Rough gig - keyboard fail

[J. Dan]

Both the main outputs and headphone output all went out on my Fusion early in the first set. It's my main keyboard and has most of the parts I play as well as any sequences and samples. I limped through the set doing all I could on the lower keyboard (a triton classic). The menu button wasn't working on that, so all I could really use was presets.

 

I did a bunch of editing on break for the next set. The Aux outputs were working - I already use one of them for click. Problem is, effects aren't routed to Aux, and the volume knob has no effect. On second set, some songs I reassigned parts to Aux, others I wrote down atch numbers on the triton. I toggled between patch and combo mode on the Triton to quickly toggle between 2 patches. Some parts on the fusion were blisteringly loud with no way to turn them down except identify which part it was, hit edit, go to that part, hit output, and adjust the level. If it's a layered sound, have to do that in each part - all while playing.

 

After an extremely rough second set, I was getting better at th editing and managed to pull things together during the next break for the 3rd set.

 

So - 2 more gigs this weekend. My line of attack:

 

1) find either a SPDIF to analog converter, or USB audio interface with SPDIF and analog or my laptop, and try the SPDIF output on the fusion

2) pull my other fusion out of storage (which was my original that I replaced because it was continually power cycling), pull the I/O card out of it and put it in this fusion

3). Continue trying to work around using the Aux output and alternate triton patches

 

Really need a new rig - no Kronos, PC3K, or Jupiter 80 (my choices) to audition anywhere near here. Maybe I'll be driving to Chicago Monday.

[timwat]

That sucks, Dan. Sounds like a recurring nightmare I have that wakes me in a cold sweat. Sorry to hear it, and that you'll have to limp through 2 more gigs with it in that shape.

 

For whatever it's worth (not much, I know), I am totally knocked out by the synths in the Kronos. While lots of folks are deservedly raving about the EPs and the APs, I think the synths are magnificent.

 

Have no idea if they'd suit the demands you have, but between the PC3 and the Kronos (I have both), right now I'm feeling the Kronos love.

[CEB]

That does suck and it also disheartens me. I was in hopes to drive to St. Louis to audition keyboards but it sound like I may have to make the longer drive to Chicago.

 

The performance will go well this weekend it is the man and not the machine the people love. It is just going to be really inconvenient.

 

 

[DanL]

Yuck! It's one thing to have a board go down on a piano and organ gig, but to have your main board go down when you need it for so many song specific setups is a nightmare!

[Joe Muscara]

You'd think with all the money you make on this gig, you'd have new gear or gear that was in better shape.

 

Seriously, sorry to hear that and good luck with the upcoming gigs. It sounds like you've got it mostly covered.

[J. Dan]

You'd think with all the money you make on this gig, you'd have new gear or gear that was in better shape.

 

Well, that's why I initially bought 2 fusions, and I'll likely buy 2 of whatever my new rig is. I just hate buying something I've never laid eyes, hands, or ears on when it'll likely be my main rig for the next 5 or more years. I suppose I could buy all 3 and return the 2 I don't want.

[J. Dan]

Also - I really wanted a 76 or 73 key board and use my ax-7 for the top tier with the ability to strap it on and go nuts with wireless MIDI. My current setup is 61 keys on top and 76 on bottom - I use all of it because of all the zones I set up so I don't have o switch patches during a song. However, depending on the arrangement of the workstation, that may be less necessary (a la Jupiter 80 registers, or Kronos setlist). But predicting how much real estate I'll need without laying my hands on one is difficult. If I went Kronos 61, I'd be reducing my real estate by a whole octave each on top and bottom. OTOH, is the Kronos 73 even out yet? And if it is, I'm worried that the action would be too heavy for all the synth and organ stuff. And btw, local music stores no longer have the M3 or SV1 for me to compare actions either.

 

When I bought my fusion, I was too far into it before I found all the bugs and shortcomings, but found workarounds and modified my whole process to make the most of it. I promised myself I'd dig deeper before I went with my next rig. Well, here I am, and it looks like I'll just have to order something mail order, commit to it no matter the consequences, and just make it work. Probably just order a Kronos 61 and use th ax7 with it, and once it's all setup and gigged for a couple months with no issues, but a duplicate backup rig. Sucks, I'd much rather be able to make a qualified, informed purchase. But whatever. I'll make it work one way or another. It's gotta be better than dealing with crap like last night.

[Dave Pierce]

Wow, sorry to hear that Dan. Gear problems suck, total buzz-kill for the gig.

 

Hang in there, it will get better soon!

 

--Dave

 

[J. Dan]

Relating to my temporary fix - it doesn't look like they make any standalone SPDIF to analog converters anymore (I think Flying Cow used to have a simple one). So looks like maybe the tascam USB audio interface with SPDIF and analog I/O and a laptop. Hopefully I can make it work with my daughter's netbook, or I'll have to use my work laptop (which I really shouldn't use for thus). Should just be simple: route SPDIF in to analog out - hopefully with a min of latency. Seems overkill - a laptop to get a signal out of my keyboard, but whatever works (if it works - haven't tried yet). Have the kids (2-1/2 and 6) in tow, which doesn't help.

[Joe Muscara]

Of course, I was just giving you a hard time.

 

Does the boot time of the Kronos concern you, or are you already using some sort of battery backup?

[J. Dan]

Of course, I was just giving you a hard time.

 

Does the boot time of the Kronos concern you, or are you already using some sort of battery backup?

 

Big time! I'll buy a UPS with it if I go that route - and tape the shit out of the power cord.

[Jim Alfredson]

Have you looked at the Motif XF7? Seems like it would do everything you want.

[KeyMoe]

OTOH, is the Kronos 73 even out yet......

 

Yes, I have the Kronos 73 and action is similar to the SV1. not great for synth and organ licks but good for the pianos. The keyboard does sound great, although I also wish it had synth action on the 73 key version.....

[BP3]

Get the Jupiter 80. If even has 80 in the name.

[J. Dan]

Have you looked at the Motif XF7? Seems like it would do everything you want.

 

Doesn't have VA does it? That's what I use most.

 

 

 

Update - I picked up the M Audio fast track pro (the store told me there are reports of glitches/latency with the tascam), installed with ableton live lite on my work laptop, managed to set up SPDIF in routed to line out, tested with the SPDIF output from my desktop. Don't know why I didn't freaking bring my keyboard home to test it here - it's at the casino, wasn't thinking. No time to run up there now - trying to get the babysitter here earlier. Gonna bring the I/O card I pulled out of my other fusion when I replaced it (had one bad main out, but the other worked) as I didn't have time to run by storage. Everything takes longer with kids

 

So keep your fingers crossed.

 

 

Oh, and one thing I didn't even think about until I got home: my work laptop is win 7 64bit. The protools m-powered demo didn't work for it, no win7 drivers on the cd. Luckily live works, and win7 64 bit drivers were available from the web site. The other glitch - could not see SPDIF coming in until I switched to ASIO.

[Bill H.]

If you're looking for something you should be able to find for under $1000 that has both VA and sampling, I'd suggest a used V-Synth. SPDIF and USB sample file transfer, and a VA that's so easy to use that you won't even have to crack the manual.

 

A Jupiter 80 in an 80's band would be pretty compelling though - both visually and sonically. There's still none in the PDX area for me to drool over...

[Jim Alfredson]

The Motif does not have a separate VA engine, no. It's all the same engine, with some VCM effects and such thrown in (Yamaha's term for modeling). But when I played with one a few times at GC, there were TONS of classic analog style sounds in the presets. I think it could handle those types of sounds easily. Plus with 2GB of Flash RAM you could have all your samples ready to go with no loading time.

 

Might be worth a look. The interface will undoubtedly be much different than the Fusion, but that's true of pretty much everything.

 

V-synth might be a good idea, too. They are very cool synths.

[J. Dan]

Update (from my blackberry). At the gig and seems to be working - start in 20min. Had to play with power and sleep settings. Initially closing the lid of the laptop stopped audio and required a restart. Seems to be good now. I'll update after the gig.

 

[Cadmann]

Good luck!! This thread has been a dramatic read. I look forward to a (hopefully) uneventful conclusion shortly.

[_Maximus_]

when kb's fail it sucks on so many levels, because it usually means something really bad happened and depending on the severity of it it will put that piece of gear out of commission.

[J. Dan]

Good night! I set the gains in ableton so that the knob position on the fast track matched the position that my keyboard volume usually is. So when I need to make adjustments, it pretty well matched up to what I'm used to. After a few songs I had adjusted and was comfortable getting into the performance like usual - a far cry from last night. Of course all the bachelorette parties that showed up dressed in 80s attire didn't hurt!

 

A couple things:

1) I set the interface on my keyboard so I could reach the volume, but due to the USB cable length, it was on my right and needs to be on my left - gonna bring a longer USB cable tomorro.

 

2) occasionally, latency was noticeable. Ableton said there was 8.9mS, which I wouldn't think I'd notice, but then again, if that's in AND out - close to 20mS would for sure be noticeable. Since the click was still coming out the analog Aux out, on a couple sequences it was pretty noticeable. In particular, I have the tambourine loop going for Walk Like an Egyptian. The click was noticeably ahead of the loop. May have to pay with the buffer and see if I can reduce that.

 

So this was a nice workaround to get through the weekend. I'll replace the I/O board Monday and expedite my decision on a replacement rig. As my thoughts congeal, I'll probably start a new thread asking some specific questions of owners of my potential replacements.

[J. Dan]

Ok, a little odd, but the same settings, it was a little quieter tonight. I upped the gain in ableton and ran the vol knob a little hotter. Either way doesn't matter afterbi replace my I/O board, but that was surprising to me!

[stillplaying]

Just logged on and saw this.

 

Ouch.

 

Did Yazoo make it as far as the states? Vince Clark and Alison Moyet. They did Belfast and his whole rig went down. After a few minutes they said they could do a refund or continue with him on guitar.

 

Strummed his way through the lot.

 

Maybe it was his Erasure project, too long ago.

 

Not suggesting you get a Takamine instead of that Jupiter 80 though - I want at least one person I know to own one, even if I only know you on here.

 

Roland have gone to all that trouble ...

[Analogaddict]

Ouch indeed..! :-/ I'm just getting started with programming my Kronos, but I'm pretty sure you'd be happy with one. the VA engines sound great and are easy to use. Is the Fusion VA patch compatible with the Micron/Ion/Miniak series? In that case, you could sysex your most important sounds over to one of those.

 

I recently bought a Sonic Cell for travelling, but I'm thinking of programming it as a backup for my entire rig. Since you and I rely so heavily on sounds, having double backup plans may be a good idea, and the SC sounds great and is compact. Just a suggestion. I hope it all works out for you!

[J. Dan]

The fusion has no sysex AFAIK. I plan on redoing everything from scratch, which I've had to do every time I've changed rigs - which is why I hate doing it, and have held onto this one beyond its useful life.

 

Regarding backups, my last rig was kind of similar to what you describe in concept, but with much more outdated gear. I used an A70 contoller and a sound canvas on top, and a Jupiter 6 through. Boss SE-50 on bottom. An Alesis data disk handled all the patch changes and sound edits, splits, layers, etc in the sound canvas. I had a pile of sound canvases and keyboards I could use as controllers, a spare data disk, and the setups were saved on my computer. However, I couldnt do ANYTHING on the fly - it all had to be painstakingly set up at home. Plus no sampling and the sounds were limited (though I squeezed some pretty good sounds out of that thing through deep editing and layering).

 

Since then, my strategy has been give me something I can work effectively on and get around easily on the fly if need be, and just buy multiples so I always have a backup. Granted, I'm not going to bring 2 rigs to every gig, but for local gigs, home is usually 20-30 min away. The only down side to what I want to do with my next rig, is I wouldn't have a second board with sounds to limp through to the end of a set. But we have enough songs that I play guitar and/or sing on, that we could shuffle the list around. When my last fusion crapped out during a set, I called a buddy who swung by the house and picked up my spare and had it to me before the end of the set.

 

 

Btw - that poses a good question.... Every time I made a change on the fusion, I'd back up the HD on my pc and CF card. I kept the CF card with me so I could dump my setup into ANY fusion.

 

So on the 3 boards I'm looking at- Kronos, Jupiter 80, PC3K - how easy is it to backup and restore on another board?

[MoodyBluesKeys]

Can't speak for the other two, but my PC3X and PC3 are synchronized when I make changes. (The PC3K would work the same way, except a USB thumb drive instead of an xD card). After getting all programs, setups, songs, etc. like I want them, I make an "everything" backup from the keyboard to the memory card. Time to make the backup depends on how many user objects there are, but is typically about 2 minutes for my present setup, give it 5 minutes if one has changed a LOT of stuff.

 

I can take the xD card, plug it into ANY other PC3 or PC3X (as long as they are running the same version of OS - which can also be kept on the memory card if you were going to load a backline PC3 somewhere) - and do the complete "everything" restore in about the same amount of time it took for the backup.

 

I also copy the contents of the xD card onto a computer for backup storage (and the computer could be used through USB to reload a PC3). The process is very easy.

 

[J. Dan]

I've ruled out the PC3K and Jupiter 80 and am just trying to decide between Kronos 61 or 73. Started a new thread Here

[Steve Force]

FWIW isn't it cheaper to just get another Fusion?

[J. Dan]

FWIW isn't it cheaper to just get another Fusion?

 

They're getting hard to find, and I've struggled with issues on this thing since day one. I've gone through 2 with repairs to both, including new I/O boards, replacement display backlight, and my other one doesn't work currently.. During that same time, my 2nd board has been a triton classic that was used and obsolete when I bought it. On that board, only in the last year did I break a key and the menu button stopped working.

 

I need something more reliable for the gigs we do. Just to recap - initially I was looking at M3+ radius, but I really didn't like the idea of having to pre load from memory stick. Then the PC3K was introduced and I thought that would be my board when they released the 76-key. While waiting, the Kronos came out. Still no PC3k7, so it's a no-brainer.

[Steve Force]

Cool.