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CZ1 has half its polyphony

CZ1 has half its polyphony

2011-06-08 by wjamesmeagher

I've been playing around with the CZ1 I bought recently and have noticed that in Normal mode it's dropping the lowest note played once I engage a fifth note (i.e. it can play 4 notes at once at most and will drop the lowest note to play the note of the fifth key pressed). 

My understanding though is that in normal mode (with 2 oscillators engaged) I should be able to play 8 notes together, not 4. If I drop the tone to one oscillator I can play 8 notes simultaneously, but not a 9th without it dropping the lowest held note - but with only one oscillator engaged I think I should be able to hold 16 notes. So, in a nutshell, seems to me the polyphony is cut in half to a total of 8 voices and not 16 as I expect it should be. 

Perhaps I am simply wrong about this, or am missing something - but I've only owned this synth for a few weeks, and have only been investigating vintage synths for a few months, so this is all pretty new to me. One person on the Vintage Synthesizer Forum believed someone else in this group had a similar issue some time ago. 

Any advice/insights welcome!

Cheers,
James

Re: CZ1 has half its polyphony

2011-06-08 by narfman96

James, You should be able to play 8 notes in normal mode with a 2 line patch. Tone mix mode will only play 4 notes if they are layered and 2 line patches. Maybe a reset will help otherwise you have a hardware issue with one of the two voice chips not playing its compliment of 8 voices. Look for bad solder connections but the only way I've found to isolate this is to desolder and lift VD0 (pin 30) the power leg to one of the voice chips to prove which chip isn't passing its output. The good chip will go silent. I've done this in a CZ5000 to isolate a distorted voice chip. I then replaced it with a UPD933 from a CZ101. However the CZ1 has the newer UPD933AC 8 voice chip which will only be found in a CZ1. This is not a simple thing to fix and even more fun to troubleshoot. The full CZ1 service Manual is posted in one of the CZ groups.       
Good luck, Fran
--- In CZsynth@yahoogroups.com, "wjamesmeagher" <w.james.meagher@...> wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
>
> I've been playing around with the CZ1 I bought recently and have noticed that in Normal mode it's dropping the lowest note played once I engage a fifth note (i.e. it can play 4 notes at once at most and will drop the lowest note to play the note of the fifth key pressed). 
> 
> My understanding though is that in normal mode (with 2 oscillators engaged) I should be able to play 8 notes together, not 4. If I drop the tone to one oscillator I can play 8 notes simultaneously, but not a 9th without it dropping the lowest held note - but with only one oscillator engaged I think I should be able to hold 16 notes. So, in a nutshell, seems to me the polyphony is cut in half to a total of 8 voices and not 16 as I expect it should be. 
> 
> Perhaps I am simply wrong about this, or am missing something - but I've only owned this synth for a few weeks, and have only been investigating vintage synths for a few months, so this is all pretty new to me. One person on the Vintage Synthesizer Forum believed someone else in this group had a similar issue some time ago. 
> 
> Any advice/insights welcome!
> 
> Cheers,
> James
>

Re: [CZsynth] CZ1 has half its polyphony

2011-06-08 by Simon Beck

That sounds wrong to me - in Normal mode the CZ-1 should be at least 8-note poly, 16-note in single-oscillator mode. Are you sure you don't have some kind of layer switched on in a performance memory? Or perhaps you have voices assigned to external MIDI channels. I last looked at a CZ-1 about 5 years ago, so I'm guessing a bit here, but you may want to look at these suggestions.

Simon
Show quoted textHide quoted text
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: wjamesmeagher 
  To: CZsynth@yahoogroups.com 
  Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 3:57 PM
  Subject: [CZsynth] CZ1 has half its polyphony


    
  I've been playing around with the CZ1 I bought recently and have noticed that in Normal mode it's dropping the lowest note played once I engage a fifth note (i.e. it can play 4 notes at once at most and will drop the lowest note to play the note of the fifth key pressed). 

  My understanding though is that in normal mode (with 2 oscillators engaged) I should be able to play 8 notes together, not 4. If I drop the tone to one oscillator I can play 8 notes simultaneously, but not a 9th without it dropping the lowest held note - but with only one oscillator engaged I think I should be able to hold 16 notes. So, in a nutshell, seems to me the polyphony is cut in half to a total of 8 voices and not 16 as I expect it should be. 

  Perhaps I am simply wrong about this, or am missing something - but I've only owned this synth for a few weeks, and have only been investigating vintage synths for a few months, so this is all pretty new to me. One person on the Vintage Synthesizer Forum believed someone else in this group had a similar issue some time ago. 

  Any advice/insights welcome!

  Cheers,
  James



  

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [CZsynth] CZ1 has half its polyphony

2011-06-08 by w.james.meagher@gmail.com

That's great advice Simon. I'm going to do some more testing today to see if this could be caused by some setting I'm unaware of (I am the guy who couldn't figure out that the Modulation button has to be engaged for After Touch Vibrato to sound!)



Sent from my iPhone

On 2011-06-08, at 10:59 AM, "Simon Beck" <simon@...> wrote:

> That sounds wrong to me - in Normal mode the CZ-1 should be at least 8-note poly, 16-note in single-oscillator mode. Are you sure you don't have some kind of layer switched on in a performance memory? Or perhaps you have voices assigned to external MIDI channels. I last looked at a CZ-1 about 5 years ago, so I'm guessing a bit here, but you may want to look at these suggestions.
> 
> Simon
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: wjamesmeagher 
> To: CZsynth@...m 
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 3:57 PM
> Subject: [CZsynth] CZ1 has half its polyphony
> 
> I've been playing around with the CZ1 I bought recently and have noticed that in Normal mode it's dropping the lowest note played once I engage a fifth note (i.e. it can play 4 notes at once at most and will drop the lowest note to play the note of the fifth key pressed). 
> 
> My understanding though is that in normal mode (with 2 oscillators engaged) I should be able to play 8 notes together, not 4. If I drop the tone to one oscillator I can play 8 notes simultaneously, but not a 9th without it dropping the lowest held note - but with only one oscillator engaged I think I should be able to hold 16 notes. So, in a nutshell, seems to me the polyphony is cut in half to a total of 8 voices and not 16 as I expect it should be. 
> 
> Perhaps I am simply wrong about this, or am missing something - but I've only owned this synth for a few weeks, and have only been investigating vintage synths for a few months, so this is all pretty new to me. One person on the Vintage Synthesizer Forum believed someone else in this group had a similar issue some time ago. 
> 
> Any advice/insights welcome!
> 
> Cheers,
> James
> 
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
> 
> 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: [CZsynth] CZ1 has half its polyphony

2011-06-08 by james meagher

So, Bill (of tomlinson6050@...) replied to this polyphony matter
in another message thread I started (about engaging the After Touch on my
CZ1), with this brilliant idea:

*You said your were sending and recieving SYSEX to a computer....
Have you got a MIDI LOOP?
This has 'gotten' many synth owners..INCLUDING ME !!!!
Pull the MIDI cables and try again.*

. . . and sure enough the second I pulled the MIDI cable I had 16 active
voices of polyphony. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a very apologetic email
to write to an eBay seller . . . or maybe I'll let him stew on this
morning's messages a bit longer since he sold me the CZ1 without telling me
about the burnt out LCD backlight. ;)

Oh, and look, I see that as I am writing this that two more of you helpful
people have just sent me messages suggesting pretty much the same thing.
MIDI loop.
Now I know.

So the After Touch isn't broken and works after all as long as I engage the
Modulation button, and the CZ1 has ALL its voices working perfectly as long
as I don't create a MIDI loop . . . what will I think is broken tomorrow
that really isn't???

Cheers to you all,
James





On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 11:18 AM, <w.james.meagher@gmail.com> wrote:

> That's great advice Simon. I'm going to do some more testing today to see
> if this could be caused by some setting I'm unaware of (I am the guy who
> couldn't figure out that the Modulation button has to be engaged for After
> Touch Vibrato to sound!)
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On 2011-06-08, at 10:59 AM, "Simon Beck" <simon@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> That sounds wrong to me - in Normal mode the CZ-1 should be at least 8-note
> poly, 16-note in single-oscillator mode. Are you sure you don't have some
> kind of layer switched on in a performance memory? Or perhaps you have
> voices assigned to external MIDI channels. I last looked at a CZ-1 about 5
> years ago, so I'm guessing a bit here, but you may want to look at these
> suggestions.
>
> Simon
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: wjamesmeagher
> To: <CZsynth%40yahoogroups.com>CZsynth@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Wednesday, June 08, 2011 3:57 PM
> Subject: [CZsynth] CZ1 has half its polyphony
>
> I've been playing around with the CZ1 I bought recently and have noticed
> that in Normal mode it's dropping the lowest note played once I engage a
> fifth note (i.e. it can play 4 notes at once at most and will drop the
> lowest note to play the note of the fifth key pressed).
>
> My understanding though is that in normal mode (with 2 oscillators engaged)
> I should be able to play 8 notes together, not 4. If I drop the tone to one
> oscillator I can play 8 notes simultaneously, but not a 9th without it
> dropping the lowest held note - but with only one oscillator engaged I think
> I should be able to hold 16 notes. So, in a nutshell, seems to me the
> polyphony is cut in half to a total of 8 voices and not 16 as I expect it
> should be.
>
> Perhaps I am simply wrong about this, or am missing something - but I've
> only owned this synth for a few weeks, and have only been investigating
> vintage synths for a few months, so this is all pretty new to me. One person
> on the Vintage Synthesizer Forum believed someone else in this group had a
> similar issue some time ago.
>
> Any advice/insights welcome!
>
> Cheers,
> James
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>  
>
>


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R3G 1X4
(204) 918 9317


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Re: CZ1 has half its polyphony

2011-06-09 by Gregory Dolhy

By the way, after fixing your midi loop problem, you will notice a big  
improvement in the keyboard's sound quality.  You were actually  
playing two copies of the same voice notes, which with processor  
delays, created phase cancellation seriously degrading the sound.  So  
anyway, enjoy your new instrument. -- Greg

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