyway, since I started renovating the studio today, so I downloaded the service manual and thought I could maybe find the problem. And one of the options it gave is look at the battery Voltage. So that was the first thing I did and guess what? It was way too low. So if you have one of these and it is acting funny. Check that first! It doesn't give you any warning or anything.

Replacing is it quite simple. The battery is a standard CR2032 and I even had a couple in stock. It is fitted in a nice fixture so you don't even have to do any soldering. After replacing it I measured again and now it was fine. I powered the machine up and directly it gave a correct init procedure again. I changed the preset, switched it off and on again and it came back with the same preset. Problem solved :)

If you ever come across one of these machines on E-bay or whatever do give it a serious consideration. They sound really good for the money. Lots of producers use them as a secret weapon. If you want to hook it up digitally you do need a special break out cable, but you can still buy those on E-bay too once in a while. OK now I'm going to put it back in it's new spot. I'll show you where soon.

Analog SFX Processor Racks

Since I don't have any big music projects at the moment (just some small stuff) I decided it was time to do some changes to the studio that I had planned for a long time. The first thing I did was making a lot of balanced jack-jack cables because I wanted to hook up the analog SFX processors to the new Anatek SMP-16 I got a while ago from Ron. This is a digitally controlled analog audio and midi patch-bay. I like it a lot, but unfortunately they are not made any more, so they are hard to come by.

I removed the Moog Voyager RME from this rack because it wasn't in a convenient spot any way in that rack. That gave me the opportunity to put the Yamaha SD-5000 delay in there and the Sony's that I got and repaired earlier. The three Rolands are paired together and the Sony's two by two. The patch-bay has another 4 connections on the front (1 stereo input and output) that enables me to hook up another SFX processor when I want. A pedal for example or whatever. From the patch bay two stereo inputs and outputs go to an AD/DA converter in the rack next to it. So I can use two separate SFX chains in this rack. I can chain them together as well though. For example use all 4 Sony's in one chain by connecting the outputs of the first chain to the input of the second chain on the patch-bay.

In this picture you can see the rack next to it as well. This one also has an Anatek SMP-16 with the same construction. Also two stereo inputs and outputs go to the AD/DA converter. I'm not entirely done with this project yet since I ran out of stereo jacks. I ordered some more but they won't arrived until Thursday the earliest. So I decided to build everything in for now since I'm having a visitor over tomorrow. After that I'll have to remove everything again from the racks and do the rest of the wiring. It will be nice to be able to use these SFX processors next to the digital ones that I use primarily. At the moment I'm using a Behringer AD80000 as the AD/DA converter. I plan to replace it in the future by an RME ADI-8 or an Apogee converter, but for now the Behringer will do fine. They are quite OK in my opinion actually. I did play around a bit yesterday after I was done with the Sony DPS-D7 and Yamaha D-5000 delays. And I can tell you they are both very good :) I'm looking forward to using them in my productions. I have used a lot of external reverbs already, but never external delays actually. The only thing I need to get working now is getting them synchronized with the Midi Clock of my Sonar sequencer software.

Serious Metal Job on Sony DPS Series

Recently I bought this very nice set of Sony DPS Effect Processors. I found them all in one batch. The Sony DPS-D7 is a very nice delay, the DPS-R7 a very good reverb, the DPS-M7 is a modulator and the DPS-F7 is a Filter unit that also does EQ, compression and limiting. If you see them in this picture they look quite OK, but they didn't arrive in this state unfortunately. I think the courier that transported them ran over them with a truck or dropped them from a flat or something.

Well this was the state they arrived in. You can probably imagine how I felt when I took them out of the box. The stuff was packed in bubble plastic, so normally you would suspect it should withstand some handling. But this must have been hit with a tremendous amount of force by a blunt object. The front panels are made of aluminum so I can imagine that they bend easily, but behind the rack ears is some steel reinforcement. And they were bent as well. The first thing I did is take them off. I had to apply a lot of force to bend them to 90 degrees again.

After that I completely took them apart so that I could remove the front panels. Then with a soft hammer I worked on the aluminum to bend it straight again. That worked out quite OK. The only thing you see now it that the paint is gone is some places. But in this pictures up close with flash it looks way worse that you would normally see. But I'm going to try to use some black paint to fill up the spots. But after reassembling and checking everything on the inside was in one piece I focused first on another thing. Testing! I was very curious if everything still worked. And you won't believe it no problems at all :) Sony build these things like a tank I guess. After this I contacted the E-bay seller and showed him the pictures. He was not happy, well neither am I. He is trying to get the damage paid by the courier. We'll see what happens. Thanks mr. Courier. Oh Parcel Force is the name ;) Don't use them!