Hi all,

Curious if anyone has any experience or recommendations for servicing Boss SE-70's. I know these have been a Stick mainstay for many for decades. Speaking for myself... I own 6, but one has a totally scrambled brain (nonsense characters on screen, glitchy audio) and another has a wonky main value encoder knob (turning one click usually yields more like 3-5 increments for data).

Roland has confirmed they no longer service these. And.. they no longer have replacement power supplies. It looks like there are a few folks selling 3rd party supplies on reverb.com, amazon, etc..

Here in San Diego, music electronics repair is almost a thing of the past. Ten years ago we had four pro audio repair places. Today we have one and he is so backed up that (pre-pandemic) he sat on a bass amp of mine for 8 months before doing anything. And still there's the question of replacement parts. I might in the case of my two bad ones try to cannabalize them into one good one.. not really my specialty but I can certainly melt solder.

Know any place that might take things in by shipment and work on them?

Thanks!
Tom Griesgraber

I've used Mike at Thesis Audio in Wichita, KS for many, many years. Incredibly knowledgeable and flawless service.

http://www.thesisaudio.com/

Also for any of my Michigander peeps:

https://visionelectronix.com/authorized-companies

This is typically where your gear goes if you bring in amps to be repaired to many music stores in Michigan if they do not have a shop in store.

They are also an authorized Boss repair center. I’ve used them at least three times.

Tom, get yourself a curve tracer such as the Huntron Tracker. This device allows you to compare a good working circuit against a defective circuit with the power off. Most good shops will have one. https://huntron.com/products/tracker2000.htm

An ESR tester will come in handy for detecting faulty capacitors. It's also useful for detecting bad solder joints and hairline cracks in the circuit traces. https://www.amazon.com/Blue-ESR-Tester- ... 00O0BMIYQ/

https://www.audioservicemanuals.com/b/b ... vice-notes

There appears to be one for sale in Canada.
https://www.kijiji.ca/b-canada/boss-se- ... ue&dc=true

Hey Tom,

It's a strange situation to rely on old tech like this, but I hear you. I suggest buying a spare or two on reverb.com and midi dumping your patches into them as backups. There are a couple there now... I have one that sounds great until tit freezes up, then I have to do the old TV smacking trick to get the screen back and patches to change. Great boxes... still!

Tom, can you post a pic of your power supply? I know I have some odd power supplies stashed away, I used to have an Se-50. I can check if by chance I have one.

Years ago I read somewhere that the garbled display might be solved by replacing the button cell. It’s possible you’ll need to reset the patch data memory as well? (Factory settings.)

Button cell replacement
https://youtu.be/C_62J3lMJSs

Restore factory settings (from Sweetwater)
The SE-70 has two sets of factory Patches; those designed for guitar processing
(GUITAR) and those for general processing (STANDARD). The following procedure
will clear the internal memory and reload the factory settings:

(CAUTION: All USER information will be lost. Be sure to back up any information
you wish to keep.)

1) Power on while pressing the NUMBER/VALUE knob.
2) Press the LEFT PARAMETER (<) button and use the VALUE DIAL to select
“STANDARD” or “GUITAR” mode.
3) Press WRITE.