As most owners of Roland JD-800’s know: sooner of later the keys will stop functioning correctly. If it’s not the infamous red glue issue it’s the flexible circuit board that will break. The red glue can be an easy fix (especially if you fix it before it becomes a problem) but the flexible circuit board that runs underneath the keys is a bigger problem.
Continue readingRepair
Roland XP-10 Display replacement
(and fix stuck keys)
Last week I bought a Roland XP-10 which was in desperate need of some tlc. In the photo’s it was visible that about 10 keys where stuck down. I thought these might be physically broken but according to the seller some keys just don’t come back up when you press them sometimes. Apart from that the seller said the keyboard (and display) work fine. I asked because I know the displays on these have issues.
Continue readingRoland D-70 display replacement
(and a fix for the ‘No RAM Card <Exit>‘ message!)
Right. A project which is looooooooong overdue 🙂 replacing the display of my Roland D-70.
Continue readingRoland U-20 keybed in a Roland JD-800
I bought another JD-800 about a year ago. First owner, didn’t use it a lot and it came with ALL THE CARDS (yes, including the String Ensemble cards). And it looked absolutely MINT.
Roland GW-7 display repair
About a month ago I bought a Roland GW-7. A few keys not working but more worrying: the display isn’t working properly.
Roland Juno Stage
This week a Roland Juno Stage came in the mail. I bought it from a guy who gigged it a lot and he said it had a rough life on stage. Came with some minor defects but they are all fixable.
Roland D-20 Multi Timbral Synthesizer
Got my hands on a Roland D-20 this week. It was very cheap and it’s the last D-series synthesizer I haven’t owned yet so I bought it 🙂
Roland A-33 Midi controller
Today I bought 2 Roland A-33 Midi Keyboard controllers. They both have issues and therefore where very cheap. I might keep one if I can repair both of them because they have a nice 76 semi weighted keybed and some other features that make them cool 🙂
Roland U-110 PCM Sound Module
In my search for the last missing SN-U110 cards I bought a Roland U-110 with 4 cards. Three of which I already own but with the SN-U110-09 Guitar & Keyboards card that came with it I now have 14 out of 15 cards. I thought I just sell the U-110 and the three other cards and make a little profit. Until the U-110 arrived securely wrapped in a plastic bag :’)
Roland D-50 Pitchbender repair
Last year I bought a Roland D-50 with a broken pitch bender. This turned out to be the only thing wrong with it so it was a pretty good deal. The pitch bender actually worked fine but the lever was snapped off so I looked for a replacement. It seems to made of unobtanium.. you can’t buy them anywhere anymore. To today I tried to fit a Roland U-20 pitch bender in my D-50. Turns out the bender units are 100% identical except for the bender lever itself. The bender on a D-50 is very narrow where as the benders on most other Rolands are a lot thicker:
On the left the U-20 bender unit and on the right the D-50’s. The U-20 bender will fit right into the D-50. Even the cable is identical. One little problem: the U-20 bender touches the body of the D-50 a little bit so when you use the bender you can hear it grinding against the D-50. Purists stop reading here 😀
I just filed down the opening in the D-50 about 1mm on the bottom and the problem is solved. You can’t see this at all.. so for all you people looking for a replacement D-50 bender: pretty much everything from other D-series, JV-series, XP-series, U-20, JD-800.. probably all the same.
I’ve tested my D-50 and it works fine to. 🙂
Synths and Keyboards 