Dave Smith Instruments SYNTHESIZERS

Sorry this turned into such a long winded response on this matter.  Hopefully it is helpful 
to someone experiencing encoder frustrations.

I too recently had trouble with multiple encoders on a MEK and ended up laboriously 
replacing every single one with a slightly different type of encoder (i'll get to that in a 
minute).  Here are my +/- two cents.

1.  I hate to say it by I doubt that the issue you are having is some type of system wide 
problem.  I too was hoping for the same thing.  It just seemed like there were *way* too 
many of the encoders that were not working properly.  Now that all is said and done I 
realize that it was just a ton of degraded encoders.  I get the feeling that the encoders 
that come of the MEK could be of much better quality.  Internet/forum searching seems to 
indicate a fair number of difficulties and/or failures.  

Probably 10 of mine were "bad" and 10-13 more that were "occasionally glitchy" and then 
a few more that would on rare occasions jump.  To qualify the term "bad" I'll just say that 
there was no way I would have used my MEK live.  It would have been embarrassing.  
Crazy jumps in value would happen causing very noticeable changes in audio.  I would 
turn knobs up and values would go down...bass vibrations would cause value jumps.

If you are under warranty you could contact them and they should offer to do a board 
swap (they did for me).  Very, very easy to do.  

2.  When trying to diagnose the issues with my MEK and isolate which encoders were 
junked I am almost certain that I stumbled onto a bug in v. 1.3 of the MAIN OS for the 
MEK.  I don't know if it applies to my particular revisions of PCB or to all out there.  I'm 
actually dying to know if any other MEK users out there are experiencing the following:

When I would run v. 1.3 of the MAIN OS the "param 1" and "param 2" knobs were nearly 
impossible to use.  When I reverted back to v. 1.2 which I found here the "param 1" and 
"param 2" encoders were again usable.  I swapped out OSs about 10 times to make sure it 
wasn't just a fluke.  Totally repeatable.  If you are on 1.3 you might try reverting to 1.2 see 
if it fixes any of your encoder touchiness.

At one point I had mentioned this bug to DSI support in an email...I'm not sure if anything 
ever came of it on DSI's end.  It was actually the two encoders mentioned above that 
prompted my requesting a board swap.  Once I reverted to 1.2 and things were slightly 
better I told DSI to just forget about it for now and just deal with it...

3.  At some point I decided--warranty be damned--that I was going to replace every 
encoder with brand new, totally different encoders.  I was pretty dissatisfied with the ones 
that shipped with the unit and I was convinced that even with new boards that I would run 
into the same issue down the road.  So I dug around, did some measuring with calipers, 
read some stuff about encoders and decided to order a fleet of Alps encoders from mouser 
electronics (if anyone wants the part #s I'm more than happy to dig them out).

I went with 24 detent/24 pulses per rotation for the majority of encoders and 12 
detent/12 pulses per rotation for the param 1 & 2 as well as for the two misc param knobs 
(for those sensitive adjustments...).

It was a long, tedious job that I wouldn't recommend unless you have a solid amount of 
soldering/desoldering experience, some patience, and some good tools, solder, etc...

Now everything works perfectly (better than when it first showed up at my door IMHO) and 
I really, really, really enjoy playing my MEK now.  Oh, and the bug mentioned above still 
persists.


--- In DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com, "J Lesser" <j.doerck@...> wrote:
>
> Hmm... I guess I'm having a hard time believing its an encoder since
> it seems to be happening across ALL the knobs... Is there any
> possibility this is a system-wide issue?
> 
> --- In DSI_Evolver@yahoogroups.com, "dankselly" <dannyjive.u5@> wrote:
> >
> > I contacted DSI tech support and was told it was a bad encoder. I 
> > ...
>