Sad but true. Look what I found at work

[Headphones]

So I’m a garbage man for an apartment complex in Seattle. I empty trash in bins into a compactor, 5 days a week. So I find THIS....

As you can see, it’s hella banged up. Talked to a Roland repair guy who might be able to fix this, broken keys & all. But if it were to cost me $600, I’m just going to junk it. Roland Fantoms were about $2k when they came out, and I know most of us deal with samplers, but if you could repair a $2k synth, wouldn’t you?

I’m bringing it into the repair place, and it may be good or bad. Depends on what it would take to make it as good as new.

[VitaminT805]

Fill your bathtub full of rice and let that thing dry out for week.

[Headphones]

So I did a little bit of investigation. This is a Roland Fantom FA76(or 81). I talked to a Roland repair center about it. He said broken keys might get a bit pricy due to having to order parts from China, which due to Trump’s Tariffs might get pricy. This Fantom version doesn’t have the SP pads, and also doesn’t support sampling. However, it does have 88 different appregators patterns, tons of FX, and you can add 2 SX sound cards into it.

But this same synth is....$770 on Reverb. If the repairs go past $450, it’s probably a white elephant find at best. In fact, I probably would probably not bother.

I’ll see if it even turns on, drop it off at the repair shop on the estimate, and decide to either green light repairs, or just walk away. I’m still getting my SP404, Akai Miniak, MS-1 & PO33, so if I could, I’d just midi it to a controller, and that might work. But it might not even turn on. And then there’s no point in fixing a dead synth.

[ghost bazz]

Yeah dude... wait until it’s completely dried out, and then try to power it up. If it turns on u should hook up a midi controller and some headphones and see what works. I can almost guarantee that repairs will b cost prohibitive, but if u can get sounds out of it on any level it could b a lot of fun to mess around on. Sometimes even sampling crackly broken tones from a f***ed up keyboard can yield cool results. I doubt this thing will ever make it back to its original glory, but even with limited functionality u can still have fun messing with it.

[Sweat One]

Man, I'll never understand how people can fuck up music gear like that. I bought a couple pieces of used gear this year that were nasty and beat to hell. As I was cleaning off old adhesive and nose hairs, I was getting pissed and chaining together all kinds of obsinities...

I'm with Ghost Bazz, it's probably not worth spending the money on fixing it. You can buy the Fantom XR synth/sampler rack module for around $450 or cheaper. Another reason I wouldn't bother with it is, a lot of the dirty south/crunk/early trap music of the 2000's was made on Fantoms, Motifs and Tritons and those dudes exhausted the fuck outta the preset patches on all those machines. No doubt it probably has a powerful modeling engine with a ton of parameters to tune and a nice sequencer.

If you do decide to fix it or replace some parts, these guys probably have everything you need. https://www.syntaur.com/roland_fantom.html
They stock all sorts of parts for synths, keyboards and some sampler/drum machine stuff too. They are close to San Antonio, TX and were pretty friendly the couple times I emailed them. They ship world wide and buy broken gear also.

The sister site to mpcstuff.com has keyboard parts also and I believe they buy broken gear as well. https://www.instrumentalparts.com/

I don't know how bad it was rained on, but I would open up the case to check if there is excess moisture, wipe it off and leave it open to dry quicker. You can also look over the circuit boards to see if there is any visible damage. Just a thought before plugging it in.

I think it's kinda funny when shit looks like it got fucking thrown out into traffic, but it still has the demo sticker on it! Good luck, man

[Headphones]

I’m letting this sit nice & dry in our shop at work, but eventually I have to get it to that repair shop pronto. I meant to bring a pc power cable to even see if it would turn on, but I didn’t have time. I’m off tomorrow but I’ll be picking up my Miniak & SP404 tomorrow, and then going out to hang with my cousin. I might have to do it Saturday or even Monday perhaps. (I’m maybe getting free records Sunday from a girl I know).

As far as the synth itself, yes, it did break my heart to see it lying there. It’s not the end of the world if it’s just not worth repairing, but if it could be sorta a ghetto synth that got beat up by the previous owner, but I can midi it to my Yamaha SY85, then the way I see it, I still got a free synth just for going to work.

I mean, one time I found a violin in a case, and a friend bought it off me for $85. But as far as Roland Fantoms go, I’ve never really played with one, and if I can get some rompler cards to feed it later, I’ve got more interesting sounds to coax out of it. It’s just a matter of the broken keys, 4 knobs, and a data wheel. If the repair place can get it into something of a working condition for the right place, cool. But I’m in the mood to save for a Pioneer DJ mixer & a 2nd 1200, so having this beast isn’t entirely what I want to invest in right this minute.

But if I sell it for parts to what you suggested, that might be a small drop in the bucket for the gear I’d rather have.

[13th of 36]

you try plugging another keyboard to it via midi?

you might be able to use it as a sound module. maybe you can even find a way to chop off the keyboard part to slim it down.

[Headphones]

Forgot to update y’all on this: and the prognosis isn’t good.

It turned on, but didn’t make a sound. Nothing. Nada. Which doesn’t surprise me in the least. So, needless to say, I’m just gonna see if he wants it for spare parts. If he’s not interested, I can’t say I’d blame him. This is now a white elephant of a synth.

Would I want this synth used? Hmmm, maybe. It does support SRX Roland sound cards. But I could just go big and get the one with the SP pads tossed in.

As for the broken one, it just wasn’t meant to be. Oh well.