6 ms·

Awesome -- the DX7 had a huge musical impact.

jacquesm 5y ago
I repair them to keep them in play, impossible to get some of the parts so I tend to use one that is too far gone to repair a number (usually three or so) of others and then I still end up with some more spares that might come in handy later. They are incredibly durable, one that I got had been in a fire but it still worked, even though more than half of the keyboard had been burned off. The mainboard went on to repair one that was otherwise good but had a fried CPU. Another one I got had been owned by a touring musician, who apparently didn't know about flight cases :) There wasn't a lick of paint on the outer case. I got it for free because it wouldn't turn on any more. Turned out that the voltage selector had somehow been moved in transport and got stuck between the two settings, leaving it disconnected. That was the fastest fix ever, there simply wasn't anything wrong with it. (And good thing that voltage selector had not been pushed a tiny little bit further because then it would have been end-of-story for sure). So, I have a pretty large collection of spares, looms, main boards, display boards, keys (they do break, especially as the plastic ages it can get more brittle, more so in synths that have been in the sun), switches, PSUs and so on. Every now and then I put an ad out to get people to sell me their broken ones or to help them out and then a new batch of working DX-7's goes back into the world. It's never going to make me a dime, especially not when counting the time but it feels pretty good to keep these oldies alive, and to see how happy musicians are when their baby works again.
- iseanstevens 5y ago
  I’d love to see some pictures of the super beat up ones that still work :)
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Ah, that's a missed chance. I never thought of that. That one chassis is long gone (I took off it what I could) and the burned keyboard I took apart outside the house. The keys that were still good went into the spares bin. Next time I have one of these die-hards I'll be sure to take pictures.
- WalterGR 5y ago
  That’s amazing. How does a person learn to repair older electronics tech like that?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    It's the level of tech that I grew up with so I'm not sure where you'd learn it other than just to get your hands on one and to start digging in. Very few tools required if you stick to the test-and-replace-subsystems level, a screwdriver, a good DVM, a soldering iron (a good one, preferably one that is isolated from mains), a lot of spare time and a notebook so that you can keep track of what you find and build up a store of knowledge over time to help diagnose problems faster. About 200K DX-7's were made, which is enough that you can find them and not so many that there is no value in repairing them, on top of that the degree to which people are attached to their synths is something that still amazes me. The level of emotion when a dead synth comes back to life with the owners is always quite gratifying, it's some of the best time spent for me.
    - l33tbro 5y ago
      You don't happen to have a hi-hat decay slider for an MPC60 lying around? Can't find a replacement for the life of me, and I've taken to sad attempts like this when the opportunity arises :D
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        The cap? Or the actual slider? If you have the specs of the slider I can dig around for a suitable substitute, alternatively I can go on the lookout for a donor synth.
        l33tbro 5y ago
        Will email you picture ;)
        jacquesm 5y ago
- jacobvosmaer 5y ago
  Only original DX7's, or also the DX7ii? Opening up the DX7ii (and other synths from the same time) is a pain compared to the nice hinge construction you get on the original DX7.
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    So far I've only seen the originals, a DX7ii would be hard because I don't have a stash of spares for them so the first couple would likely end up as donors.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- boondaburrah 5y ago
  The DX7ii I have is a fucking tank of a machine and I'm playing it until it breaks, fixing it, and then playing it some more. I guess I kind of understand typical "car guys" now. The best part is being able to map the sliders to /almost/ any parameter within a patch, so it's possible to have expressive control over the tonality of your instrument while playing live. Sure it involves menu diving to figure out ahead of time, but I'm a programmer. It's really more about the joy of being like "this sound needs more wonk, lets tie this parameter to the output of this other function and ooOOOH not what I was expecting but let's go"
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Hah! You're using it like it was intended to be used, the DX-7 is first and foremost a performing musician's tool, that's exactly why it was built as strong as it was, made to be tossed in the back of the car on the way to gigs. If you ever can't find a part let me know.
    - boondaburrah 5y ago
      Oh man, if only I knew what was wrong with it half the time. I've replaced the ROM with 1.9 since it supposedly has diagnostics but they don't tell me much. I've been trying to design a new cartridge for it, but writing to it is always super funky. The service manual doesn't exactly say what the timings are supposed to be, just the pinout. Mostly though I've just got some weird dirty hiss (sounds like a rainstorm) on the output all the time that makes it unsuitable for recording. I use DEXED + midi in that case, but it's still fun on it's own (also weirdly I find menu-diving to edit patches easier than being presented with that big DEXED UI) Thanks for keeping these things alive
- nkozyra 5y ago
  In the 90s, when FM was considered inherently uncool, the DX7 was the keyboard du jour to use as a controller and subsequently smash to pieces in live sets for industrial, ebm, techno. They were dirt cheap and as mentioned, insanely solid. Same thing happened to to the Casio CZ line. I bought one at a time they were very undesirable for $75 and they now go for $500+ There's a financial lesson in here somewhere
  - nobleach 5y ago
    The only problem with using it as a controller (The original DX7) was that their MIDI implementation was incomplete. So you only got velocity values of 0-100 instead of 0-127. It still has a wonderful key-bed. I've owned a couple of 'em.
  - Zenst 5y ago
    I had a CZ101 in the day, preferred the sound from PD synthesis as it was better at base sounds IMHO. That and the DX7 was used to death and more so - 99% just used the pre-sets and got to stage that you could name the sound they used on a sound and all got cliché.
- RusticCajun 5y ago
  Do you work at all with KX88's? I've got one laying around. Got it for the college dorm. Wasn't as good as my acoustic, but it kept my fingers working. How can I contact you directly?
  - jacquesm 5y ago
    Haven't seen one in the wild yet, jacques@modularcompany.com is my email.

I repair them to keep them in play, impossible to get some of the parts so I tend to use one that is too far gone to repair a number (usually three or so) of others and then I still end up with some more spares that might come in handy later. They are incredibly durable, one that I got had been in a fire but it still worked, even though more than half of the keyboard had been burned off. The mainboard went on to repair one that was otherwise good but had a fried CPU. Another one I got had been owned by a touring musician, who apparently didn't know about flight cases :) There wasn't a lick of paint on the outer case. I got it for free because it wouldn't turn on any more. Turned out that the voltage selector had somehow been moved in transport and got stuck between the two settings, leaving it disconnected. That was the fastest fix ever, there simply wasn't anything wrong with it. (And good thing that voltage selector had not been pushed a tiny little bit further because then it would have been end-of-story for sure). So, I have a pretty large collection of spares, looms, main boards, display boards, keys (they do break, especially as the plastic ages it can get more brittle, more so in synths that have been in the sun), switches, PSUs and so on. Every now and then I put an ad out to get people to sell me their broken ones or to help them out and then a new batch of working DX-7's goes back into the world. It's never going to make me a dime, especially not when counting the time but it feels pretty good to keep these oldies alive, and to see how happy musicians are when their baby works again.

iseanstevens 5y ago
I’d love to see some pictures of the super beat up ones that still work :)
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Ah, that's a missed chance. I never thought of that. That one chassis is long gone (I took off it what I could) and the burned keyboard I took apart outside the house. The keys that were still good went into the spares bin. Next time I have one of these die-hards I'll be sure to take pictures.
WalterGR 5y ago
That’s amazing. How does a person learn to repair older electronics tech like that?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  It's the level of tech that I grew up with so I'm not sure where you'd learn it other than just to get your hands on one and to start digging in. Very few tools required if you stick to the test-and-replace-subsystems level, a screwdriver, a good DVM, a soldering iron (a good one, preferably one that is isolated from mains), a lot of spare time and a notebook so that you can keep track of what you find and build up a store of knowledge over time to help diagnose problems faster. About 200K DX-7's were made, which is enough that you can find them and not so many that there is no value in repairing them, on top of that the degree to which people are attached to their synths is something that still amazes me. The level of emotion when a dead synth comes back to life with the owners is always quite gratifying, it's some of the best time spent for me.
  - l33tbro 5y ago
    You don't happen to have a hi-hat decay slider for an MPC60 lying around? Can't find a replacement for the life of me, and I've taken to sad attempts like this when the opportunity arises :D
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      The cap? Or the actual slider? If you have the specs of the slider I can dig around for a suitable substitute, alternatively I can go on the lookout for a donor synth.
      - l33tbro 5y ago
        Will email you picture ;)
        jacquesm 5y ago
jacobvosmaer 5y ago
Only original DX7's, or also the DX7ii? Opening up the DX7ii (and other synths from the same time) is a pain compared to the nice hinge construction you get on the original DX7.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  So far I've only seen the originals, a DX7ii would be hard because I don't have a stash of spares for them so the first couple would likely end up as donors.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
boondaburrah 5y ago
The DX7ii I have is a fucking tank of a machine and I'm playing it until it breaks, fixing it, and then playing it some more. I guess I kind of understand typical "car guys" now. The best part is being able to map the sliders to /almost/ any parameter within a patch, so it's possible to have expressive control over the tonality of your instrument while playing live. Sure it involves menu diving to figure out ahead of time, but I'm a programmer. It's really more about the joy of being like "this sound needs more wonk, lets tie this parameter to the output of this other function and ooOOOH not what I was expecting but let's go"
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Hah! You're using it like it was intended to be used, the DX-7 is first and foremost a performing musician's tool, that's exactly why it was built as strong as it was, made to be tossed in the back of the car on the way to gigs. If you ever can't find a part let me know.
  - boondaburrah 5y ago
    Oh man, if only I knew what was wrong with it half the time. I've replaced the ROM with 1.9 since it supposedly has diagnostics but they don't tell me much. I've been trying to design a new cartridge for it, but writing to it is always super funky. The service manual doesn't exactly say what the timings are supposed to be, just the pinout. Mostly though I've just got some weird dirty hiss (sounds like a rainstorm) on the output all the time that makes it unsuitable for recording. I use DEXED + midi in that case, but it's still fun on it's own (also weirdly I find menu-diving to edit patches easier than being presented with that big DEXED UI) Thanks for keeping these things alive
nkozyra 5y ago
In the 90s, when FM was considered inherently uncool, the DX7 was the keyboard du jour to use as a controller and subsequently smash to pieces in live sets for industrial, ebm, techno. They were dirt cheap and as mentioned, insanely solid. Same thing happened to to the Casio CZ line. I bought one at a time they were very undesirable for $75 and they now go for $500+ There's a financial lesson in here somewhere
- nobleach 5y ago
  The only problem with using it as a controller (The original DX7) was that their MIDI implementation was incomplete. So you only got velocity values of 0-100 instead of 0-127. It still has a wonderful key-bed. I've owned a couple of 'em.
- Zenst 5y ago
  I had a CZ101 in the day, preferred the sound from PD synthesis as it was better at base sounds IMHO. That and the DX7 was used to death and more so - 99% just used the pre-sets and got to stage that you could name the sound they used on a sound and all got cliché.
RusticCajun 5y ago
Do you work at all with KX88's? I've got one laying around. Got it for the college dorm. Wasn't as good as my acoustic, but it kept my fingers working. How can I contact you directly?
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Haven't seen one in the wild yet, jacques@modularcompany.com is my email.