BENCH NOTES

At the end of each year, we love to do some digging. We take a look at how many instruments we repaired and kept running. We try to find out the most common instruments we repaired. We also get nerdy and tally up (roughly) the amount of parts we used throughout the year.

Well, 2024 was definitely one for the books.

It was the highest volume of repairs in any year for the shop.

We also installed a shocking amount of tact switches.

We’ll run you through the exciting details - but before we do, we just want to say thank you to all of you who support our little endeavour! We wish you all a great holiday season and look forward to seeing you again in 2025.

BY THE NUMBERS

Over the last 12 months, we got through a ton of instruments. Most notably, there were:

• 27 Roland Juno 106’s

• 12 Korg Polysix’s

• 8 Roland JX3P’s

• 6 Moog Minimoog Model D’s

• 6 Linn Linndrums

• 3 Wurlitzer 200-series electric pianos

Parts-wise, we installed:

• 82 Juno 106 voice chips

• 752 tactile switches

• ~450 Pratt-Read key bushings

• ~480 capacitors

• 42 batteries

• And much, much more.

OUR FRIENDS IN PHILLY

Lori happened to be in Philadelphia this month and got the chance to meet our “neighbours across the border”, Bell Tone Synth Works! Alison, Darian, and Joe have been running their synth repair shop since 2016, and it was really great to compare notes on this line of work. Shop talk, as it were.

As far as businesses go, shops like ours are a pretty rare breed, so it’s great to have finally made this connection! The Philly area’s synth community is in very capable and kind hands!

SEASON’S GREETINGS

Our little team went out for dinner, drinks, and games at El Charro and ZED*80 and had a tubular time celebrating another year of synth repair.

Fun fact: the z80 microprocessor is used in both 80s-era synths and arcade games from that decade. We couldn’t not visit this eponymous bar!

LOCAL EVENTS

Synth and synth-adjacent happenings in the GTA.

We’ll share updates in January’s notes!

We'll be taking this and next week off, but it'll be business as usual in 2025. Thanks to all of you for trusting us with your gear over these last 12 months, and for recommending us to your synth-owning pals.

We hope you all enjoy these last couple weeks of the year, and we'll see you in the New Year!

—The Team at Synths When