John Bowen Synth Design

Hi John,

since two weeks no further reaction, what´s happening with the sc people ?


lg


Frank

Frank,
The only conclusion is to replace the main board, if you are sure that you do not have any muting problems after putting the outputs to 'Synth'. Please contact Holger to do this.

Hi,

any new conclusions yet?

lg

frank

Hi,

ok, I wait for your response, no hurry.


frank

If you are able to play through the presets in this way, bypassing the FX, it just means you need to swap out the main board.
This has been the main failure I've been seeing on the main boards, so it must be something we need to make a special test for. Right now the DSP test doesn't include the FX DSP, which is something I want to have done now that I've heard of this 5 or 6 times.

Hi John,

thanks for your new considerations.

Checked that out several times even this afternoon.

I didn´t save those two settings and switched them manually, no problem.

Each time I heard the pure synth sound without effects. Yesterday I played the synth as well and actual there was no muting.

As I wrote to Holger and Stefan, this problem is not so massive using the machine only in the studio but playing live some failure would be disastrous. When interested, I would prefer to indicate more background details via mail/pm ...

So, what can we provide further on to solve this obviously periodic thing?


frank b.

Hi Frank,

This is puzzling, especially since we have shipped enough units now that if it were a regular OS problem, I would have heard a lot about it. Holger told me he talked with you about things.
The ONLY other thing that comes to mind is the FX section - if it is intermittent or something, then you have a bad main board, which we can change out.

So, best way to test this is:

1) go to the System page, and turn the LoadOuts parameter to Off (you can then save it to the CF card if you want, so each time you boot up, it won't load the output assignments which are programmed per preset)
2) Go to the Output page, and change the Out 1/2 to Synth instrad of FX Chan1

Now you should be able to hear the synth as you switch through presets without effects. If you still don't hear the synth, or it's muted or whatever, then I'm really puzzled....

john b.

Hi John,

just checked what you recommended.

The system is already set to off for the expression pedal.

As I returned to play some notes the machine was muted agein, no presets sound. I had to reboot again.

Sorry, but this os seems not to be really stable ...

So what can I do, contact Holger again?


lg


frank b.

[quote="Wavemaster"]Hi John,
the first abnormality I recognized were undefined signs/characters on the oscillator display. They appeared steady while switching through different readouts.[/quote]
Only 2 people now have reported this, and I've never seen it happen. We will have to see if it can be duplicated to solve it, though.

[quote]The next day the synth hang up at the waldorf-wavetables-screen while booting. Only some reboot could finish this freezing. This happended three to four times on several days.[/quote]
Yes, this is a known bug, as I stated above.
[quote]The actual muting came along only while switching up an back the presets. I edited some patches yesterday and intended some finetuning. No + or - switch could reanimate the output, only the preset numbers changed. Swapping the banks and triggering the enter button didn´t show any effort. On some programs I could hear some slight noise in the back while triggering the keyboard. So rebooting was the only way.[/quote]
This is likely if you have the Expression Pedal situation as I explained. Please re-save your System file with the pedal polarities set to Off, and let me know if this continues to happen.

[quote]As I like this really nice machine with it´s concept totally contrary to the actual synthesizer mainstream, I hope all will turn to a positive end. If I can support the further development in this way, it would be a pleasure to give you some benefit.
frank b.[/quote]
Thanks for your comments, and please, always let me know what is going on, so I can stay on top of any problems.

john b.

p.s. please put things in the Bug list section as well, so we can collect them all in one place.

Hi John,
the first abnormality I recognized were undefined signs/characters on the oscillator display. They appeared steady while switching through different readouts.

Just sent a picture of this phenomenon.

The next day the synth hang up at the waldorf-wavetables-screen while booting. Only some reboot could finish this freezing. This happended three to four times on several days.

The actual muting came along only while switching up an back the presets. I edited some patches yesterday and intended some finetuning. No + or - switch could reanimate the output, only the preset numbers changed. Swapping the banks and triggering the enter button didn´t show any effort. On some programs I could hear some slight noise in the back while triggering the keyboard. So rebooting was the only way.

As I like this really nice machine with it´s concept totally contrary to the actual synthesizer mainstream, I hope all will turn to a positive end. If I can support the further development in this way, it would be a pleasure to give you some benefit.


frank b.

[quote="Wavemaster"]... Additional problems with the os finally caused the exchange of the complete machine.[/quote]
Can you please tell me what these additional problems were? I saw no report when the synth came in.

john b.

Wavemaster,
If you suddenly lose volume while playing, I would first check a very common problem, and that is with the Expression Pedal. If you are not using an expression pedal, then you need to check the polarity of that pedal in the Home pages, and set it to Off, then save your System file to the CF card. I tried to make sure the factory CF cards had this system file set up, but I didn't get to finish all of the cards before I left last time, so some people will already have the polarity set to OFF - and in case you don't use a Sustain pedal, I also recommend to set Polarity for that Off.

The System Save is on the System page, in the upper right. Once you have all the polarities set, and any other system or MIDI stuff, you turn the knob so that the word 'Save' changes to 'Active', then press Enter to save this to the card. Now the next time and each time you boot up, these preferences will load.

We do have a bug still where sometimes the Solaris boots up and there's no sound, or it gets stuck in the 'booting...' screens or the Waldorf screen, and for now, you just switch off, count 2 seconds or so, then switch on again. We are still investigating the boot process to find why this sometimes is happening.

john b.

Hi,

the problem of the tumbling wheel is now fixed. The one in the new machine works fine.

The people of the manufacturer were really nice and tried to help but the recommended removal of the wheel from outside for fastening the pot would not work without damage. So it took some time to find a solution. Additional problems with the os finally caused the exchange of the complete machine.

Meanwhile I check the synth if it´s now running stable thus I even had a breakdown of the system again - suddenly no presets were to be heard ... Hope this was an exception ...

We just waited approx. one year for our solaris, so the received item was a bit disappointing. I´m sorry for the unlucky situation.

lg

fb

This unit came in to Sonic Core while I am still here, so I took it apart to see the problem... and it is unfortunate, but the data wheel's encoder did not have the nut fully tightened, so the rotation was quite loose. This was not the fault of shipping, and I'm sure is the only time this has happened. It should not have left here without that being checked, but somehow it did, and I know that the people here feel sorry about it.

Sorry wavemaster. I guess English isn't your first language. Sorry you didn't get a response. I would have thought that the first point of contact would have been the manufacturer, retailer anyway but no, rolling on its axis sounds like a damage in shipping issue.

As for the replacement of the whole unit sounds like a good deal to me. How long did the turn around take?

Kind regards

Weston.