This is a quick video I put together of a moog Satellite I am restoring for a friend. It was built in 1973. Neat little synth although it only has one voltage controlled oscillator.
Thank you and sorry for the late response. I have never outsourced these sliders because I have only worked on this one Satellite which had all good sliders. I have built conversion boards for modern sliders in ARP synths and I am sure the same could be done with this guy. The circuit boards mount to the underside panel of these instruments and I have found that the harness likes to break where it bends when the bottom panel is removed. continued..........
Congratulations on getting a moog. There are a few things that could be wrong. you may have a stuck contact on one of the keys, I have never seen this happen but if the contact managed to get under the buss bar, it will do this. Another problem could be in the wiring harness, I have seen lots of wiring issues with these synths mainly because of the age. What you can do is lay the synth upside down and remove the bottom panel and see if all the key contacts look the same................
I always thought those were cute. I think there was a Minitmoog. Your comment about the Chicago Music company may explain why there were two similar products with Moog badges. Sorry, the comparisons weren't fair. Both were fed through reverb and the poly sound isn't straight VCO. But I must say that in this case the sound is quite round. I saw a flute on your iS4.
The #1 problem is dust in the reed switches on the front, these get dirty and cause poor connections which leads to poor tuning, and none working controls. You can access these switches by laying the unit upside down and removing the bottom panel, I remember that the front interface can be removed but can't remember how it is held in place...I do believe it was held in with nuts and lock washers though. I hope this helps you and sorry I do not have a direct answer. Take care, Jareth
@Desmaad Haha, you would have an expensive mess of knobs. All the resistor matrix does is supply CV's for the interface. There are a few other things that take place in it, but nothing worth tearing down the resistor matrix for. You can already tweak this little synth enough without mods. It would be easier and cheaper just to build a synth than mod this thing. there are some rare IC's in this unit that I would not want to think about messing up.
@samealalan I did see that mod, but since this was a synth I was restoring for a friend, I did not add it on to this one. I did ask him if he would like the MIDI mod and he decided to wait for that.
@kennykeyboard They are neat little synths. Yeah, I did have reverb on them didn't I. Well, I will have to do another comparison. The moog LP is a lot phatter and more agressive. What poly sound are you refering to? That is my mothers flute, haha. I have tried to play it but I don't sound too good. Take care, Jareth
Hi Jareth, I just got one of these Satellites. Huge dose of nostalgia for me. It's been gone over pretty well by a tech before I got it but some of the sliders are stiff. Is there a way to lubricate them or should I just work them back and forth a bunch? Thanks.
I just got a MOOG Satellite which was stored in a hard case and cosmetically looks great. worked at his house and it seemed to work just fine. I just plugged it in my house and it makes a constant drone sound which can be manipulated via the tabs or the sliders, but none of the actual keys make any sound... the tuner knob on the back turns and I can make an awesome french police car sound, but that is it. It seems like it is stuck in tuner mode, if there is such a mode. Any thoughts?
Hey there, I just bought one that is really sick as well. How do I go about fixing it up? I have dirty contacts like in your video as well as the modulation section doesn't work. The sliders are all in rough shape, staticky and draggy. I am sure there are a host of other things but let me know what the best approach is. Thanks.
hey! did you see the mod page for adding cv in and out to this? i wanted to do it but i haven't built any circuits since i crashed and burned on some paia modules. it's a simple opamp inverter with gain, but I'm not sure what to do to make it unfortunately.
Hello Jareth thanks to your instruction I could clean the keyboard. All keys work now perfectly, however, the proble is what ever key I press, it is exactly the same note, an "A". Do you have any idea, what could cause this problem? Sorry to bother you once again and thank you for a reply. Sincerely Hagen
Your welcome Hagen, happy I was able to help you. It sounds like you may have a contact that is stuck for one of the, "A" notes but if all looks good at the keyboard you may have some of the following issues. These little synths suffer from issue with wiring harness breaks so I would check the CV line coming from the keyboard into the PCB itself to make sure the signal is getting to the circuits. other issues could be a bad opamp or possibly a bad gating transistor for the CV sample and hold circuit. Hope this helps, Jareth
Good evening, I need your help. I have an old moog satellite that I want to restore. Under the keys there is a lot of dust that I want to clean. How can I remove the keys for that purpose? I think I have to remove the metal rod first going through the endes of the keys first. Is this a difficult operation? You advice is highly appreciated. Regards Hagen from Germany
Hello Hagen, You are correct, these use a J-wire contact and the actuator of the keys themselves are the rods that come down..the best way to remove these little keepers that hold the contact is by taking a pair of pliers and while holding up on the key....pull on the keeper, it should slip off the key rod actuator and allow the key to no longer be connected. The contact bar should keep the keepers on the contacts so no need to remove each one of those. To remove the keys, it is best to flip the keyboard upside down on something soft and use a fair of small pliers to remove the key tensioner spring from the back side of the keys. (Note: do make sure to separate the springs associated with the black keys and white keys, they have different tensions and will effect the action if switched) Once the springs are removed, gently place the keyboard upright and lift at the back of the keys and pull forward, they should come off the key bed without any trouble. Reverse procedure for reassembly. Hope this helps you out. Sincerely, Jareth
@samealalan I did see that mod, but since this was a synth I was restoring for a friend, I did not add it on to this one. I did ask him if he would like the MIDI mod and he decided to wait on that.
