The only real precaution to take when opening the synth is to prevent static buildup. ESD flooring or an anti-static wrist-strap are the most conventional means.
Make sure the Ext/Noise switch is set to Ext and the mixer knob is turned up, and VCA Hold/EG switch is set to hold while you adjust levels.

Unless you have other modular or semi-modular gear, I'd go for input expander since the mod-matrix and mod-buses takes care of most routing choices with patch-memory to boot. The correct answer however, is to get both.

Q42 on schematic 6 (top center) is the power transistor. I think D40 is the diode.

Did you try batteries first just to be sure? There is a protective diode for inverse current, but the more common failure is the main power transistor overheating, usually due to using an unregulated and/or too high voltage supply, as you suggested. It's a very common part, and shouldn't cost much t...

My CS-15. I did the Don Solaris serial mod and like the sounds I'm getting with a pair of 2 pole filters in series, plus feedback from the headphone out. Reminds me of the Minikorg 700s without the FM, but a much wider range of tones.

good points, but I politely disagree. I'm most likely wrong, as I said. I stopped watching videos of synths about the time I actually got to play some. if more of them find the time to make videos, we'll obviously have more good ones. I could go into a biased rant about talented people actually usi...

frankly, I don't understand the idea of sitting around and ranting about how much the web sucks rather than just acting on improving it. I could be wrong on this(I often am), but it seems the exposure is sufficiently ubiquitous enough now that it's too late, unless people start taking down shitty v...

I still stand by my page 1 comments. If it encourages gearlust and the item is no longer being made, it's part of the problem of exponentially increasing demand and is a pretentious display, entertaining or not. If you already own the item and need a demo of what it's capable of however, then a good...

And speaking of maintenance, a major contributing factor in selling my JP8 a while back was the maintenance issues I was starting to face with it. That and the fact that it was just sitting in a corner gathering dust. Seemed like I could put that money to good use. I sold it to the band Cyborg, from...

The question is, what am I losing functionally buying Juno60 instead of JP8?... 2 more voices Discrete VCO's which are never quite perfectly in tune Triangle VCO waveform Any 2 VCO per voice functionality, such as Detuning and Range, Oscillator Sync and Crossmod(including low freq. mode modulation ...

I played with Z's MF-108M at the Dallas Synth Meet on October 23rd. Great sound, very flexible, and sample&hold of the delay time is cooler than I thought it would be.

My very terse and incomplete Mono/Poly demo: http://67.18.24.4/~murmurbe/music/demos/zibbybone-synths/Mono~Poly.mp3 I thought the filter and effects were great, but the oscillators sounded a bit too stiff, and the tone is a bit too mid-rangey with the cutoff open, for my taste. You can definitely bl...

I guess the Nano 1 would be one example. Most digital synths are just software written for a DSP with customized non-volatile memory interfaces, and have been for well over a decade now.

I seem to recall Oddity's biggest problem was aisling in the upper register, typical of earlier VA.

No flames here. I sold my JP8 after owning it for less than 3 years. No doubt it sounds gorgeous, especially strings. Just lots of sweet spots and punch. But it was too large for the studio and was having maintenance issues, and it being a performance synth, was not really right for a programmer and...