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Roland SC-55 Refurbishment

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First post, by Kahenraz

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Today I received the firmware-matched Roland SC-55 I'd ordered. I already have several synthesizers and have had to repair a couple of Roland models in the past, so after some basic validation of function, I disassembled the unit to inspect the most common problem areas, which are all of the ports at the back that receive the most mechanical streas.

Unsurprisingly, there were a lot of cracked solder joints. I added a Louis Rossmann amount of flux and cleaned off the old solder with a wick. I then applied new solder, careful not to apply too much heat to avoid melting any of the plastic.

After the repair, I wiped down the entire unit, brushed the dust out of all the crevices, and applied DeoxIT D5 to the electcal contacts and FaderLube F5 to the volume potentiometer.

The unit works great and I now have a matched pair of Roland SC-55 synthesizers with matching 1.21 firmware.

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Reply 1 of 9, by Kahenraz

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Photos of the unit disassembled for testing, with problem stickers having been placed to help locate issues for repair after inspection.

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Last edited by Kahenraz on 2022-05-05, 07:04. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 2 of 9, by Kahenraz

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Lots of cracked solder joints and some that are suspect; all of them will get new solder. Taking the case apart like this is an event, so it's better to repair or refurbish more joints now, so as to avoid further problems in the future.

There are more joints that I repaired in the photos here, but these are otherwise the most interesting to look at.

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Last edited by Kahenraz on 2022-05-05, 15:23. Edited 3 times in total.

Reply 3 of 9, by Kahenraz

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Photos of solder joints after repair.

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Last edited by Kahenraz on 2022-05-05, 05:28. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 4 of 9, by Kahenraz

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Here is a photo of the two Roland SC-55s stacked on top of each other.

I noticed that the volume nob doesn't have any of that smooth resistance feeling that all of my other Roland synthesisers do. I don't know if this is from wear, a defect, or whether a different part was used during manufacture. It works fine otherwise, but isn't as satisfying to turn.

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Reply 6 of 9, by voodoo5_6k

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Kahenraz wrote on 2022-05-05, 05:20:

The unit works great and I now have a matched pair of Roland SC-55 synthesizers with matching 1.21 firmware.

Nice work 😀

So, now what? You want to run them in parallel, split-channel, like I do? What are your plans? Please share 😀

END OF LINE.

Reply 8 of 9, by Kahenraz

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I especially like the sound of the SC-55 over the SC-88 (and its SC-55 map), and the SC-55mkII is just plain awful. So I was disappointed to learn that I was unable to render some very iconic music correctly using my favorite synthesizer. I've been thinking about this problem for a while, and when I heard that Falconsoft had added the ability to split channels across devices into his MIDI player, I got very excited.

I've did an analysis on synthesizer polyphony when I went through my collection. I plan to revisit the problems I had experienced, to see if they can be worked around by ganging together multiple synthesizers.

Significant differences with certain MIDI files across Roland synthesizers

An analysis of Warcraft 2 MIDI music on Roland synthesizers

Reply 9 of 9, by Shponglefan

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Nice refurb!

It makes me wonder how many units get tossed for things like broken solder joints, when there are otherwise no issues with the electronics.

Pentium 4 Multi-OS Build
486 DX4-100 with 6 sound cards
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