lrossmusic Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 I have my Roland RD 250 piano midi'd up to my Motif rack. Lately something started to happen which I don't believe was happening before. When I assign the Roland fader to a midi channel the corresponding channel on the Motif is of course controlled by that fader, however the maximum volume is reached before the fader even reaches the half way position. If I pull the fader all the way down to zero and begin to move it up ever so slightly the volume level on the rack makes these huge leaps from say 17 to 70. This causes a problem when I am attempting to record smooth volume changes in an effort to create a crescendo/decrescendo effect. In the past after recording say a string part on one track I could then record the fader movements on another track only the volume would increase/decrease smoothly and the fader would have to be all the way up before the volume would reach 127(max). Now when I try this you can hear the volume making these abrupt shifts if I move the fader just a pinch. Anyone ever experience anything like this or have a clue to what might be going on? I tried cleaning the fader and connections but the problem is still there. Thanks Lincoln (the elder) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeronyne Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 I doubt that it's a physical problem with the fader. There are three things, in my opinion, that it could possible be. 1) The Roland is scaling its output. Just like a velocity curve, the RD could be scaling it's output to have most of its values in the middle of the fader throw. Easy to check. Record to a sequencer (without the Motif connected) and slowly move the fader up and down. If you see jumps in the graphic data instead of smooth paraboli, you know it's a problem with the Roland, either software or hardware. Another way to eliminate the Motif as the possible source of the problem is to draw in several smooth volume curves into your sequencer and play them back. If the Motif responds smoothly you can look elsewhere for the problem. 2) The Motif could be responding to the controller change in a scaled way. You can determine that by doing what I suggested in the second part of option 1. 3) You have a MIDI feedback loop. How is your rig connected MIDI-wise? If there is a RD-interface-RD-Motif loop (quite common among my clients), you could inadvertantly be sending exponential instead of incremental data. But I'd have to know more to tell you that. What does the physical set up consist of? "For instance" is not proof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrossmusic Posted February 23, 2004 Author Share Posted February 23, 2004 Zeronyne, Thanks for your response. I followed your instruction and recorded the fader movement of the RD direct to the sequencer. Veiwing the data I see the volume increased in more or less smooth increments from 1 thru 22 then it skips from 22 to 61. After that it went 61-70-80-81-82-83-84-85-86-87-88-93-96-98-99-100-101-103-119-124-127. This was with me moving the fader up smoothly and slowly. I tried it again and got another set of numbers with more or less the same pattern of a big skip in the middle. I guess this means the RD must have developed a malfunction. I have also tried it with my Proteus, and MT32 sound modules and the same symtoms occurred, so I doubt that the Motif is at fault. Do you think the RD can be repaired at a reasonable cost? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrdman Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 Is there a hard reset function on the board? Most boards have a way to restore a board to factory settings. If a translation table has got fowled up this could fix it. WARNING - save any modified patches you have in the RD250 before resetting it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeronyne Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 Glad to hear that the problem has been isolated to the RD! When you did the test, was there a long "plateau" at 22? Or did it just spike up to the 60s? Let me explain what I'm getting at. If it plateaued, it could be a bad fader that does not register in the 20-60 range. If it jumps, then a hard reset may do the trick. The only thing is, I don't think that there IS a reset code for the RD series except the 500 and 600. You may have to call Roland Tech Support (yech) to find out. And to answer your question, I don't know how much it would cost or how long it would take to solve the problem. Can you reassign contoller 7 to on of the other faders on the RD via your sequencer? It may be a good stopgap solution. (As I recall, there are 4 faders, right? but maybe they are dedicated...) "For instance" is not proof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Horne Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 The following link does _not_ have the RD 250 listed http://www.rangeraudio.com/presets.htm That site has the following reset info for the RD 150 - ROLAND RD-150 HOLD THE PLAY AND REC BUTTONS WHILE POWERING ON. You might want to try that and see if it works ... or see if the manual offers any reset info. No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lrossmusic Posted February 23, 2004 Author Share Posted February 23, 2004 Byrdman posted Is there a hard reset function on the board? There is no reset function on the RD 250. There are eight sounds onboard which cannot be modified. There are four faders. Two are for the onboard sounds (volume and brilliance). The other two are for volume only and are assignable to a midi channel. Zeronyne posted When you did the test, was there a long "plateau" at 22? Or did it just spike up to the 60s? It just spiked up from 22 to 61 with no levels in between. Dave thanks for the link. Also there is nothing in the manual about reset. Thanks all for the help. I will give Roland a call and maybe I will get lucky and straighten things out for a reasonable price. If not I can't really complain seeing that I have had this great keyboard since 1987 and have had only minor problems all of which I could fix myself with only one exception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeronyne Posted February 23, 2004 Share Posted February 23, 2004 Originally posted by lrossmusic: If not I can't really complain seeing that I have had this great keyboard since 1987 and have had only minor problems all of which I could fix myself with only one exception.Dude, that is just about the best attitude I have ever read about on forums like this. You rule. "For instance" is not proof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.