Wow, was it almost a year and a half ago I did my last entry about this? Time flies!!!
Well, I removed my Poly-61 from a table I have kept it on while working on it and put my Matrix-6 there instead and plugged it in just to see how it was doing.
I noticed all the keys were still working, except two, which I think I knew about but forgot. Good news at least that they're not getting worse again like on the Poly-61...
Also, I took the opportunity to install the two replacement keys I ordered from http://sounddoctorin.com/synthtec/parts/key.htm. They are actually Korg Lambda keys which lack a small tab that pushes the rubber contact down but Bob kindly glued some wooden piece there instead and they seem to work just fine! :)
Switch discovery
I played through some of the patches and got reminded of something. I have always thought the panel buttons are of some horrible hard-to-find membrane type and if they go bad I'd have to replace the whole thing. But now I recall hearing that they are just regular switches underneath that flat surface. Intrigued, I decided to take a look, and indeed!
It's the exact same ones that I used on the Poly-61! They are very common and can be found today still without problem. However, my local suppliers didn't seem to have any, except ELFA, who charge a fortune for shipping. So, I turned to http://www.vintageplanet.nl/ and told Senso (the very nice guy who runs it) about my findings!
A week ago he didn't offer a replacement set for the switches, but now he does! Thanks to me, hehe ;) Old news for some I bet, but not for me, so I'm happy! :)
Well.. I'll have to see if they really are the same but we were both pretty sure they were. Anyway, they are on their way here!
Weird thing happening...
So, I was playing through all the patches. Ahh.. For some reason it sounds a lot better than the Matrix-1000. Yes, I know about the narrow vs wide 3396 stuff and I know the differences in the HF oscillators for the two. But I mean, having the sound coming out of the actual keyboard you're playing on instead of a module in the rack... There's something special about that :)
I was enjoying the patches and how well it was still working after not being used for over a year... when all of a sudden it went silent!
The keyboard didn't react when I played the keys.
The display was still showing the patch name but the little dots that indicate which voice is being triggered didn't show. Ahhh crap... Now what?
I had the screws already removed from when I checked the switches so I just opened the panel and tried to use the back of my hand to feel if there was any excessive heat radiating from somewhere, like voltage stabilizers frying or something, but nothing, no smell or anything... Strange.
I closed it and then I noticed an LED slowly blinking. It was the 4th one, or the right-most one under the display (the Protect/Value/Destination/etc..).
Hm? What's going on? And then.. it starts blinking faster... What's next? Boom?
Suddenly it stopped.
I tried pressing some keys on the keyboard, and it worked! As if nothing had happened...
What just happened?!
I couldn't find anything about this in neither the service manual nor owner's manual.
My thought is that it looked like a calibration procedure, but it's not like I accidently pressed "Master", "5", "2", "Button1", "Yes" in sequence while playing on the keyboard. Also, the display should read "CALIBRATING". This wasn't the case.
This was something else.
Is there an undocumented calibration procedure that can be triggered automatically if something really goes whacky with, say, the power supply.
It was obviously a controlled process, but what was it, and what triggered it?
My only guess is that there might be something flaky with the power supply. I measured it with a voltmeter but the voltages were off by only like 0.1-0.2V on both the +12V, -12V and +5V. I'll have to measure it again with a scope while playing some time. Perhaps it's also time for some recapping on this thing?
If anyone has read this and has a good explanation to what happened with the blinking LED I would be very happy to hear from you :)
No comments:
Post a Comment