Stolen E-Mu XL-7 Command Station w/ four ROM's
2006-08-01 by mhschmieder
My E-Mu XL-7 Command Station was also stolen from my North Oakland CA apartment the day before I was scheduled to start moving to North Concord CA. I did not notice until last night because it was smaller and yet not small enough to be in a moving box. This brings my total loss up to $4000, plus the inconsequential stolen CD's and the disturbing theft of tax records. I know who did it (for lots of reasons, including other crimes with witnesses that same week), as it was a neighbour who had developed huge crack debts (had I known this, I would have moved sooner!), but as that is all circumstantial the police could not intervene. There were no outward signs that I was about to move so it was an inside job. This posting is unlikely to prevent the synth's sale as stolen equipment, so unfortunately will likely only have the effect of causing heartbreak to whoever bought it or buys it in the future. I apologise for that. For better or for worse though, the law does not protect unwitting buyers of stolen equipment. I personally would agree to reach a settlement with such a person though. The synth was stored in a black vinyl bag from Gator, with the Gator logo on the bag. My recollection is that it was 23" wide by 15" high and 5" deep. Its manual is still in my possession (it was stored separately). At the time of the robbery, it very likely had a black velcrow cable tie from Leo's Pro Audio in Oakland CA, for the power cable. Either the 1/2" wide unmarked tie, or the 1" wide with Leo's logo. I have contacted the eBay seller of the XL-7, in hopes that he has S/N records (my S/N records were stolen as they were part of my tax records). Hopefully I will find the S/N inside the cover to the manual (which at this point in time is packed in one of many boxes -- all unlabeled so as to not advertise to the thief should he have returned during the move). In the meantime, though I didn't dare list these details on Craigslist as it gets a huge audience of would-be thieves rather than the focused audience of this forum (yes, we get the occasional nutcase in the unregistered part of the forum, but I doubt that hundreds of thieves are monitoring this site each day as with Craigslist), the best identifying feature in lieu of a serial number (or if the S/N gets scratched out later) is that I had the actual XL ROM removed pre-sale and replaced with four ROM's of my choice: Techno Synth Construction Yard; World Expedition; Proteus123; and Ensoniq Project. The thief would have no way of knowing and would probably be selling it as a single-ROM vanilla XL-7. This item was not insured. I learned several years ago that renter's insurance does not cover musical equipment, so dropped it (I found this out the hard way during a robbery at that time). Luxury insurance is too expensive compared to the devluation rate of the equipment. I was going to look into those newer musician-specific insurance policies RIGHT after moving. Murphy's Law? I have just joined this forum for the posting of the theft and am too busy with the move and the followup police reports to track the forum at the moment, so sending a private email is preferable (should you come upon any useful information). If this synth is returned to me, I will become a participatory member, so I hope no one would consider it inappropriate for me to post this here, but I figure a likely buyer may wind up here eventually.