Repair Yamaha TX16W Vintage Sampler Reparatur Service

11. Oktober 2020

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Repair Yamaha TX16W Vintage Sampler

The Yamaha TX16W is a rack-mount sampler sound module made by Yamaha.

The TX16W has 12-bit sound with up to 50 kHz mono and 33 kHz stereo sampling. Its filter is digital, allowing 17 different types, with one filter/type per voice. On the rear along with a regular stereo output, there are 8 individual outputs. Samples are stored on 720kB 3.5" floppy disks. It shipped with 1.5MB of RAM but is expandable up to 6MB. The TX16W uses a Motorola 68000 processor.

The operating system is loaded from disk. Unsatisfied with the original Yamaha operating system, NuEdge Development created the Typhoon 2000 OS for the TX16W, offering a different user interface, faster load time, less RAM usage, and more features, such as new filters.

A free software emulation "Cyclone" was released in 2013 by Sonic Charge (developed by the people behind the original Typhoon OS).

It was given to me for free. Condition "I don´t know if it still works". The mains cable was cut, so I carefully used my variac and dimbulb to see if it was shorted or smoked somewhere. But it worked. I took precaution and checked all electrolytics in the SMPS. I did not recap, the measured and looked fine and worked. I did some cosmetic things to this beauty and will test it over the next weeks.

There are lethal voltage exposed in electronic devices. Unless you know what you are doing, don’t try this. If you following along, you doing so at your own risk.

I’m documenting repairs for my reference and yours. I do synth restorations and repair with a specialty in vintage synthesizers, drum computer and other vintage gear, based in Düsseldorf, GER. Get in touch about your synth situation!

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