Re: Technics SX-EA5 Review & Description
The EA5 and I'm sure other Technics, seemed to be designed in a modular fashion. Swapping boards out to repair most things seems to be the way they had envisioned after market service. Unfortunately, there are almost zero parts available for Technics these days, so that idea is working against fixing one, short of having a spare for parts.</p>
I've been inside mine a few times since I bought it for varying reasons, and I have the service manual. Based on the manual, and my observations, I wouldn't want to try and fix one of the boards. And I used to do board level repair in my younger days. Getting to the innards is quite easy, and they laid out the boards and such quite well. The first time I opened mine, I was amazed at the simplicity of the layout.</p>
Based on the little the current owner has given you to go on, if it is playing but humming along as it is being played, it could be something simple and repairable. Also, there are at least 2 of the boards that have fuses on them, one is the power input and of course if that is blown, nothing would be happening. The other one I saw is on what I believe was a power supply board, but I didn't look around enough to see what it was protecting.</p>
OK, I went and looked around the service manual. There are many fuses in it, I counted at least 5. And they also made use of a flock of fusible resistors in many places.</p>
Something to consider is that you can get the organ and take it apart so that moving it isn't as big an issue as it is with some of the others. It breaks down upper console and lower w/speakers and pedals. I put mine in my Pontiac Vibe (Toyota Matrix) when I picked it up. So in the worst case, if you couldn't fix it, taking it to the dump or maybe giving away the console for shipping costs might be options not hard to accomplish. Frankly, if you were closer to me, I would be begging for a chance to pick it up for me as a parts bin!</p>
If you decide to get it, email me offlist. I might just happen to have the service manual in PDF...</p>
If you could get it working, it is an amazing organ for practically any smaller venue. Church, service club, home.... Whatever.</p>
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Re: Technics SX-EA5 Review & Description
Somehow, I have aquired a local reputation forfixing and donating (to senior centers, churches,etc) organs to those wanting one. Suddenly it is raining organs around here with people calling to donate them.Most do not work of course, but usually it is a simple fix. I live in eastern NC and there is NO market here for organs. </P>
However, someone just called and wants me to pick upa non working Technics SX-EA5. I am not at all familiar with that instrument and suspect that it is one of those computer controlled instruments that almost nobody ever fixes. (I googled and the nearest service center is ">3000 miles". The owner says that "it hums" but that is all he knows about it since it was a gift to him. </P>
I am looking for any and all advice re this instrument. It is only about 45 minutes away but I am running out of room to store these things until I fix or dispose of them. Since July: Wurlitzer 4030, Lowrey G200, Silvertone, Electone E10R, Conn 552, Wurlitzer 4373 and a Hammond L143. I seem unable to say NO to these "gifts" (but I am having fun in my "retirement"). My organ is a Conn 580 that needs a bit of tweaking on the tibia sustain, but alas - no time. </P>
Royal</P>
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Re: Technics SX-EA5 Review & Description
In my initial review, I talked a little about the presets. I had indicated that I didn't understand the difference between 'Music Style Select' and 'One Touch Play'. Well the difference between the two is that Music Style Select lets you pick from all the available presets for a particular rhythm/acc pattern, One Touch Play only allows picking one of the Rhythm/Acc patterns. </p>
Basically Music Style Select allows for 3 different setting per rhythm/acc pattern.</p>
Overall, by using Music Style Select, One Touch Organ and One Touch Registration, you have 300 possible presets available. And all of them set not only voicing but all parameters, like tempo, rhythm pattern, etc. </p>
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Re: Technics SX-EA5 Review & Description
A couple of things I didn't include in that original review for those so interested.</p>
Software disks for the Technics EA3, EA5, FA1, F100 and GA3, and probably others, are readily available. They range from registrations and patterns disks, to book/disk combos that include the registrations and music to go along with it. Also, most midi type disks will work to a great extent.</p>
One of the beauties of these models is that software for the GA3 and other more powerful machines, will work just fine on the EA series also. It seems that most, if not all, the extra voicing in those machines is there in the EA series, but just not selectable with the controls that are there. With the software disks, these become available in varying ways. For instance, if they used all 16 preset piston panel settings, then the EA series with only 8 settings wouldn't be able to get to those extra ones. But if you use the sequencer, you can have them available if you kill the melody in the sequencer and play along with it.</p>
Also those extra sounds are oft times put into the user memories and are then available for your use.</p>
Also, for those that like the automatics, but don't always like the solid tones in the lower keyboard when using them, you can select 'organ' in the Lower Orchestral Conducter, and then turn off all the organ selections. That way you get the drums and such, and the voiced rhythms, but not the solid tones.</p>
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Technics SX-EA5 Review & Description
<p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 36.0px Times New Roman">TECHNICS EA5</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">By</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; text-align: center; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Lloyd Parsons</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman; min-height: 15.0px">
</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Much of what I'll say about the operation and selection on this organ applies equally to many other of the Technics organs, so those that are contemplating a Technics can get a basic feel for what to expect. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Basic Specs : </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">44 Keys on upper and lower keyboards </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">13 pedals </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">32 note polyphony on each keyboard for 'sounds' plus 32 notes for 'organ'. I'll try to explain the difference between sounds and organ as I go along. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">100 sounds in 10 groups </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">6 Organ types (emulations) with 27 presets for organ within those types </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">100 Rhythms </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">41 Pedal tones </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Digital Reverb - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Digital Effect - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sustain - adjustable </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Tempo and Transpose </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Volume controls - overall organ, Balance for the rhythms and Bass, also each sound group has an individual volume control. Quite extensive, with reasonable defaults for all. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Stereo output, both to internal speakers and external connections for an amp. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Stereo inputs </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">midi in/out/through </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">That is basically the specs, but there is so much more to it than what the specs as I've written here, or even what the actual spec sheet looks like. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Technics approach to sound is a bit different from what I've seen before. They break down the sounds into two broad groups -- Organ and Sounds. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ - This is basically what older organs had. Flutes and other basic instruments, some percussion and modifiers. The Technics emulates other organs in this respect. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The flutes can either be tabbed flutes or drawbars, depending on which Organ Type you select. Your choices are in 3 groups. Electronic Tabs, Drawbars and Pipe Organ. Under these are other settings that can be changed at will or just slightly modified, depending on which way you approach it. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The buttons for the Flutes either act as an On/Off tab or as a Drawbar depending on which organ type you select. With Drawbar organ settings, when you use the buttons, the LCD panel shows a depiction of the drawbars and shows the movement. The settings are from 0-8, just like a Hammond drawbar. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First lets talk about Presets. The Technics EA5 has presets all over the place. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First you have the 8 Piston Presets on the panel between the upper and lower keyboard. They have a default load, and you can change that at will quite easily. Not only that, you can tell the organ which way you want to save your presets. Either Basic, which is just the sounds, or Expanded, which also save accompaniments, intros, breaks and endings. You can also program the 'Glide' switch to step through the piston presets or just go to a particular preset. Quite powerful. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">With this and some work on your part, you could set preset 1 to be the intro to the song with all the stuff you want there, then have #2 be the body of the song and #3 be the ending or whatever. Each of those could have as many things set in it as you want in the way of voicings, rhythms, tremolo or vibrato, reverb and a few other things. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Or if you were playing a medley of tunes, you could program each button for each tune. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Upper/Lower Organ Preset : This is where the emulation desired is set up. Remember I said there were 3 groups, tabs, drawbars and pipe. Well, each group has defined presets in them also. In Tabs and Drawbars, there are 12 settings and in Pipe, there is 8 settings. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">But wait, there's more! One of the things you can do with these presets is copy them to 'manual' memory. Once there, you can change things to your hearts content, then either play them or save them in one of the piston presets if you so choose. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Also when you are using the Pipe organ settings, the percussion tabs for Flutes become Chiff controls. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Other Presets -- although Technics doesn't call them that. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Touch Organ - this is a preset button that is used in conjunction with the LCD panel to set up various pre-programmed presets in the Organ sound groups. There are 5 groups inside this preset, each group has 16 selections for a total of 80 organ presets. This group of presets uses other sounds too, but the emphasis is on what is considered an Organ Sound. These selection can be copied to the Piston Presets. If you want the 1st 8 into the PP, there is a selection to do that, for the other 8, you have to manually set each one in.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Some examples are : </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Drawbars : Elegant Sound, Delicate Bars, Vintage Organ, Grand "H" Sound and many others. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Theater Electric : Organ Vibra Harp, Contemporary Theater (3 of these), Sizzling Reeds and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">European : Organ Pops 1&2, Pop Jazz 1&2, German Click 1&2, and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Rock : Background set, Hot Tubes, Space Organ, Air Vox, Telstar and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Classical : Soft Basic Pipes, Traditional Diapason, Standard Hymn, Tremulant Pipes and others </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Touch Registration : This is another preset that is used in conjunction with the LCD panel. This is designed for getting sounds that are not necessarily associated with older organs, although organ sounds are used as well. This also has the copy to Preset Pistons the same as the One Touch Organ.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">It has 6 selections with 16 presets in each. One of the ones I like the best is the Big Band and its descriptors. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">The Count's Solo, Lionel's Band, Miller Mood, Woody's Solo, the Duke's Way are just a few. When you select these, they really do remind you of the style and sound of those artists. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Music Style Select : This is the last of this group of presets, and it is very different. In the others, only the sounds were changing, with this one the rhythms and accompaniments come into play. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">This is 'One Button Play' but more buttons and a whole lot more selections than I normally expect. It is used in one of two ways. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">First, you can select a rhythm pattern and then push and hold the button and it will set up the organ to give a preselected setup for that pattern. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Second, you can press the Music Style Select button and then pick the rhythm and it will do the same thing. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">At this point, I don't know if doing it either way actually is different except in method. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">------------ --------- </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Ok, up to this point, we've been talking about the specs and the presets, including the rhythms and such. But what if you want something different? Well, the EA5 has you covered. And that is with the manual setups that you can do and save. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Technics approach to manual settings is quite intense, and at first glance, seems overly complicated. It isn't. But it does take some fiddling to get a feel for the flow of things when you are doing it this way. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Orchestral Conductor - This is a central control that is made up of 4 selections for each keyboard. The selections are Organ, Sound 1, Sound 2, and last, Solo. All of these can be used individually or in combination as you choose. What they do is dependent on what you've selected for voicings for each of these. The Orchestral Conductor makes it quite easy to add or subtract a sound or group of sounds quickly and easily. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ type - If you are going to use the organ stops, either as drawbars or tabs, you have to select which kind you want. OTOH, if you aren't going to use those, it doesn't matter at all. The setting you do here will play when you pick the Organ button in Orchestral Conductor. You can use either the Preset organ settings for the Type you have selected, or you can 'copy to manual' and then make changes that you want. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sound 1 & 2 : These are controls for other sounds that are available for your use. There is a group of these for both the upper and lower keyboards and they are independent. Whatever you set in these is what plays when you select Sound 1 or Sound 2 in the Orchestral Conductor. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">But you can also use them during play a bit differently also. For instance, you could have Sound 1 set to a Trumpet and want to change that to one of the reeds later in the song. You push Sound 1, Brass, select Trumpet in the LCD. Then push Reed, and select which Reed you want. Then select Brass again. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">If you have selected Sound 1 in the Orchestral Conductor, you'll get the Trumpet until you push the Reed button for Sound 1 in the voice selector. It will still have the Reed you picked selected. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Organ, Sound 1, and Sound 2 are poly voices so you can play multiple keys and all will play. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Solo : Solo is a single tone non-poly, only the highest note will play. Otherwise it is used the same as Sound 1 & 2. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Sound 1 & 2, Solo and Bass also have memory locations available for voicings you make or get from others. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Automatics </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Auto-Play Chording - There are a few selections in here. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">One Finger - this allows the root chord to be played with one finger. You can also play Minor, 7th and Minor 7th by adding either a pedal or two or a key below or two. For 7th you play either a big pedal or white key below the key of the chord, for minor, you play either a small pedal or black key below the key of the chord. For minor 7th, you play either a big and a small pedal, or a black and a white key below the key of the chord. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Fingered - If you want to play the chords yourself, or if you want more than what the 1 finger approach gives you, this is it. And as it implies, you finger the chord yourself. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Pianist - This is like fingered, except that you can play different pedals and more chord types (like 9th or 11th) if you want. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Memory - on/off, this either makes the chord hold when you let go of the keys or stop depending on setting. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">Techni-Chord : This is Technics name for the right hand chording that can be used. It has many settings that can be changed by you and has defaults depending on which other settings are in place. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">------------ --------- </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">OK, now you know how to do some things on this organ with the stuff built in to it. But what do you do if you want a voicing that isn't there? Well, Technics has you covered there too. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">With over 200 tones to select and combine into voicings of your choice, there seems to be no limit to what you could produce. Same for rhythms, you can set up a rhythm and accompaniment to your liking, either by creating it all new, or by modifying one of the existing ones. It is all there. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">It also has a complete 16-channel sequencer so you can record your music to the organ and later save it to floppy disk if you like. You could also save it as a midi and pass that to friends that have midi-friendly instruments, but not Technics. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">If you are looking for a powerful organ with a very good sound, many of the Technics would fit the bill. And since they are no longer produced nor supported by the manufacturer, the selling prices tend to be very low. </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">I'm sure I missed something and probably didn't describe some things exactly right, but I hope you enjoyed this description and review. If you are like me and want a more upscale organ, but can't afford a new one, the Technics SX-EA5 as well as the Technics SX-GA3, FA1, and F100 which are a bit more upscale from the EA5, might very well fit the bill.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">I would compare these to the Rolands of today, although the Rolands are more powerful and flexible. It is a shame that Technics bowed out of the market.</p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman"> </p><p style="margin: 5.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Times New Roman">
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