Roland XP-50 fun... or not??

[Justin Havu]

Got this guy earlier today, given to me as an early Christmas gift. It sounds awesome, but I think the audio section may need to be recapped (Only the left side works, and the overall output, including the headphone out, is really low.) Oh, joy.

I got the service manual, and went over to the Roland Clan forum too, and got a list of the capacitors I need. Now it's just a matter of finding out where I can get them on the cheap. I'd prefer to stay away from RadioShack, because not only are they overpriced on a LOT of their inventory, but they don't seem to stock as much in the way of DIY electronic components as they used to, at least not the store near my house. That being said, I can't wait to get this board working properly again!

 

[Sven Golly]

Not sure why a pic was needed at all (other than to have us cast aspersions at your choice of stand, or the sewing machine sustain pedal... ), but this works just as well:

 

http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/images/roland_xp50.jpg

 

Congrats on the new old board. I still have multiple Roland JV/XV series rack units because I still love me some of those sounds...

[ElmerJFudd]

I own the XP-80 & JV-2080 which are in the same family. I believe the XP-50 is more similar to the JV-1080. If you would enjoy having a boatload of Roland PCM sounds at your finger tips, you really can't go wrong with these. All these boards are expandable with the SR-JV80 expansion cards.

Here are all the boards, http://www.planet-groove.com/roland/expansion.html

 

I've never done a repair like the one you're describing, hopefully a few of the other guys are able to chime in on that, I'd like to know as well.

 

 

[wjwilcox]

How's this:

 

Justin's XP50 by wjw0608, on Flickr

[Justin Havu]

Not sure why a pic was needed at all (other than to have us cast aspersions at your choice of stand, or the sewing machine sustain pedal... )

Congrats on the new old board. I still have multiple Roland JV/XV series rack units because I still love me some of those sounds...

 

My profound apologies on the choice of stand/pedals. The stand is actually pretty solid. Thankfully I haven't had anything go horribly wrong with it yet, but I don't plan on resting anything heavier than 30 or 40 lbs on it. Also, both of my good sustain pedals are at my church, I just had the Yamaha one lying around.

[KenElevenShadows]

I still own one. I always found the owner's manual and general way of working to be confounding, and that generally the board is a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none for sounds. But there are some really good sounds, and it's useful for general-purpose gigging.

[Sven Golly]

My profound apologies on the choice of stand/pedals.

 

I dunno if a simple apology is enough... we may have to get you to buy a round for the forum...

[Justin Havu]

My profound apologies on the choice of stand/pedals.

 

I dunno if a simple apology is enough... we may have to get you to buy a round for the forum...

It could be worse... Could be a single-braced X stand, or the Ultimate V-Stand!

[BEMcCut]

Just a thought about the volume, try pushing the second and third sliders beside the volume slider to the top position. Those can be set to control volume as well if I remember correctly.

 

[Justin Havu]

I tried that. It's different for every patch/performance. The first thing I did was reset the factory settings. Apparently a number of people over on the Roland Clan forums are having output issues too.

[Michael Wright]

I dunno if a simple apology is enough... we may have to get you to buy a round for the forum...

http://cdn.playbuzz.com/cdn/c875c3df-9227-4040-8483-679ef496052e/86e135fc-b81b-47e2-8793-8f0765b824aa_560_420.jpg

YooHoo!

[KeyMoe]

I still have my XP-80. Did a lot of gigs with that board in the day!

 

[Botanicus]

I took my XP-80 out for a spin not long ago before testing the FA. IMHO the expansion board sounds for the XP series are better than the non-SuperNatural sounds in the FA, which are largely the stock sounds in the XP80!

[Justin Havu]

I still own one. I always found the owner's manual and general way of working to be confounding

Which begs the question: How many multilingual experts would it take to fully decipher a Roland owner's manual?

[J. Dan]

Now it's just a matter of finding out where I can get them on the cheap. I'd prefer to stay away from RadioShack, because not only are they overpriced on a LOT of their inventory, but they don't seem to stock as much in the way of

 

Digikey.com

[Adam Burgess]

When I had mine... Wow, way back in '97... I had an issue where the outputs were dead. I'd plugged it into a Technics digital piano at a rehearsal. The tech said it gets its ground from the jack outs. A ground path had been fried, apparently by both instruments being ungrounded on two, 2 pronged plugs. Loved the machine, though. Good luck.

[sMatt]

I still own one. I always found the owner's manual and general way of working to be confounding, and that generally the board is a jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none for sounds. But there are some really good sounds, and it's useful for general-purpose gigging.

 

i've got an XP 80 (although I'll probably get rid of it, never use it any more). Decent sounds, but it's like they go out of their way to make the manual and general way of using it complex and ridiculous.

[sMatt]

I still own one. I always found the owner's manual and general way of working to be confounding

Which begs the question: How many multilingual experts would it take to fully decipher a Roland owner's manual?

 

 

a friend of mine bought this thing from roland, and the manual was based on a prototype I guess, so aside from the usual terribly written / -translated / -formatted / -organized problems that plague roland manuals, it was talking about knobs and buttons that weren't even there.

[Justin Havu]

Just curious, has anyone bought anything from mouser.com? I found them on a bit of a google adventure, and they seem to have the right capacitors I need for the repair, but it'd be helpful to get someone else's feedback before I dive in.

[Joe Muscara]

Happy birthday, Justin!

[Justin Havu]

Happy birthday, Justin!

 

Thanks!

[MoodyBluesKeys]

HB, Justin.

Mouser is a long time electronic distributor - I've ordered from them, no problems. What is special about them is that they do handle small orders, many distributors deal wholesale only in large quantities.

 

[ProfD]

Happy birthday Justin. Enjoy your newly acquired KB especially once it's restored to perfect working order.

[Dana.]

Not sure why a pic was needed at all (other than to have us cast aspersions at your choice of stand, or the sewing machine sustain pedal...

Never look a gift horse in the mouth, Sven.

[marino]

Totally non-constructive remark....

I had an XP-50 for a while. I liked it as a synth/workstation, but it had a couple of things that I found unbearable: The impossibly deep menu digging necessary to program it, and the unplayable keybed. I got the XP-80 as soon as I could. I ended up giving the 50 to my then-girlfriend, knowing that

- she wasn't going to program it anyway, and,

- she was playing it exclusively from a wind controller (I programmed about 25 sounds for her, designed for this specific use).

However, free is free, so enjoy it.

 

 

[RABid]

I had the 50, and later the XP80. Really nice, synth action keybed. Programming is not bad once you got used to the menu. There are also third party programs for programming.

[Justin Havu]

Ordered the replacement caps for the audio portion of the main board. Should be here sometime this week, so we'll see what happens. I'll try and post some pics too...

[Bill H.]

I'm not sure something as simple as replacing caps alone will solve your problems, but I'll keep my fingers crossed for you.

 

Since you already have a D-110 and JV-80 you'll be on familiar ground getting around on the thing. OS is somewhere in between them - much easier than on the D-110, but not as easy as on a JV-80. On the XP-50 the shift key is your friend Maybe the most important button on the front panel.

 

I went through that whole family back in the 1990s and have kept the XP-80 - probably forever. With expansion boards it does things in P&W that I just can't replicate with anything else.

[Justin Havu]

According to the research that I've done over the interwebs, mainly at Roland Clan, the caps usually fail after five years, so those will be the first thing I'll check/replace. There are eight of them in the audio section, but C931 and C932 may be the main culprits. Those will get replaced first, then I'll replace the others if needed. It's really trial and error. I'm just hoping I don't have to hunt down a new mainboard, as they seem to be hard to come across. I've already checked over at Syntaur, and the board is no longer available.

 

Yeah, there are definitely some presets on this board that I'll be using for Sunday AM services, mainly A011 "West Coast," but there are also several great-sounding pads in the A bank that I'll be using.

[Outkaster]

Had one from 1997 till about 2001 I think,did a ton of gigs on it then the XP 60 came out.