I have a RY30 and even if I didn’t get to use it very much, I’ve always found it very capable in terms of sound-design. As Kalimari pointed out it can be used as a chromatically playable (poly? if I remember correctly) -synth.
One of the reason I bought it back then is that is reasonably easy to do some circuit-bending on it…
Didn’t know about those cards…can you store your own samples on them? That could be really neat…if so I hope they return available at some point!
Looks like it’s just patch storage. Bummer. If it could hold custom 8-bit waveforms it would be an excuse not to sell my SY 
Rats. I loved the TG-33 (Ipre-ordered it when it was announced) and have owned a few of them. I don’t have one now, but that would have put it back in my studio in a hurry. Still thinking the RY-30 might make a nice companion to the old RX7, though…
Just picked up this for peanuts because the battery needed changing and the pads “didn’t work” - turns out a flat battery wipes the pad assignments, so you can just do a factory reset and it’ll all come back. Something to keep in mind if you’re looking to get one for cheap!
Plans for this weekend are to solder on a new battery, clean off all the stickers and see if I can get one iffy button (right arrow) to wake up.
Cracked it open, swapped out the battery, cleaned all the contacts. Still got one button playing up though - can anyone recommend anything to restore the conductivity of the pad?
I know some graphite drawn on from a pencil can help to build new contacts if they are fading… probably a short term solution though.
If that machine has that type of contact (I’m not familiar) then that totally works…for a while. It’s how I’ve kept my mmt8 going all these years. It’ll just end up being a periodic maintenance type of fix.
Interesting. Does it last long term as a fix?
I’ve wanted one of these for years. Back in the '90s I knew people writing entire albums with this and a keyboard. They used the RY as their sequencer and drum machine, obviously, and everything was 2 tracked to a DAT.
Great, I’ll give that a shot. Do you know if there’s anywhere to get it in Aus?
I only applied it around 6 months ago but it seems fine so far.
Not sure, I’m in Melbourne but was given some by a friend to fix his keyboard, so I’m not sure where he got it from.
Could be worth looking at Jaycar for a similar compound.
Autechre’s “We R Are Why” EP was made entirely on RY30
edit: oh wait someone else already mentioned it, of course 
Yeah there seem to be a few similar things for rubber membrane keypads floating around, I’ll give one a crack! Though there’s already another (expensive) RY at swop shop that I’m eyeing off for spares…
I owned one with a couple of expansion cards for quite a few years… bought from the mum of the one of the ‘Sonic Animation’ (Aussie 90s techno pop band) members for about $100. She also gave me one of her sons cd’s which I still have. Think I sold it after finally getting a machinedrum around 2010. Silly but what else do you do with dusty gear in corners. I remember preferring the Roland R8 sounds and sequencer but the ry30 had a lot more editing power. I also remember a couple of the buttons being rebellious here and there. Wasn’t a huge fan of the Yamaha editing back then but the recordable mod wheel function was way ahead of its time for 1991.
Yeah, it’s definitely a bit clunky to edit (especially with the funky cursor key on mine) but I think I’ve been spoiled by the Elektron thing of being able to edit anything you want while the sequencer is running. Looking forward to diving into it properly.
Little update - after struggling with various keypad repair goops to get the dead button working it turns out the culprit was a cold solder joint on the control board. Reflowed the joint with some fresh solder and it’s working good as new. Great and super weird machine. Has anyone tried loading their own samples with the Waveblade?
