A double walled Trek bicycle box is found for free at most bike shops if you ask. These will fit most 88 key synths.

MonoMachine?

get a tempurature controled iron. Watch it though, many cheap soldering stations are POWER controled - like running the irons power thru a light-dimmer. The temp still goes down when you touch a joint, and up when at rest. You (IMHO) want an iron with a built-in temp sensor that modulates the power...

I just paid twice that for my EII+. It was totally worth it.

I wonder if that USB-MIDI is also MIDI IN. It would be so nice to use the c-thru axis 49 controller without a computer!

I use song mode.

I think I'm getting an emulator II this week.

De-evolve to Cro-magnon for a while.

I brought a synth to the city once. the guy upstairs told me to shut up.

A scope and a counter are a must.

Motu in Cambridge has summer interns.

I don't remember there being a trimmer for the pitch bend. Have you checked the resistance from center to both legs of the bend pot? I'd guess the center pin on the pot should send volt per octave.

I don't care much myself, but a lot of people are pretty pissed they made them in the first place. Classic synths are much harder to fix if you can't source the parts and they cost a fortune. No one will make more chips, so every module is one less 101, MKS-80 etc for the next generation. A lot of o...

Not sure I understand. The PCB is directly under the keys. If you shine a flashlight between the keys you can see the traces.

I owned a 101 with the same exact issue. I doubt that just cleaning the PCB would repair it and you'll probably have to solder a jumper cable. Don't be afraid to DIY, you'll need a multimeter and a soldering iron and some thin wire. Check what trace doesn't pass the continuity test on the multimeter...

I had an SK-30 for a while. It was cool, but not that cool. It was big, but definitely didn't weigh the 90 lbs that VSE claims. The mono synth and strings sucked, but the organ was ok. I sold it for $250 about 3 years back and haven't missed it. Seems cheap in retrospect, but I had a hard time selli...

The oscillators use an IC which is very difficult to source, so be sure there's no issues in any of the 4. The key contacts are pretty easy to fix yourself. I agree that $800 is a lot of money for one with issues.