#dr220a

After I got the DR-220E, I saw this DR-220A on the auction for ¥2,000 being sold as 'junk' and thought what the hell, why not? I cleaned the leaked battery juice off the E, probably just another case of the same but more of it. Boy was I wrong...

I immediately knew I was in for a bad trip when I opened the battery compartment and was met with that. I plugged in a wall wart and turned it on but no luck, it was dead as fuck. So I opened it up to see how far the corrosion had gone.

There's the reverse side of the battery terminals in the second picture. If you look at the resistors on the left side, you can see corrosion. How far HAD the corrosion crept?

All the way through the traces on the PCB to the main IC. And see those down arrows? The corrosion had all but eaten the screws that used to be there. Holy fuck! It was the worst case of battery corrosion gone buck wild that I have ever seen. And the smell? Oof. I still haven't thrown it in the trash. Some silly part of me is like but but but maybe something can be salvaged? NOPE. The freakin traces on the PCB were BLACK. The corrosion had grown up out of the solder spots like a fungus or slime mold. Gnarly shit man!

I dunno if I posted this previously. I wanted one of these for ages. Saw one on Mercari (flea market app) for a reasonable price so I bought it. Fun synth. I saw someone on schmootube referred to it as the iSynth. Heh. Not quite up to the Apple design aesthetic methinks.

Got a few Aira Compact machines, a pair of S-1s and a T-8. Stuck knob caps from Thonk on 'em and they look and feel nicer now. S-1 is basically a 2020's MC-202 on steroids. T-8 is fun for what it is. The size and fun factor are big scorers here. They sound great as well.

Picked this up off the auction just to play some short C-64 voice synthesizer samples live in a gig I got coming up. Not sure how I feel about this thing. It'll do what I need it to so that's all I can ask I guess.

The Drum Mint!!! What a wee weirdo! Fun little shit. I can't believe people are baking shit like this up in their free time. Maniacs! Sounds ghetto as hell. Right up my alley.