Serge Repair

During my employ at an Ohio university, I was friends with the director of the school of music there. We were working on their recording studio when I saw this system sitting in the corner collecting dust. I was awestruck by this thing, knowing the tremendous value of the thing, and also gobsmacked that it wasn't a studio centerpiece. No one knew anything about it or if it worked so I asked to take it home to go through it and fix up what I could. The director was happy to oblige, even joking that I could maybe get $50 for it on eBay.

This was my first time trying to tackle any electronics repair beyond replacing my guitar's pickups, for which I always had a wiring diagram, so this was completely new territory. I was surprised to find most of the system worked totally normally. There were a few modules that were misbehaving, and the longer I had it the more unreliable it became, so I eventually found some online Serge communities and asked for help. Logan from Low-Gain Electronics suggested it may be the power supply after investigating and finding some ballooning caps (a [dangerous] sign necessitating replacement). He was hesitant to help me too much with the process as I knew very little about what I was doing. I eventually came across a MW forum thread on DIY power supplies and purchased a second-hand linear PSU commonly used in manufacturing. They can be had cheaply and was a fairly straightfoward replacement.

You can see here how I had it hooked up rather precariously, but it worked! There were still some problems with non-functioning modules, but I ran out of time to get those solved because my wife became pregnant and we decided to move closer to family, which meant I had to change jobs and give this bad boy back. 😥 I finally mounted the PSU in the rear boat before taking it back.

While I had it though, I was able to get lots of recordings and made an album with recordings from it. This is my favorite track from the album which resulted from a single-take improvisation with very minimal editing:

The quality of sound and operation exhibited by this system is something I have yet to experience again. After moving, I went on to build my own smaller Serge system and it pales in comparison to the sound and function of this one. I learned so much having this system and I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to get it working. Maybe someday I'll build my own replica that approaches the quality of this system.

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