ShawnT 🔧🐀Tonight I met a dude who works at a synth shop that would love to buy my Roland JX3P (Roland's first MIDI-capable synth) because he'd love to have extra parts. Part of me is like, "fuck you, dude, you ain't taking her apart!" But then another part of me is like, "How much we talking here?"
Because I've done work to this girl. She has the #Organix MIDI-CC custom module that allows setting patch params via MIDI-CC messages. I built that from kit and modded the synth. That's worth AT LEAST $200 over price, parts and labor notwithstanding. I know my shit.
I'm just kinda reeling from the random encounter of meeting a guy, another rando dude, who knows WTF a Roland JX3P is and the fact that it's a digitally-controlled analog synth, and how that's a game-changer. I mean, I do live in #AustinTX, so the chance of running into such a rando is high here, but still. BUT STILL. He was just this foppish cat in a sport coat at the bar. BUT STILL.
The #JX3P is the reason why I taught myself C again, because #MIDI #sysex hadn't been invented yet, so the only way to save/restore patch parameters was to dump to audio tape. SO I WROTE A PROGRAM TO DECODE THE TAPE DUMPS and create spreadsheets to feed back into the #Organix MIDI expander!
https://www.phaysis.com/projects/roland-jx-3p-tape-dump-patch-decoder/
Be that as it may, we bonded over the Roland D-50, which had a weighted keyboard (not hammer action), with aftertouch. It's the best action I've had on a synth. BUT it's also the synth you use if you want to make 90's music that sounds like Enya. Sooooo.
But I don't wanna sell my D-50 either, because I replaced all the tactile switches and cleaned up the fingerboard contacts. I know that shit, too.