I am new to the forum. I am 59. I just want to share the fact that yes, you can sometime find a working vintage synth for a relatively cheap price.
Here is my story.
I was looking to get a good old Vintage Synth from the eighties. I was looking for a bargain price and I was expecting to have a few things to fix.
I saw on Craiglist a Roland D-10, for a very decent price ($120 canadian). It was being advertised with very few words, a simple : "working".
I went to see it... Didn't tried it much over there. I told the guy, you know, a synth of this age (1989) I am expecting some things might not work perfectly. If I find little things that are not working, I'll try to fix them.
When I arrived home, the first really obvious problem was that the previous owner was really heavy smoker.
So, my D-10 didn't smelt cigarettes.., it was stinking. Really.
So I washed the outside with Hot water and a bit of Lestoil, then with Hot water and dishwashing soap. Half the smell was gone.
Then, in the service manual, I discovered that there is a "Test Mode". You have to press and hold Exit and Edit, and then switch the D-10 to ON.
Then, by pressing Exit and Tune, I could test all the Push buttons, sliders, Keys, Bender, etc, and there name would appear in the display, if they are working, of course. Well, turns out that every Keyboard Keys, Push buttons, slider, Bender... everything was working... well...except the Modulator lever. Not a big deal.
The day after, I decided to open it, to have a look inside... I replaced the 3V battery. It was still OK but lets put a new one.
Then, I completely disassemble the keyboard, I mean, the 61 keys, I let them sink in Hot Water with a bit of Lestoil. Later, I used a little nail brush.
I paid a special care to the keys. After a patient work, they almost look like new.
There was also an incredible amount of dust inside the keyboard, under the keys. I also removed and cleaned all the springs.
I also washed the rubber strip, that makes the contact, under the keys.
I re-assembled everything, and all the keys works, but, most importantly, they smell a lot better.
Then, last evening, I accomplished another big step. The sound !
When I was trying the different sounds, in performance mode, all I had was the message <Initial Patch> in place of the Patch Name.
All the Patches were in Split mode, and... frankly... I was expecting that synth to sound a little bit better than that.
I was suspecting that the synth was capable of much more that that. And that is exactly the info I found on internet.
A few guys were saying that all you had to do, was downloading the file, from Roland, containing the Original Patches.
Then, using an App (I used SendSx from Bome) I could transfer that sound file to my D-10, using a USB to Midi cable.
It took me a few tries, but it finally worked. And Man ! Now it sounds much better. It sounds more like what I was expecting.
And now the 128 preset Patches all have there name showing up.
The smell is almost gone now, not completely. The next step will be to also wash the PC Boards. Yes, with hot water and a toothbrush.
One of my friend who collects all kind of vintage audio electronics have done it many times.
Oh, yeah... the Modulator had start to work again. I have to press it firmly, and it gets to its maximum value (127 in test mode) and we can hear the sound modulate also. But, it take some time to get there. I looked at that mecanism, and the modulation lever is putting pressure on a brown strip of material, abount an inch long, thick as a dime. It seems to be a "pressure sensitive resistor". I will try to find a replacement from an big electronic part supplier.
So... this is about it for now. I am very please with my D-10.
From the serial number, this unit was made in 1989. I have the ROM chipset of version 1.11
I will surely try a few other sound files available on internet, but I am also mostly planning to use my D-10 as a Midi Controller for my tabletops synths.
- 20230307_182356.jpg (3.28 MiB) Viewed 689 times