I'm using a Roland D50 as my master keyboard and recently one of the black keys has started to only give a 127 velocity value. It happen all of a sudden in a studio environment, so my guess is that some component inside died, but that could be wrong. I don't know at all how the velocity values are captured. Anyone knows what this could be?

Tom,
This is a common happening with older Roland keys. The velocity is measured by the striking of two raised bumps on a rubber contact.(Under the key)The "quickness" of how the bumps are hit determines the velocity. As these contacts wear, the velocity reading becomes erratic, and eventually becomes "all or nothing". You can clean the contacts and get some short releif from the problem, but they need to be replaced. The high traffic areas are the first to be affected, of course. Mt guess is that someone hits that black key very hard, and often!

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Uncle Dave

I too have a D-50, and "Uncle Dave" is quite correct about it being a common problem.
Good news is the contact strips are reasonably cheep.
A full set of contacts from Roland is about 15(UKP).

Thanks! It's good to know it's fixable. One more problem, since we're talking about D50s. Does anyone know if it is possible to get a new EPROM from Roland? My synth has been modified, and is buggy with velocity and memory problems, and I would be happy to have it back in its original state.