[A6] A6 technical questions

[analoguediehard at att.net]

> I noted that several people in here did some work on the A6, and had a 
> couple of questions regarding it.  Many of my older synths are pretty easy 
> to take apart by just pulling the knobs off the potentiometer IC and then 
> pulling the entire assembly away from the panel.  With the A6, I'm a little 
> weary of just pulling the knobs out, it seems almost like they are glued on.

The knobs should just slide right off, easier than most vintage synths.  The
smallest knobs may be tighter though.  Just slip some string under the knob and
pull up.  The PC boards underneath have plenty of support so don't worry about
cracking them while pulling on a knob.
 
The A6 is an easy service job once you remove the 20+ screws to open it.  If you
ever struggled with servicing a Memorymoog, the A6 is a walk in the park :)

> My other question is how does the A6 store it's patches.  Does the A6 have 
> battery backup?  Or is it some sort of NVRAM? (same with the XT or XTk, 
> nvram or bettery backup) ... I haven't looked inside yet obviously :)

The A6 has three ways to store patches.  It has on-board RAM with battery backup
that will hold 128 patches and 128 mixes (splits/layers), and it has additional
flash RAM to hold 256 patches and 128 mixes.  The third way is the PC Card slot
on the back which accept Static RAM cards up to 2M, which can hold eight
128-slot banks of patches or mixes.

> I've heard about a bad soldering job being done on certain parts of the A6.  
> Where are the problem these problem spots?

I'm not aware of these issues.  Maybe tech support can help you with that.

MC