Mistral Large 4 vs Inkling

Patchbay sits in a former warehouse on Rotterdam's northern edge, where the Maas meets the industrial harbour. Three of us work here—no more, no less—surrounded by oscilloscopes, desoldering stations, and the persistent hum of transformers. We repair vintage synthesizers. That is the whole business.

We are not a museum, and we are not a factory. Every Minimoog, ARP 2600, or Juno that crosses our bench receives the same stubborn attention: traced schematics, replaced capacitors, calibrated voltages, hours spent listening for the note that was never quite right. The machines arrive broken, silent, forgotten. They leave singing.

Rotterdam built its reputation on moving heavy things and keeping them moving. We apply the same pragmatism to circuits that predate us by forty years. If it made sound once, it can make sound again. That is the promise we keep, solder joint by solder joint.

Patchbay is a three-person repair studio in Rotterdam dedicated to vintage synthesizers. We work on analog circuits, replace failing capacitors and resistors, calibrate unstable oscillators, and restore instruments that have been silent for years. Our bench sees early Japanese mono synths, European string machines, American polys, and large modular systems. We treat each repair as a specific problem rather than a routine job, because these machines were built differently and fail differently. The studio grew out of our own need for careful, local repairs. Over time, musicians, collectors, and producers across the Netherlands started bringing us gear they could not trust elsewhere. We open every case with the same approach: diagnose the fault properly, use appropriate parts, and test the result thoroughly. We do not apply quick fixes or ignore underlying issues. Whether your synthesizer suffers from tuning drift, dead voices, noisy outputs, or an unknown electrical fault, we are in Rotterdam to find the cause and return it to reliable working condition.