As mentioned in previous posts, yes, I’m re-exploring music. I have purchased and set up my recording PC and now I have to focus on the devices. This had led me to a difficult decision.
I have a keyboard that has been with me for over 20 years – the Roland RD-600. It’s been an excellent device and I am very familiar with playing it. However, over the years the keyboard has worn out. Some keys will break, or more specifically, the hammers on the keys will break. I’ve dealt with this for many years, replacing hammers one by one as they break. It’s an annoyance for sure. I even have a small cache of spare hammers that I purchased from the manufacturer when this first became a problem.
And it’s still a problem. On day two of having my rig set back up, I broke a hammer. I took the RD-600 off the stand, flipped the board over, and undid all the screws to open the case. Replaced the hammer and flipped it back over to resecure the case. Put it back on the stand and another hammer had broken during the repair of the first. I give up. I put the kb back in its road case and brought out the other keyboard.
Now this other board is an Alesis QS8. I bought it at a thrift shop for $100. It had issues right out of the gate with being out of tune. I was loathe to throw it away though and figured now I could do some tests on it. I determined that the MIDI functions still worked (that they were sending the right notes), which is what I primarily needed for recording. I also found the setting where I could retune the device, and things were looking a lot better now. However, further testing showed that the pitch problems would randomly reappear, requiring another manual retune. And as far as the MIDI was concerned, there was some random data being spewed out from a wheel controller that I had previously physically disconnected. So, this device is not suitable for recording either.
I have two bum devices. My choices are, replace or repair. Buying a new device of the caliber of the RD-600 or QS8 is a $1600-$2700 purchase. Along with that purchase comes a new keyboard action, which I may hate. Obviously there’s going to be more modern features and technology involved which is a distinct positive, if I wasn’t planning on using virtual instruments anyway.
I investigated replacing the hammers in the RD-600. I can’t recall how much the initial batch cost way back then, but on eBay, each hammer is currently about $10 plus shipping. It’s probably looking like about $1000 to replace all the hammers in my 20-yr old keyboard. I contacted Roland directly to order the parts and they simply refused to sell any replacement parts to me and told me to take to an authorized repair center. Bastards.
So now the question is, spend $1000 or $2000? To complicate the matter, if I do refurbish the RD-600, I’ll never get that money back. Street value of an RD-600 has to be well south of $500. Hell, I only paid $650 for it twenty years ago. I would spend more on refurbishment than I did when I bought it used. But, this is a board I am intimately familiar with, and if it lasted 20 years once, it will last again until I’m long gone. The alternative? I can buy a new keyboard with new technology (maybe more durable, maybe not), may have better action, maybe not, may be a lot of things and may not. If I don’t like it, I can sell it. Sell it for what, 80% of its purchase price? 75%? Less? Will I lose more than I would pay for the RD-600 hammers?
And it’s shit like this that keeps me from going anywhere. Weighing the pros and cons and never making a decision.
Oh, what about the other kb, the Alesis? Well, I have an open inquiry to a repair shop to see what it will cost for repair. I’m sure I’ll have to pay a bench fee, but that’s reasonable to know whether the kb should be repaired or checked. The problem isn’t mechanical like the Roland, but it is electronic. That could be better or worse. But it won’t be $10 88 times over.
But I made a decision anyway. The Roland is going to get refurbished. I think it deserves a second life and I’ll be comfortable using it for recording. My decision was made on a few different points. First, Roland makes no mention of the RD-600 in their support pages, so I don’t think the hammers will be available for too much longer. Second, I found an eBay seller selling one octave of hammers (7 white/5 black) for $120 with free shipping. With 7.2 octaves in a piano, I would be pretty safe buying 7 of these, for a total of $840. That’s not $1000 and it’s not $2000, and it’s not $2500, which is the price of the new keyboard I tried that had a hammer action I liked.
The seller was unwilling to discount his price for a purchase of seven octaves, because he knew what he had. He knew the part was either discontinued or was soon going to be discontinued and told me as much. I paid his price. And I still will pursue repairing the Alesis, for the right price. There’s a small part of me that wants to rebuild a whole studio with racks of 80’s and 90’s physical keyboards, but holy shit is that an expensive idea. Obviously, a lot of those sounds are coming back into vogue with new music, so prices have been soaring. Pawn shops used to be used device gold mines, but I can’t imagine any shop not doing their EBay research and finding out the value of what they have. So virtual devices will still be the way, with a solid controller.
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