[net.music.synth] Velocity sensitive upgrade for JX3-P

bottom@katadn.DEC (09/16/85)

I was down to one of the local stores and the guy running the store said 
that they had a velocity sensitive upgrade for the JX3. What this does 
is it makes the JX3 sound velocity sensitive when driven via MIDI by a
velocity sensitive keyboard. This upgrade costs $120. It consists of 
adding an EPROM to the synth. A bit expensive eh? I told the guy I could 
solder myself, he refuses to sell me just the part. Is this part 
available through Roland? He wouldn't tell me where he gets them.

Dave Bottom
DEC Augusta Maine
!dec-rhea!dec-katadn!bottom

michael1@ihlpm.UUCP (pula) (09/17/85)

> I was down to one of the local stores and the guy running the store said 
> that they had a velocity sensitive upgrade for the JX3. What this does 
> is it makes the JX3 sound velocity sensitive when driven via MIDI by a
> velocity sensitive keyboard. This upgrade costs $120. It consists of 
> adding an EPROM to the synth. A bit expensive eh? I told the guy I could 
> solder myself, he refuses to sell me just the part. Is this part 
> available through Roland? He wouldn't tell me where he gets them.
> 
> Dave Bottom

    Yes Roland does sell the upgrade directly.  I bought and installed
  it myself about 4 months ago.  If you bought your JX-3P new, you should 
  probably be getting copies of RUG (Roland Users Group) magazine.  The
  upgrade is listed in the back for @ $50.00.  Be careful!  The JX-3P is
  not fun to take apart and I do mean take apart!  The PROM which you need
  to replace is located in an akward position.  The instructions which
  accompany the new PROM are translated from Japanese and require a little
  thought to figure out what is meant.  After that the installation is
  straight forward.  A single jumper is required from the new PROM to an
  existing ROM.  

    The mod does work.  As Dave said, this chip will not make your JX-3P
  keyboard velocity sensitive, only the MIDI input.  It should also be noted
  (and I didn't know this when I bought the mod), that in velocity mode,
  the JX-3P keyboard is disabled and can only be re-enabled by power-cycling
  the JX-3P!  So if you've got a JX-3P lying around (probably because you
  can't sell it for any fraction of what you paid (-:) this mod is probably
  for you.  Also, I don't have the Roland info, so I'll try to dig that up
  in the near future.

-- 

!ihnp4!ihlpm!michael1