Goodbye MC-505, Hello MC-808

I purchased a Roland MC-505 Groovebox nearly 7 years ago. It soon became the heart of my sonic arsenal due to its useability features, just check out the number of controllers, knobs, sliders, and buttons galore, not forgetting of course the D-Beam infrared control.

One weekend a few buttons rendered useless, then on another power up these buttons worked :) only to find that a further 9 didn't :(

I decided to look under the hood, and was shocked to find that the inside was pitted with rust! This rust was clearly well established as it wasn't limited to the surface, nor was it due to environmental conditions. Around these spots of rust were scuff marks and loss of sheen to the metal, which suggested signs of cleaning off surface rust prior to forming/assembly.

I recently contacted the MD of Roland UK via letter to explain the above, and fully appreciated that the warranty had well expired, and that they aren't a charity but under the circumstances at least I could expect was a replacent base unit and repair as a gesture of goodwill. Well, I received a phone call from the Customer Services Manager earlier this week and was elated to find out that they was prepared to done one better and offered either a free of charge repair which would take over 6 weeks as a replacement base would have to be obtained from Japan, or I could be the proud owner of their brand new MC-808 Sampling Groovebox with the usual warranty attached. Guess what I'm getting on Tuesday? A brand spanking new free of charge MC-808 \o/ Can't wait! :)