Synthesizer

[laurie]

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[Pepe]

I just picked up a Kawai K4 digital synthesizer from 1989 that I bought for very little money at an ebay auction. The synth was declared as defective (untested). The seller had some stuff from a legacy and he had no idea when the original owner had used it for the last time. He wanted to sell the items that he didn't want to throw away quickly and by pickup only. I had to travel for two hours by train in each direction, but that was perfectly fine.

Well, the synth is almost working like a charm. It came with the original power supply and the display backlight is okay as well. It needs new tactile switches and a very, very thorough cleaning. It has noticeable nicotine smell and it is dirty as hell.

Pictures will follow once it's in fully working and clean state.

Only eleven days later I finished cleaning the synthesizer and installing new tactile switches. I also replaced the EPROM for one with the latest firmware for less distortion and better performance when playing several keys at once. All the keys were treated with my favourite plastic polish to make them shine like (almost) new. Now they are white again and the synthesizer doesn't smell like an ashtray anymore. And after that procedure the Kawai K4 looks like this:

[laurie]

That does not look like a vintage instrument... great work mate!

[Pepe]

Thank you! Well, there are a few scratches and some parts with faded colour, but overall it is in such nice shape again. When I gave the upper chassis a first rough cleaning in the bathtub, lots of dirty water was running through the sink. I don't want to know what happened to this instrument in the previous years!

[The_Doc]

Great work Pepe. It looks as good as new !

[BearBoy]

It looks as good as new !

It does. Great job, Pepe!

[Pepe]

Thank you!

And now I have two more synth repair/cleaning jobs. My brother's KORG M1 has stuck keys and broken switch caps that fell inside the chassis, plus it needs new tactile switches. And another KORG Poly-800 with inverted keys made it to me (for resale this time). Very time-consuming stuff, especially the M1 with all the boards and wires ... I hope to find some time for playing my instruments in the near future.

[laurie]

I hope to find some time for playing my instruments in the near future.

I'm living that too!

[Pepe]

KORG M1 repair/maintanence/cleaning finished today. So the birthday surprise for next Saturday is ready (my brother gave the broken M1 to me several months ago and I had to keep him waiting all the time, because there was no chance yet for a repair).

It took me many hours to make this instrument work fine again. And I had to order a black key, because the stuck one was broken beyond repair.

The worst moment was when I thought that everything would be finished within the next few minutes ... and then the last remaining screw for the boards fell off from the screwdriver and right into the keybed so I had to take half of it apart again.

I hope my brother will treat this instrument well during the next years. I don't want to open it up again too soon!

[Pepe]

Another one. This might be the most boring* synthesizer out of the Roland SH series, but it is mine!

My brother picked it up for me. It was declared as defective, but overall the insturment works great. It is completely out of tune, the faders and keys have contact issues, but all of that will be fixed in the next weeks. The optical condition is superb, almost like new.



*it's a preset synthesizer with very limited sound tweaking functions