ECHOPLEX PROBLEMS

[graham miller <grahammiller@sympatico.ca>]

hi there

i'm new to this list and i was hoping to get some help on some
malfunctions echoplex pedals of mine.  maybe somebody here has had the
same issues?

i tried to send this message to shane radtke of gibson, but the e-mail
address no longer exists!

anyway, here's the problem:

i have two echoplex digital pro units, both with foot control panels
which i bought a couple years ago, literally straight from the trace
elliot factory outside london.  they were impossible to find here in
toronto and i was in london on vacation, so i went straight to the
factory and bought them right there and brought them back with me.

i'm running LOOP 3 - 5.0. they are the older beige units.

anyway, they've been totally solid up until recently - the foot
controller has become very unpredictable. when you hold down the record
button, it still continues to record, without stopping, as it should.
sometimes the record button doesn't work at all.  other times it begins
recording and stops suddenly, locked into an extremely short loop of
several milliseconds. if you try to undo that by re-recording a new loop

over to erase the previous microloop, the same thing happens again...
the main unit seems to be fine, but as a guitar player i rely on those
foot controllers. i've tried opening them up and dusting all the
components off with dust-off aerosol spray, but the same results still
happen.

they are temperamental. sometimes it works perfectly, other days it's
completely screwed up and very frustrating.  have you heard of anything
like this happening before? both my units are doing this, and they
started acting up around the same time so it can't be a coincidence... i

should very much like to have this problem fixed as i use them almost
everyday. also, they have never left my studio, no live gigs - they've
never been bumped or dropped or anything...  i'm wondering if it might
have to do with static build up from my carpet and using the foot pedal
with socks on? static discharge maybe fried it? i dunno. like, i said
though, some days they are fine and work for hours and then suddenly, i
lose control and even turning the unit on and off, unplugging and
replugging in the foot panel seems to have no effect either. strange,
eh?

anyway, please let me know if there is anything i should know or can do
to repair this problem!

thanks

graham miller

loyal echoplexer

p.s. i have a ton of music i'd love to share with the list - i've been
doing looping for quite a while now and have hundreds of hours of stuff
from simple and beautiful to totally spaced out experiment works. you
can usually find me on the microsound list @ www.microsound.org