newb introduction/cz-1000 questions
2003-09-25 by blintzesareburning
I'm a guitarist who's fascinated with technology; i've been playing guitar for... 3 years? now and i'm branching out into keyboards because I love bass more than a guitar can provide. I've just gotten a CZ-1000 (gift from a friend; neither she nor her younger sister could figure it out). This thing is *dense* -- this is exactly what's missing from the GM synths :) Anyway. It's got a cartridge for it; i'm wondering how volatile the carts are. Someone had written something on the label implying that it was used, but attempts to load them from the cart showed it to be blank. The presets suck but they sound less cheesy than people make them out to be. Various issues: -The mod wheel is dead-ish. It affects pitch, but any bringing of the wheel to either extremity causes Bad Effects: all sounds go to either insnaely high pitch (wheel all the way forward) or shut off entirely (wheel all the way back). -the power jack is really "iffy". This leads to a question of how I really know if it's running off of battery or AC. I'm assuming the power light, when blinking, means that it's running off of battery power and battery power is low. Is this the case? In that case, how do you tell if solid light is AC or battery? -I had touble programming the "filter" (DCW) because no changes were occurring -- i was wondering what all the people in google groups were smoking when talking about the analog-like filter. Turns out that somehow all the banks by default have filter's envelope horribly corrupted. -Is there a way to make attack time not track the keyboard? (i.e. make it take the same number of milliseconds to rise?) I made a nice "backwards" patch but it is impossible to play because the lower notes take longer to "bubble up" to audibility. -What exactly does "key follow" do in the DCW and DCA? -Is there a reason that the audio sounds much quieter in the lower registers than the higher ones? (this is the case both in the patches i make from scratch and, though to a lesser extent, in the default patches) -Any common mods? Is it possible to replace the crap membrane switches with better ones? (the good thing with a cheap synth: the improvements don't seriously depreciate its value!) Thanks for tolerating the newbish questions. I tried looking for the answers elswhere... It's really difficult to search y! groups -- especially with the random ad interruptions.