Patches and discussion for Ensoniq VFX family

Hey there, 
  I hope that all are doing well.  I have a few dufferent queries in 
this message and would like to post them here.  One series is 
actually about another brand of synth, but since I am controlling 
everything from my VFX-SD, I figured that it would be valid here as 
well.
  In the collection of gear that I have, I have (2) Roland D-110 
rackmount synths that I was trying to integrate into my live setup 
(along with my (2) Roland JV-880 synths, my Ensoniq SQ1+ and VFX-SD), 
but am having problems.  It only appears to be occurring when I am 
using the sequencer on the VFX-SD.  It does not happen when I play 
live without the sequencer.  The problem is that my show is sequenced 
(such is the life of a one-man-band).  Here is what I posted in the 
Roland group, but never got a response:


'I have two D-110 units, in excellent condition that I recently
purchased. I opened them up and replaced the battery in both units
to get fresh time with them and have really been running into
problems.

I have a studio setup and live setup and when I use the D-110 in my
MIDI chain for live use: it crashes and resets itself, detunes itself
and I have to program it all over again for my Patches.

Here is my live MIDI chain for an FYI:

Ensoniq VFX-SD - acting as sequencer and main controller.
Ensoniq SQ1+ - MIDI sound source and solo sound source.
Roland JV-880 #1 - MIDI sound source in Patch(Single) Mode.
Roland JV-880 #2 - MIDI sound source in Patch(Single) Mode.
Roland D-110 - MIDI sound source.

Here is the MIDI setup:

VFX-SD out to SQ1+, thru to Roland JV-880 #1, thru to JV-880 #2, thru
to D-110.

I have deleted all controller messages from the sequence(s) in the
VFX-SD to make sure I was not sending bad data and the D-110 will
still reset itself, detune itself, and hang. After it hangs, I turn
it off, and on again, to find that the Zip Lead patch (or any other
patch) is resident in every memory location in the unit. I found out
how to Initialize the unit (hitting Enter and Write/Copy while
turning the unit on), change everything to where I want it again,
only to have it crash as described above.

So, I have two questions....

1. Is there a single mode only in the unit that I can utilize(other
than disabling all of the other parts and setting the partial reserve
to 32 for Part 1)?

If the answer to question #1 is no (which is what I fear), then has
anyone else seen this problem and if so, how did they fix it?

The interesting thing is that when I do not run in sequencer mode,
the unit seems to do fine. That is why I filtered out all controller
information from the sequence to see if that would fix it, but it did
not. I have also tried to turn the overflow mode on and hook the
other D-110 I have up to see if it was a buffer problem, but it still
seems to be a problem.

After opening the units and replacing the batteries, there was
nothing out of place and I thoroughly cleaned them out and they are
virtually new. I initially thought that it was unit-specific after
buying the first one,so I bought another (hence, the two I own now).
The second one exhibited the same symptoms.

None of the other gear (Roland or otherwise out of the other 10
boards I have) are having the issue described above, so maybe it is
model-specific?'

If anyone has answers, that would be fantastic.

I do have another question:  has anything come out of the proposed 
meeting/jamm session up in WI this year?  I do not see anything in 
the posts to show a resolution or date to be setup for it.

And to respond to the cartridge poll, I would not mind getting a few 
cartridges as well.  That would be neat.

Thank you in advance for any help on the above problem that I am 
having with my other synths and how they work with the VFX-SD.

Harry Ebbeson III
Ebbeson Management Group