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Korg has a drinking problem

Posted: Tue Aug 21, 2018 2:51 pm
by Ankhanu
Last gig, a glass of cranberry&Fireball fell off a shelf. I thought it had just hit the floor, coating my cables, and splashing my pedals, but, last couple songs, where I play my Minilogue, I discovered wet bass keys... apparently it took a bit of a drink.
First patch where I just drone a D for a bit, it sounded fine. Second patch, where it is used fairly extensively through the song, it was pretty much just punching out the filter attack and a muddy bassy tone.
I wiped it down when I got home, and dried it out, and left it alone for a week or so before next practice. Again, it seemed fine initially, but, buy the time it was good and warm, and attempting the song again, the tone was way off, strong filter attack, followed by an indistinct bass wub. ... I’m going to have to open this thing up and clean the internals.

I haven’t really found any good maintenance notes for the Minilogue online, and I’m not experienced pulling apart synths - any of you have recommendations for cleaning booze out of an analogue synth?

Posted: Sun Aug 26, 2018 5:03 pm
by stewart
i'd be tempted to take it to a synth tech in case i did more damage to it, but i'm a fraidy cat.

Posted: Wed Aug 29, 2018 9:30 pm
by Ankhanu
Me too... I haven’t done anything yet.
Unfortunately asking around hasn’t revealed any synth tech in my area.

Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2018 3:12 pm
by aen
Many years ago I had a synth get rained on super bad. I was advised to open it up as much as possible and take a hair dryer to the guts. It worked quite well!

Now, your situation is a bit... stickier. In that the sugars and whatnot in the drink are making your synth guts sticky. If you're going at it on your own, I would open it up as much as possible, while keeping the screws, knobs, bits, and bobs organized for reassembly. Find the sticky stuck and clean that off with alcohol. Alcohol evaporates in like no time, so if you can get the shmutz off the guts you might be OK.
Unfortunately the unintended circuit bending you've experienced may have damaged the Korg's circuits already.

Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2018 7:07 am
by lorez
Have you contacted korg to ask their advice?

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 1:17 am
by Ankhanu
I opened it up on Monday; a fairly easy process.
Taking a look at the board beneath the keys, the bottom case, the upper case below the knobs, and the boards below that, I saw no evidence any of the drink got below the key surfaces... I put it back together, and have had two band practices since. Having done essentially nothing to the system, it has oddly worked fine in both practices. I’m going to go ahead and gig it twice this weekend.

Here’s hoping.

Posted: Fri Sep 14, 2018 7:25 am
by Bacchus
Pour coffee on it?