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Showing posts from April, 2016

My Roland SC55 resets when it receives MIDI notes

I purchased my Roland SC55 in France circa 1992. It worked very well until a few weeks ago, when I noticed the unit always resets when it receives MIDI notes. I first suspected the power supply, but it was working just fine. So, it's time to open the unit.. Hopefully, I could grab the Service Manual quite easily on the web, and I have an oscilloscope. What is going on? Ok, here is what I can see: - the unit boots up just fine - when it receives a few MIDI notes at low velocity, it still works fine - when it receives MIDI notes with high velocity, it reboots - when it receives other MIDI data (such as pitch bend), no problem. - when I try to play a demo song, it reboots From what I observe, the unit resets not when is has to process MIDI data, but when it has to generate a waveform with high volume. Also, after a certain amount of time, obviously when the unit gets warm, it starts resetting in loop. My guess is something wrong with the power line (bad regulator,...

In my ears today

"BattleBorn" by The Killers I didn't know anything about the Killers until I first read an article in Keyboard magazine. I eventually found one of their album, BattleBorn, in a backyard sale for almost nothing.  Very pleasant, good rock, not far from other bands such as Arcade Fire.