Category Archives: repair

Custom cable for powering a Korg Volca Beats from a standard pedalboard power supply

I looked around and was surprised nobody makes these, so I made them myself. You can buy this custom Korg Volca DC power cable from me here.

The Korg Volca range uses 9V power just like most fx pedals, but the input is centre positive (most pedals are centre negative) and the tip is a little yellow one used in lots of Japanese consumer equipment called the EIAJ-3. To connect your Volca to a standard pedalboard power supply, you need to buy an expensive adapter cable to get the right tip, and then another one to reverse the polarity.

OR! Just get one of these off me. I made a batch of ten to make it a bit more worthwhile. They are 60cm long, polarity reversing and work with all standard pedalboard power supplies. Drop me a message if you want a different length or a daisychain or something and I can probably quickly and easily knock you one up.

Fender bass micro-neck adjust

I have an old Fender Jazz Bass with a serial number from 1978. It needed a bit of setting up and I googled the ‘micro-neck adjust’ feature mentioned on the neck base plate and couldn’t find any information. So I thought I’d share what I found here so other people can find it more quickly.

The truss rod adjustment requires an 1/8″ allen key, the micro-neck adjustment is 3/32″. It was very stiff but some gentle leverage worked and I found that turning clockwise set the neck backwards and vice versa. By tweaking the neck angle first, then the truss rod and finally the bridge saddles I was able to get a much nicer action and overall playability. (Saddle height requires a small flat screwdriver, intonating requires a larger cross / philips head screwdriver).

Fender Jazz Bass headstock
Fender Jazz Bass black 1978

How to really quickly and easily repair a broken Line 6 DL4 pedal

I’ve had four or five people friends ask me to repair their Line 6 DL4 delay / loop pedal now. The problem is always quite simple – the pedal simply won’t turn on at all! The repair is just as simple. (I dread to think how many of these might have been thrown away when they could have been so easily saved.)

Basically you just need to open the pedal up and reseat the EPROM chip (carefully prise it out, then put it back in again). It takes three minutes and requires no soldering, as shown in this handy video I’ve made for you. This was 100% successful with all the ‘bricked’ DL4s I’ve received, but obviously I take no responsibility if you damage yours further!

Replacement components for repairing fx pedals

I repaired a few stompboxes for a friend and thought it worth writing down and linking to some of the replacement components, to hopefully speed up other people’s repairs as it took me hours to source the correct ones!

So if you need replacement faders / slide potentiometers for an Electro Harmonix Micro Synth then you want 100k Linear (B) with 30mm of travel. Small Bear sell them here and they also sell the little white toppers. I believe these pots are also the correct size for the POG 2. I actually used these Bourns ones from Mouser as I was buying a load of components from them – they are the exact same footprint as the Alpha ones that Small Bear sell but annoyingly the shaft is slightly shorter. It looks like this:

Slightly shorter Bourns slider pots from Mouser

The first and third sliders from the left are the slightly shorter Bourns ones…

Also if you need to replace the Q switch on your Jam Pedals Delay Llama Supreme or the Gate / Osc switch on your Death by Audio Supersonic Fuzz Gun then you want a miniature SPDT ON-ON toggle switch – this one from Rapid fit perfectly for me.

Need to replace the fuse in a T-Rex Fuel Tank Chameleon? You need a 250V t315 mA slow blow 20mm fuse. T-Rex sell them here, I got them cheaper from Maplin here. You need a 2mm or 5/64″ hex / allen key to open those up.

The DC sockets on Voodoo Labs power supplies are prone to breaking. I replaced some on a Pedal Power 2 Plus using 2.1mm right angled 2A sockets from RS Components and they fit perfectly.

The correct DC connector for Korg MS20-m and Volcas (and I believe most Korg products, as it’s a Japanese standard) is EIAJ type 3, centre positive.

That’s all for now but I’ll update this page as and when I do more repairs and find out anything useful worth sharing.