I usually buy a synth every couple of months, fix it, play with it for a while and then sell it again. (or keep it) Last week I bought the Roland D-5 but some other cool project synths came along online and they where all in the vicinity and cheap so I bought three more this weekend..
1) Roland XP-50
Main problem: no sound. When you power this one up if first says: Battery low. After that: Internal user memory damaged (which worried me a little) and the only noise coming from the headphones is a loud crackling noise.
It came with the original manuals and under ‘troubleshooting’ it said:
Battery low: Replace the internal battery which powers the Internal user memory.
Internal user memory damaged: If the internal battery runs low the contents of the Internal user memory is lost resulting in this message. Replace the battery and restore the Internal user memory by pressing…..(some key combination)
Sounds logical 🙂
The XP-50 is notorious for all kinds of problems that pretty much all have to do with the capacitors on the mainboard going bad. Replacing them fixes a lot of problems I read online. Because so many XP-50’s (the model is from 1995 so 20 years old) have the same issues there is a lot of information available online. That’s why I bought this one. I hope I get it fixed.
2) Roland Juno-D
The keys don’t work. VERY common problem for the Juno-D. Easily fixed not by cleaning the contacts (tried that on the first Juno-D I owned) but by replacing the contact strips. Sold the previous one to soon. Going to play with this one for a while because I like the arpeggiator.
3) Roland JV-80
Red glue problem. I’ve had a JV-80 with the exact same problem before but I didn’t take a whole lot of pictures back then. This is a pretty easy fix too. Might need three new keys though.. bummer.
Synths and Keyboards 