Fixing defective keys on my Dad’s vintage analogue synthesiser.
This 35 year old Roland was worth £1,165 back in 1985 which would make it equivalent to £3,755 in today’s money.
This model was used by many famous artists including Depeche Mode, the Cure and Jean-Michel Jarre (to name a few).
Unfortunately a selection of the keys were unresponsive.
The repair (pictured right) was simple and took no more than 5 minutes. However the fault finding took many times longer – involving over 100 continuity tests.
As you can see in the photo, the copper traces on the circuit board had started to corrode and caused an open circuit.
In the interests of honesty and openness – while the project only took a total of three hours from undoing the first screws to successfully testing all of the keys, it took me many months to build up the confidence to disassemble this antique.