Xenophone crashing

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Sequentonal
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 6:01 pm

Xenophone crashing

Post by Sequentonal »

I had a few scary moments in the last few days where the Synth went visually dead (all LEDs and the Display switched off) and all I could hear was very odd "clicking" sound (around 2 ticks/second covering the whole frequency spectrum.. white noise basically)
The first few times turning the unit off and on again did the job, but at one point today it would not turn on, that is to say it did turn on while the power button was pressed in, when I let go it turned off again even though the button was in the "on" position.
Unplugging the Midi Cable fixed this problem though and for the rest of the day I had no further issues.

Another problem I came across is the inability to change the arp/seq div rate while the unit is actively clocked to Midi.
None of the encoders were affecting any change, this also led to all the other encoders not responding until I restarted the unit.

intermittent problem no. 3 is a strange skipping in the rhythm of the arp/seq when synced to midi.
I was overall still in sync with our project but within the measure it would not play straight 16th (for example) but it would skip, resulting in an odd, but interesting shuffle like pattern.

The unit is connected to a Yamaha 01X mixer + Mlan interface and a mac running Logic8, other gear connected to the midi circuit shows no problems at all.

Since I have the synth just one week I am a bit worried now.....
Any tips?
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Iman_JL
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Jan 08, 2012 7:53 am

Re: Xenophone crashing

Post by Iman_JL »

issue 1:
It could be related to your power supply or power supply Jack. The jack must be fixed and tight in the socket. If it is loose it cannot make a proper connection and the mentioned issue will occur. You can tighten the Jack pins using a small needle:

Image

issue 2:
I was able to change the arp/seq while using external MIDI clock (OS v2.1). Do you always have this issue ? or it occurs one time ?


issue 3:
Some seq/arp are programmed with uncommon div and time signatures, like 1/8d and 1/8T. You cannot get the proper result while syncing these with your standard 4/4 beats.

Fast changing the parameter of SEQ in real time can end up creating off beats sometimes, (the sequencer is not designed in a way to handle that kind of operation while feeding with MIDI clock, by the way DAW "MIDI start" message always resets and forces the system to start from step 1 without latency). Setting SEQ Gate length to the upper threshold 120-127 can cause the system to lose note-off period for 1 beat (in patches with massive modulations), I suggest to set the gate length bellow 100 and increase Amp Env release/decay time instead if you need longer notes.

I don't know you connect the unit directly to Yamaha 01x MIDI port or another MIDI interface. There could be some non-standard MIDI message on your MIDI bus (like active sensing) that xeno cannot filter it. Logic always sends bunch of useless MIDI messages, and sysex packet to reset all the gears.
Sequentonal
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue May 16, 2017 6:01 pm

Re: Xenophone crashing

Post by Sequentonal »

All these issues are intermittent.
The unusual sequence patterns went back straight 16th when i disconnected the midi plug.

the hyper is connected directly to the Midi out port from the Yamaha interface...
The reason I did mention this interface was because I was suspecting some unusual midi signals and basically was hoping for confirmation :)

will try it with sonar through a tascam interface.
if it is issue free we pretty much know what it is :)

thanks for the feedback
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