Nigel Hopkins, 32 years in love with the JD-800

 

Guy Wilkinson of Super Synth Projects (left) . 
A Brilliant mind, the man to go to Nigel Hopkins (right).

Originally posted in the Vintage Synth Repair And Mods FB group. 

16/01/2024 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/vintagesynthrepair/posts/2952144134928677/

 

Nigel Hopkins is a serious musician and has owned the JD-800 since 1991.

A testimony by Nigel Hopkins himself

January, 15, 2024

This ladies and gentlemen…. is Guy Wilkinson with myself and My Roland JD800. An electronic genius he is. 

I first discovered Guy after a frantic search across the net for someone to repair my faithful Roland JD800. 

As most of you( if not all), my JD has been with me for 32 years. I saw Keith Emerson was using one and so I set about getting one. It didn’t take long for me to find one. 

My good friend Roger Parsons of the Music Station in Swansea had one and it had my name on it. 

So From day one - it was mine. 

It would grace pretty much every show and recording I did from that point onwards. 

To all Mal Pope and the Jacks band members, presets were affectionately named and my “ Sad Pad 67” became a term often heard in our recording sessions. 

The JD has been to Russia, across Germany, France, top of a ski jumping resort, The Netherlands/Denmark and most of Europe, to Canada and in modes of transport such as Car, Train, Boat, Aeroplane, Van, Tour bus, Tour trucks, helicopter, military plane, golf carts, forklift, physically carried across canals, bridges, football and rugby pitches and it lived to tell the tale. 

It has had ceiling tiles collapse upon it, fallen 8ft or so off a stage, endured freezing Baltic temperatures, Got caught in a Georgian hurricane during an outdoor gig, been subjected to 40 degree heat, had fake snow cover it, 

Had fake paper snow inside it, been a support for countless cuddly toys, had its inners stripped and splayed out over the entire floor, all its patches converted to SYS EX( midi information in code) and transmitted into the Roland cloud software version of the JD800( for which, it doesn’t sound close to) and dumped into my JD990 module, which was kindly donated to me by my great friend and band member/ guitarist/engineer extraordinaire Tim Hamill. 

At Various times, keys would snap or the Modulation bender would need to be replaced. Sometimes it would have moments where I’d use my full force to entice a hint of vibrato out of it with aftertouch. 

Back in 2013 I was contacted by Roland UK to tell me it needed a new keybed as they had discovered the red glue that was used to seat the metal strips under the keys to add weight to the keyboard had started to fail. 

Peoples JD’s would sit in a flight case or at home and when it got warmer, the glue would melt and then seep between the keys, and then harden. 

So the next time you went to play it, the keys wouldn’t move. 

They were stuck together and to the frame. It was like playing a kitchen work surface. 

Roland offered a free replacement, which I accepted. Thanks Roland. 

At The Royal Albert Hall 2014 with Mr Rick Wakeman.

One such conversation with the great Rick Wakeman took place during “ Celebrating Jon Lord” concert whilst in the final rehearsals at the Royal Albert Hall in April 2014. I suggested to  Rick to get in touch with Roland to get his JD keyboard replaced. Hopefully he did. 

2017 and my JD started to develop an issue where there was no output during the London Palladium show soundcheck with Chris de Burgh. 

Ian Lloyd Bisley our faithful and lovely tour manager plus my brilliant  keyboard tech Jan Wendeler found another in London and they cabbed it across the city to grab it for the show. 

And then there were two JDs. 

Lucerne 2019

So in 2019 my JD developed an issue again. This time with the power supply so Jan and I started to replace bits on my JD800 from a donor JD. 

It was resembling “ Trigger’s broom”. 

We toured in 2019 from September to December the Chris de Burgh “ classic Albums” tour. 

The Royal Lager Hall 2019

Little did we know the pandemic was about to encapsulate the world and halt everything in its tracks. 

The JD was left in the lock up until 2022 where we embarked upon the CdeB tour rehearsals. We then discovered my JD had one note malfunctioning and sadly with all our trying and fault finding, it didn’t work. 

I had to reside myself to the fact that this was possible - the end of an era. I searched and searched for answers. The JD has remained in its flight case until last December where upon after numerous conversations with Guy Wilkinson, I eventually took my JD800 up to him. 

He had design and been 3D printing the Printed circuit boards ( PCBs) for the JD keyboard. 

He stripped my JD and Keybed and then installed his beautiful new PCB and as Tommy Cooper famously said “ just like that”, my baby came back to life. It was alive. It was such a wonderful moment. 

So, I am ever grateful to Guy for breathing new life into this legend. 

This is Guy Wilkinson's PCB replacement for the JD800. Class Work.

Some People talk of Analog and they focus and fixate on “ analog” like it is more important than anything in the whole world when in fact, they should focus on the music. The instruments are tools. This whole analog/ digital  thing is utter bollocks. Yes Tape and analog is warmer than Digital computer recordings and sounds  but time moves on. It’s 2024 and gone are your 1980s. That’s 40 years or more ago. 

As some say 

“ Garbage in, Garbage out”. 

It’s what you do either it and most people actually don’t care to be frank. 

The JD800 isn’t a classic analog synthesizer like the MiniMoog, a Yamaha CS80, or the Prophet 5 or the ARP2600, it was PCM short sample based waveforms… but sounded somewhere between the Roland JX3p and the D50 but for me, it is a classic. 

Thanks to Guy Wilkinson once again. His work is incredible and I’m so glad to have found a witch doctor of Synths. Keep an eye out for his work.  

Thanks to all those who have helped carry, marveled at, butchered, leaned against, allowed my contributions with, dropped, breathed on, spat upon, cried upon, kissed and carried my JD. 

I thank you all. 

 

Nothing Compares to the JD keyboard wise and if I were to keep just one synth, I’m afraid the JD wins hands down. I know it so well. 

See more: 

www.nigelhopkinsmusic.com

nigelhopkins.bandcamp.com

www.facebook.com/NigelHopkinsMusicFanpage

Guy Wilkinson - Super Synth Projects main page. 

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Roland JD-800 SE Especial Edition - A rare Brazilian exclusive version

JD-800 SE. This is mine. 

What is the JD-800 SE? 

As a JD-800 lover, maybe you perceive I really love this synth, I was after this for a long, long, long time. To be clear, since 2002 when I got the JD-800 and created this site. 

In short, the JD-800 SE is a Brazilian edition with the Strings Card plus exclusive patches but the same original factory presets. 

In practice, the JD-800 SE included all 5 cards. 

In the early 1991-92 years, people from Roland's Brazil asked for a group of very experimented Brazilian musicians to help create new patches for the JD-800. 

This version received an entirely new set of patches that were not included in the factory presets. 

But this was a problem too because almost all users forgot to save the internal memory into a memory card (not included), so those patches become lost for a long time. 

So, if you have a JD-800 SE and restore factory presents, you will lose the SE version patches! This happened to most of them sadly. 

My first contact with the JD-800 SE was in 2005 with Elberto Ronald Manske who had a very nice studio and with all cards.  

After nearly two decades, I found someone who still has the patches saved plus the original prints included with that special model. 

And yes, I have the JD-800 SE, but I was after such patches for a long time, and still, sadly I do have not the String Card (a really fantastic one). 

The new patches were created due to the great work of: 

• Eric Persing
• Adrian Scott
• Paulot Roberto T. A. de Oliveira
• Lucas K. Shirahata
• Carlos Alberto F. Merussi (Pardal)

The patches: 

After finding this, I commented in local groups and then another colleague made a simple video about it, and for sure the JD-800 SE deserves a better one, but he has not the String Cards and his machine sadly is in bad shape, using another keyboard as a controller. 

The original credits to these great guys:

On this page below you can download this rare set of patches. Copyright @Roland Co. 

Software and Patches

Also, watch this video made after we got the material to get a very simple idea. Tiago is using a controller without the Strings Card.

Anyways, no matter who made what, I give thanks to this beloved great friend who gifted me with the original material after decades so we solved the mystery of the JD-800 SE! 

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Again the Gandalf in a great performance!

This is the famous Gandalf The White - The Roland JD-800 Custom White Synth.

It is really a nice white custom mod by Customsynth.
So, another great performance with it and its great sound! 

Turn up the volume!

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And here with other great synths:

 

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Making the Gandalf, The White

Dave and Randel with the White and the Grey.

Making the Gandalf, The White

This beautiful custom JD-800 became probably the most famous JD-800 in the world!
And I found some of the making photos posted by hamsterdunce at Flickr.

Here is the album description:

"Jeff Toman of Customsynth.co.uk artistically created beautiful new all-white look for my Roland JD-800, in the style of a classic '80s SH-101 synth. The logo was altered to match the style. It's a perfect way to go, since the faders are identical to the ones used on the SH. This set follows my work this afternoon at my friend Randel's synth barn in Essex, CT, as we add the custom parts onto an otherwise stock synth."

The complete album is at Flickr album: JD-800 Custom White Synth.




Here, are just some photos to tease:

Observe some personal texts at button's titles.

Enjoy!!!

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Playing the Gandalf

I don´t know if there is another Gandalf - The Roland JD-800 Custom White Synth.
It is really a nice white custom mod.
So, just see this:

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JD-800 Aftertouch Modification

Use the full range of aftertouch without straining your fingers.

DISCLAIMER:

This is a Mod to the JD-800 circuit. Do it at your own risk.

Photo: Gwydion Elderwyn

All JD-800 users knows we need to put a lot of pressure to use the aftertouch.

As someone sayd: one needs to stand on the keyboard to get an effect.

I took here the work of two great guys from the JD-800 Tech group. As I know, they had many messages about this work and here is the result with comments from both.

Preben Friis, synth lover an expert in electronics who explain how to do a simple mod to make the aftertouch become better, really light to play.

Gwydion Elderwyn, a guy who have great merits and a lovely work and story.

From now, I merge material from both and something more, including one or two words of mine.

---

The Idea:

Preben:

In basic, just change how the circuit "feel" the input value.

A 270 kOhm resistor across R27 will make it possible to use full range of aftertouch without straining your fingers.

R27 position.
Photo: Gwydion Elderwyn

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Please read all the comments before doing anything you will repent! (LOL)

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Researching:

I poked around with a multimeter on the aftertouch circuit today. The pressure
ribbon starts out at 150 kOhm and by full pressure it is around 1 kOhm...

Shunting the ribbon will make it possible to move the threshold to make it start
earlier but will not make it more sensitive.

Preben

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CAUTION:

This is a modification you can do inside the JD if you are comfortable with a soldering iron that makes the aftertouch much more responsive.

This mod might require to unsolder a SMD resistor ... not something for people with ten thumbs.

For sure you can ask an electronics technician to perform this modification.

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About opening the JD-800:

Removing all screws may do your internal components fall.

You must remove only the screws AROUND the bottom and two screws in the center line, they are at 1/4 from side, and may be you can see a few bigger hole where thy fit to.

Sometimes the bottom have some "dust" acting like glue to.

Photo: Gwydion Elderwyn

How to remove the panel.
JD-800 Manual. (click to enlarge)
Source: Roland Co.

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The Solution:

Original post: groups.yahoo.com/group/JD-800_Tech

Preben:

Thanks to Gwydion Elderwyn I received exactly what I needed to calculate and test a better modification of the aftertouch circuit in the JD-800.

The short version: 

Change resistor R27 to 120 kOhm instead of 220 kOhm. Done.

The long version:

Since SMD components are very difficult to remove, and I did not have any SMD components at hand, I chose to solder a 270 kOhm resistor parallel with R27. 

R27 is located on the mainboard in the left corner right by the ribbon cable to the keyboard.

The picture shows my "huge" resistor piggyback on R27. It is not very pretty, but it works! 

Image by: Preben Friis

 

Actually the picture shows a 100k resistor, which was the first one I tried, but that made the aftertouch sensitivity too light. I could easily press the aftertouch from 0 to 127 with my pinkie finger. The 270k resistor is in my opinion the best value. If I use my pinkie with this value it allmost hurts to press it to max. Feel free to experiment - Reasonable values are in the range from 100k to about 1M

Find a soldering iron with a very thin tip and add a little solder to the two pads on R27 first. Then cut and bend the legs of the new resistor to fit across it and add a little solder blob to the legs of it. Hold the new resistor in position with a set of pliers and touch the iron to the legs of the resistor. This should melt both solder blobs to one and the connection is made. Repeat for the other side.

The smaller the better: 

A 1/8W resistor would be preferred over a 1/4W. 

Smaller resistors have thinner legs and that makes them easier to solder to the SMD resistor.
(Acutally I'm currently using a 1/2W resistor and it is BIG!).


The tolerance does not matter much. You can use 220k or 180k if you really want to use the full aftertouch range when playing monofonic lines.
 

An alternate idea:

Marc (daemons_ca) also suggest using a trimmer instead of a fixed resistor:

What I'd like to do instead on this mod is replace the resistor by a lower value, cut the trace next to it and connect a 500Kohm trimmer pot with modding wire (26-28Awg) and have it adjustable. 

I imagine not every aftertouch ribbon has exactly the same value, so this would make it tweekable. Nice thing is if the value of the ribbon changes in time, all you have to do it open it up and adjust it a little. The fixed resistor is there as safeguard so the value doesnt go below a safe value and draws too much current.

Also, I would not connect a pot in parallel with the current value. The response of the pot would not be linear at all, and hard to adjust. 

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Another mod using the same idea:

See that was placed a wire connecting the potentiometer (at left) to position R27 in the circuit board.

Foto: Yuri Alfons Peeters Charlotte

Remember to power off before you solder anything... 

If you connect the resistor properly without shorting anything there is no risk involved in this modification. The current in the pressure ribbon will be double from around 40 uA to 80 uA, but those currents are still very far from anything that can destroy any components.

I can tell you, that a well adjusted aftertouch is almost like getting a new synth. Many of the factory sounds is way more fun to play around with, when you can change the sound by a light pressure. 
For example, try for instance patch I-22, Classic Sweeper .. 

Thanks again Gwydion Elderwyn, I couldn't have done this without your help :-)

Have fun.

Preben Friis

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The Circuit and the mods


Draw and commented by Gwydion Elderwyn.

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As we say here in Georgia, WEEEEEE HAAAAAA!

Thanks Preben!  This mod was easy and it works great!  I used the 270k and find the aftertouch to now be similar to my K2000.

Most excellent.  Kinda makes you wonder why Roland didn’t get it right in the first place.

Jim Combs
www.touchxtone.com

 

 .'.

Great modifications and maintenance: Roland JD-800 "Restyling"

Great modification and fantastic result!

Efrem, from Italy have done many improvements inside that make the Roland JD-800 more robust and easy to maintenance.

A great video from a synth lover.

He turned the Roland JD-800 in a module, removed the keybed and improved it.



(Video updated in 21, June 2017)

Click the link to watch the video at Youtube:  Roland JD-800 _ Modifiche hardware

 

The video show all parts he serviced. Very good ideas.

Pay atention to details and you will be surprised. I comment only a few.

Well, he removed the damaged keybed. here in the blog you will see another modification such like this. 

The headphones output in front make it easier.

The joystick was placed apart and it is on a temporary support.

The plastic over the card place is a great idea. Protect against contact with the flat cable and prevent also agaist dust.

I say dust? Oh my god! He made a total cleanup! Dust inside is the great problem of the JDs. 

Another great idea was to improve heat dissipation in the power source. 
The connectors are no longer soldiers which greatly facilitates maintenance.

Love to see all that. Thanks Efrem, our congratulations! 


UPDATE: This one is an update from him but due restrictions you need to click at the Youtube link to see it. 



 See also:

• JD-800 Pseudo-module 

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Roland JD-800 Custom Pseudo-module

Some interesting pictures at Flickr by Ran Kirlian.


A damaged Roland JD 800

It has the deadly keyboard glue problem that could be fixed by replacing the complete keyboard set.




Roland JD-800 modded #1

Roland JD-800 with keyboard glue issue being cut and converted into a light pseudo-module version. Still needing cleaning and case closed but works wel..

Complete customization process (in spanish) at celiar.blogspot.com. This is a must see work!






JD-801 Xpander prototype

Photoshoped prototype of my upcomming JD 800 mod project (how it should look like).

The lost bender & volume controls that uses to be placed at the left of the keyboard will be moved to a external control box.

This picture only meants to be a sketch of the mod. I will post real pictures when it's done.



Interesting, uhm?

See also:

• Great modifications and maintenance: Roland JD-800 "Restyling" 

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From MATRIXSYNTH: Roland JD-800 in Fancy Dress

Another beautifull modified JD like a SCI Prophet-VS.

I found this at MATRIXSYNTH: Roland JD-800 in Fancy Dress. That´s a nice blog to everyone who love synths or are ready fall in love.

This was done by Customsynth.co.uk, the same company who made the "Gandalf , The White".


Edited:  More from this nice machine!



The nice people from Customsynth have more pics at flickr too.

See this and the Yellow one! It's a Waldorf and Lamborghini style!

 Click the link to the Flick album with all pics:

Customsynth at Flickr


Thanks for the great work! 

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Gandalf - The Roland JD-800 Custom White Synth

This is a very nice customization.

Jeff Toman of Customsynth.co.uk artistically created a beautiful new all-white look for Dave´s Roland JD-800, in the style of a classic '80s SH-101 synth.

You can see it at Dave´s site.

Also see the 29-image Flickr set showing Randel's synth barn in Essex, CT, adding custom parts onto an otherwise stock synth..


There´s a video of the Gandalf in action: a must see!

And here is Gandalf, The White:

 

And the studio: