Ableton Forum

About 17 years ago I bought a Doepfer Drehbank, and it worked for around a month. Unfortunately it then started sending out spasmodic midi information from the dials, rendering it useless on stage or anywhere else.


I had a mail conversation with Dieter Doepfer himself and he recommended I solder a capacitor over a specific junction to add a bit of smoothing, but no dice - it was still twitchy. So it went into a rack of unused stuff.

Yesterday, 17 years later, I had the thought "What if it's the power supply which is at fault".
It was.

On the plus side I just gained a fully functional Drehbank in nearly new condition.

Lotta Knobs.

yeah, I think I'm gonna plastic wrap it in some slightly more sexy colours than grey, then get a bunch of more varied knob-caps for it and make it a dedicated synth editor.

Interesting about the power supply. Thanks for posting.

Though I sold my three Drehbanks a while ago, I still have two Doepfer Pocket Dials !

I'm trying to picture the moment when you came to the realisation: "You know what...? I just don't think I can handle 224 knobs, man... "

Steve, if you don’t have it already, this is a fantastic M4L editor for the Drehbank.
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... r-drehbank
It certainly gave our two old ones a new lease of life - finally able to reprogram around the dodgy knobs after years of abuse!

Pitch Black wrote:Steve, if you don’t have it already, this is a fantastic M4L editor for the Drehbank.
http://www.maxforlive.com/library/devic ... r-drehbank
It certainly gave our two old ones a new lease of life - finally able to reprogram around the dodgy knobs after years of abuse!

Hi Paddy, that might be useful I can't even remember the app I previously used to use to edit it. I suspect it was windows95 only

Regarding those dodgy pots on your Drehbank... can't you just swap them out? The inside of this thing is very old-school and repairable. The pots are 6mm axis, they are 20 K, linear.
A soldering iron and desolder pump and you'd be able to swap out all the old ones. That might be worth a try!

sporkles wrote: I'm trying to picture the moment when you came to the realisation: "You know what...? I just don't think I can handle 224 knobs, man... "

Actually... The Pocket Dials have 16 encoders x 4 banks, this equals 64 encoders per Pocket Dial for a subtotal of 128; plus the Drehbanks 64 x 3 for a subtotal of 192; all combined gave me a grand total of 320!

Hey Angstrom


where did you get your power supply and which type did you get?
I am looking for one for my drehbank which I just unearthed from storage.
I have loads of power cables but alas nothing 9v with 250 mA - a familiar tale
I was wondering to try a 12v but dont want to blow it up

thanks in advance for a reply!

Dont use a 12V unless you want magic smoke.
This is the adaptor I got.
Adaptors4U 9V 1A 1.0A 1000mA Mains AC-DC Switching Adaptor Power Supply Charger 5.5mmx2.5mm https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00I8PA1VW/ ... 2BbQ2TB6H0

I think the doepfer is centre positive, check what it says on the body by the socket. The barrel on this one is slightly long, but thats no problem really. It works.

Just search your area for the right barrel size, centerpositive, 9v . The milliamps just need to be higher than whatever it says on the back of the unit. It will draw what it needs from that.

thanks for the reply mate!


I resisted the urge to try the 12V phew!
Thanks for the link - 3 pin plug too which is perfect
Was struggling to find something that is 9V and only 250mA but sounds like its cool to have more amps

yeah its centre positive and outer negative as you thought

did you get the colour nobs in the end?

really appreciate the reply sir