I swear to GOD my RD800 is out of tune

[WesG]

I have been going back to basics and playing scales and arpeggios this week.

The bottom half octave of my RD800 sounds a good 60 cents sharp, and I keep thinking I missed my landing because of this.

Am I insane, or is there some psychoacoustic thing going on down there?

I know it's not *actually* the piano and rather my perception of it, but this is wacky.

And it's not stretch tuning, stretch tuning would have that flat, not sharp.

[timwat]

Is it possible you changed the temperament? 

Page 42 of the owner's manual details the different temperaments built into the RD800. I've made this mistake on one of my Kurzweils, and no sound good.

[nadroj]

When my kids are playing our home DP they sometimes accidentally press the combination of notes and buttons that detune the instrument. Drives me crazy if it's just a few cents out and I'm playing along with something. It's a really weird, convuluted process to do it too, so I've no idea how they manage it so often.

As Tim said, there may be a chance you've accidentally done it yourself. Or it could be a power thing - my old RD700 used to detune slightly if there was faulty power at a venue, or if there was an issue with the power cable. If resetting doesn't work though, probably ain't that.

[Delaware Dave]

10 hours ago, timwat said:

Is it possible you changed the temperament? 

Page 42 of the owner's manual details the different temperaments built into the RD800. I've made this mistake on one of my Kurzweils, and no sound good.

Sounds like this to me, check for equal temperment vs. 'stretch tuning'.

[Stokely]

Not sure that even has pitch bend, but I had a really weird thing happen recently with my Kurzweil PC3.  The reason it was really weird is that I was just using it as a controller, but I'd swear that I'd hear certain notes go slightly out of key with the software instruments.   The obvious culprits were pitch bend and aftertouch, and a quick look at the midi event list on a recorded track showed that random single pitch bend messages were flying out of the thing.   I'm guessing there is something "short-circuited" and playing the keyboard is causing the wheel to move slightly.  I'm not exactly sure how to disable it from coming out, but I did filter it from coming in to Logic Pro.

It was driving me batty.

[Delaware Dave]

17 minutes ago, Stokely said:

Not sure that even has pitch bend, but I had a really weird thing happen recently with my Kurzweil PC3.  The reason it was really weird is that I was just using it as a controller, but I'd swear that I'd hear certain notes go slightly out of key with the software instruments.   The obvious culprits were pitch bend and aftertouch, and a quick look at the midi event list on a recorded track showed that random single pitch bend messages were flying out of the thing.   I'm guessing there is something "short-circuited" and playing the keyboard is causing the wheel to move slightly.  I'm not exactly sure how to disable it from coming out, but I did filter it from coming in to Logic Pro.

It was driving me batty.

Using it as a controller to me means that you were probably running a setup.  In setup mode you need to go into each zone of the setup and disable the pitchwheel, up = 0 and down = 0. in program mode you would disable the PC3's pitchwheel in control setup #126 and the pitchwheel is then disabled for all programs; but in setup mode each zone in the setup you would have to turn off the pitchwheel.  Easiest way to do this is to create a dummy setup, disable the pitchwheel in zone 1 and save the setup.  Every time you want to create a setup start with the dummy setup so that the pitchwheel is disabled.

[Stokely]

I'm just using it in program mode, no zones or intelligence coming from the pc3.

I did look into disabling the "control setups" but it gave me a scary warning and I got a bit lost.  It was easy enough to do it in Logic though I'll need to add that to my template since it's per-project.  And of course if I actually *want* to use pitchbend, which isn't often, then I'll have to turn it back on and probably use another keyboard, since the bad random values will be mixed with the desired ones.

[timwat]

My PC361 has been sitting in its road case for a few years now, for exactly this same reason. If memory serves, it is a widespread problem with the PC3 series, related to the physical pitchbend mechanism (some component in the wheel assembly). Even warranty replacement units fail again if I remember the old thread. I had it really mess up a few gigs, and ended up disabling the wheel in the software. Pity, because what the 361 did well, it really did well, I thought.

[Stokely]

It is a shame, because I really like the keybed on it.  And of course it was a good gigging keyboard.  This is kind of the 3rd issue I've had with mine, the other two didn't matter as long as it was on controller duty.  But this is going to retire it probably.  I'm not really sure what I'll do with it--I bought it used many years ago so I got my money's worth.  Not sure who might want it, perhaps someone repairing them for parts.

Anyway,  didn't mean to sidetrack the tuning issue.  I wouldn't think the pitch stick would be the issue if it's only heard on half the keyboard I guess.

[Delaware Dave]

32 minutes ago, Stokely said:

I'm just using it in program mode, no zones or intelligence coming from the pc3.

I did look into disabling the "control setups" but it gave me a scary warning and I got a bit lost.  It was easy enough to do it in Logic though I'll need to add that to my template since it's per-project.  And of course if I actually *want* to use pitchbend, which isn't often, then I'll have to turn it back on and probably use another keyboard, since the bad random values will be mixed with the desired ones.

You could potentially use a slider like a pitch bend, never tried it but is probably do-able...

do it setup mode rather than program mode; one setup has the pitchbend turned off, the other setup has the pitchbend turned on, quickly flip to one setup when you need pitchbend and flip back when you don't.  Or, just get the pitchbend wheel fixed.

[Delaware Dave]

 

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