Support
Looper's Delight
|
Support |
|
|
At 4:23 PM 12/6/96, Henry I. Bornstein wrote: >I'm having two problems with my echoplexes. Any help would be greatly >appreciated: > >1) If I try to use Brother sync between the two machines, it works for a >while, >but then crashes and one or both machines lock up. I talked to someone >who said >there was a hardware update available that might solve this. Has anyone >had >this problem, and does anyone know about this hardware update? I know a little about the hardware updates, yes. I redesigned the brother sync circuit to make it more reliable just before I left G-WIZ/Gibson/Oberheim. The redesign never got implemented in production units by Oberheim. It is possible to mod existing units with the change, but it does take a bit of effort. Its not as simple as just changing a resistor value. You have to hack a couple of transistors in series with the outputs of the BrotherSync jack and add a couple of resistors. With this particular mod, the Echoplex will always power up and stay running regardless of what happens to other units connected with BrotherSync. This fixes problems where sometimes a unit would crash if another BrotherSynced plex was turned off, or where the plex wouldn't power up right when other units on the Brother chain were powered down. These problems almost never showed up with two units, however. It is more common when you have three, four, or more connected. Even if you do experience this particular problem, it's not fatal. Once you have them all on, just turn the one that crashed off and back on and things should be fine. Its irritating, and the mod fixes it. If anyone is interested, I could probably put some documentation about how to do this one on the web site. Another mod that should be in the later production units, was a resistor value change that came courtesy of Chris and Anton Chovit's troubles with BrotherSyncing all their echoplexes together. The original design only allowed three units to work together, but by changing resistor R62 from 2.2K to 10K, you should be able to sync 18 echoplexes or so without any trouble. I'm pretty sure that nobody actually owns that many, so that should be good. I suppose if you really need to BrotherSync even more units at some future echoplex user convention, R62 could be increased even more.... You're particular troubles sound related, but different. Do you have one of the very first set of production units? You can tell by looking at the serial number. I think the first unit was EDP1001, and they went up sequentially from there. I made some value changes in the BrotherSync circuit after the first production run, which means the first 50 units or so probably have the oldest version of the circuit. In this case, the mods corrected problems where plugging and unplugging a cable in the BrotherSync jack while the power was on could cause the unit to crash. It's possible that these changes could have fixed problems similar to yours, but I'm not sure. If you have one of these early units, let me know, and I can tell you what values should be in the BrotherSync circuit. I should put this on the web page anyway. I've never seen BrotherSynced Echoplexes crashing spontaneously after they had powered up successfully. It was always power-up/down or plugging/unplugging which caused it. You are using the right kind of cable, right? A stereo/TRS type? If that's not it, I suspect you have something wrong with one of your units. If you have one of those early units, the first thing I would suggest is changing the various resistors and caps to the right values. Another idea is to get in there with a soldering iron and fix any solder joints that look cracked or cold. (assuming you know how to do minor electronics work. If not, find someone who can help you out.) Something like that in the BrotherSync would definitely cause intermittant crashes. If that doesn't do it, we can try the transistor mod. And if that doesn't do it, we can swap components til it works. I seriously doubt it will take that much effort, though. One thing I don't recommend doing is sending it to Oberheim, since they are a bit short staffed these days. It may be a while before you get it back..... >2) I've been unsuccessful in attempting to archive loops by sending them >via >Midi Sample Dump Standard to a MAC computer running Alchemy software. I >am able >to send the sample to the computer successfully, but when I attempt to >download >it to the Echoplex, I get an error message that says "insufficient >memory." >I"ve got plenty of memory in the computer, and this has happened for the >shortest loops when the echoplex had 120 secs of free memory. From what I >can >tell, the Alchemy error message is the one that comes up if the sampler >is out >of memory, as I have been able to reproduce the message when I attempt to >send >to another sampler that is fully loaded. Has anyone been able to >download >from a computer using SDS? It would be great if I could get this to work. SampleDump is another can of worms. The problem here is with the Sample Dump "standard" rather than the echoplex. No one seems to follow it in quite the same way. If Eric is reading this, he can tell you more about whether there is a problem with Alchemy. During development, we found all sorts of different variations among different manufacturers, not to mention some that had bugs. We did our best in the first soft version to work around the ones we found, but we definitely didn't get to everything. The update, which is creeping ever closer to the light of day at glacial speeds, has a much more sophisticated SampleDump implementation which should handle everything (I hope!). I know for a fact that the shipping software works fine with Sound Designer and Studio Vision. Try those if you can't get Alchemy to work. hope this helps. kim ______________________________________________________________________ Kim Flint | Looper's Delight kflint@annihilist.com | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html http://www.annihilist.com/ | Loopers-Delight-request@annihilist.com