Repairing stuff…

Well, I’ve just finished putting my Zoom G9.2tt guitar effects processor back together after fixing it. That was kind of a long story, really. The Zoom G9.2tt appears to be built like a tank, but since nothing is perfect, it has some weaknesses. In this case it’s the small pushbuttons on the unit. They consist of three parts… There’s this translucent plastic thing that you push with your finger, which is clicked onto the PCB, over the actual microswitch and a led. This plastic thing ‘hinges’, so you can push it down onto the underlying microswitch. There aren’t any actual hinges, it’s just two thin parts of plastic so it can move around a bit. But after a while, fatigue sets in, and it breaks off. It doesn’t really help that the contact with the microswitch isn’t always perfect, and these microswitches are very vulnerable to dust and such, so you automatically push harder when the switch doesn’t respond, putting even more stress on the fragile hinge.

So I broke one of them quite a while ago. I had to take the entire unit apart to see if I could fix it. This was a hellish task, because the unit is built up from various PCBs which are partly on top of eachother and/or connected via brackets or other things. There are also quite a few cables connecting the different PCBs. Because you can only access the electronics from the bottom, the PCBs with the buttons are actually the furthest away, so you have to take the ENTIRE unit apart. A very time-consuming and stressful task. There are so many parts to maneuver out of the way, and it’s all very delicate…

Anyway, I just decided to go into it head-first, so I took it apart completely, and discovered how these plastic ‘hinge’ things worked. I switched the broken one with a button that wasn’t important, and I used some adhesive tape to put the broken part back together. Then I put the entire unit back together. Much to my surprise, it all worked again.

Having found out the hard way how delicate these buttons are, I tried to be as gentle as I could from then on. This worked fine for a few years, until eventually the inevitable happened: Another button failed. The nightmare of the previous fixing operation flashed before my eyes…

This time I wanted to do it differently. It was very hard to fix it with adhesive tape… so I wanted to get some proper replacement parts. My unit was JUST out of its 3-year warranty period (I have a very early model, serial number 749)… besides, I had ordered it from Germany at the time. So I figured I’d just contact the local distributor for spare parts. They responded that they could provide the spare parts, but they don’t deal directly with end-users. So I would have to place the order through one of their dealers.

Well, since there is only one dealer in my city, according to the Zoom distributor (Rock Palace), I figured I’d go there. I explained my problem to one of the salesmen, and left my email address. He said he had to look into it, and get back to me.

About a week later, I received an answer. He said it was very hard for them to get spare parts, and I’d have to try to contact the manufacturer myself. Well, that’s odd… That’s not at all what the distributor said… And basically that brings me back to the distributor then, as Zoom doesn’t have any direct contact info for service, they refer only to the local distributors on their site.

I figured I’d try with Music Store where I bought it. I no longer had any warranty, but well, I did buy the unit there, and they ARE a Zoom dealer, so perhaps they could help me. But I never received a reply from them…

Anyway, I got tired of waiting for them to answer, so I looked on the Zoom site again for some contact info… All I could find was a generic info email… So I just explained my problem, not really expecting much anymore. I was prepared to just buy a new Zoom G9.2tt at this point (or perhaps a Line6 Pod X3 Live this time around…), but well, it doesn’t hurt to try.

After a few days I got a mail, again from the distributor, but this time from a German person, so perhaps a different department. He said that they normally don’t deal directly with customers, and that a dealer could just order the parts with a simple phonecall. However, they were willing to make an exception for me. So they sent me some spare parts, which I received only a few days later. Free of charge!

And here we are today… I’ve just finished putting in a new microswitch and a new plastic thingie, and the unit works fine again. I hope it stays that way this time… Because it’s a LOT of work to fix these simple buttons… even if you know how to do it. I have to say though, kudos to Zoom for the excellent customer service. That’s a lot more than I can say for Rock Palace. This isn’t the first time Rock Palace didn’t want to help me, by the way… They are also an official dealer of Steinberg software. A while ago, there was this upgrade offer for Cubase LE. So I went there, with my original Cubase LE CD and serial number, and a printout from the website. They said they didn’t know about this offer, and would have to look it up, and contact me later (well, same story as with the Zoom stuff now). I didn’t hear anything from them… Sadly this also meant that the offer was over by the time I realized that Rock Palace wasn’t going to be any help, so I couldn’t go to another distributor either, and I just missed out on the offer altogether. Shame, because I really wanted a better version of Cubase. It’s just that I don’t use it often enough to warrant the full price. I don’t think there’ll be another offer, because I only have Cubase LE 1, and Cubase LE 4 has replaced it a while ago. New offers seem to include LE 4 only.

Oh well… that’s one less guitar-related problem. Now I need to get my amp fixed…

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