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Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-21 by richtrix@...

I have an OBXa that I finally got to 100% percent with a lot of help from here and some dumb luck a few months ago. I have the Encore MIDI kit. I haven't touched it for about 2 months or so since I've spent any free music typed time fiddling with some Linn 9000s I'm trying to get working. The Obie worked just swimmingly the last time I used it. Now though... everything works find and sounds good but when I hit autotune instead of zipping through the voices like it does usually it spend about 2 seconds on each voice and then disables all of them. Any ideas what could have happened in these two months of inactivity? Doesn't matter how long the board is on before hitting autotune... get same result.


Sincerely,

Rich Clarke

Re: [oberheim] Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-21 by Bob Grieb

Clearly something in the autotune circuitry is not working.   There is a comparator 
that gets fed one voice at a  time.   The comparator output is used to gate a higher
frequency clock into a counter, for one or sometimes more cycles of the comparator
waveform.   By counting high frequency pulses that fit into a period, or several, of the 
oscillator output, they can measure its frequency, and figure out what the control
voltage needs to be to get it exactly in tune.   Usually 4-6 different notes up and down 
the keyboard are measured, and CV's for notes in-between them are interpolated when 
you are playing.

I would use a 'scope to see what the waveforms look like during tuning in this circuit.
Was helping a friend with his OBsx that had a tuning problem.   We ended up replacing 
a bad data bus buffer that was used to read the counter after tuning had completed. 

Good luck,

       Bob


--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 7/21/15, richtrix@... [oberheim] <oberheim@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
 Subject: [oberheim] Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices
 To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2015, 12:28 AM
 
 
 I have an OBXa that I finally got to 100% percent
 with a lot of help from here and some dumb luck a few months
 ago. I have the Encore MIDI kit. I haven't touched it
 for about 2 months or so since I've spent any free music
 typed time fiddling with some Linn 9000s I'm trying to
 get working. The Obie worked just swimmingly the last time I
 used it. Now though... everything works find and sounds good
 but when I hit autotune instead of zipping through the
 voices like it does usually it spend about 2 seconds on each
 voice and then disables all of them. Any ideas what could
 have happened in these two months of inactivity? Doesn't
 matter how long the board is on before hitting autotune...
 get same result. 
 Sincerely,Rich
 Clarke

RE: [oberheim] Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-21 by 65 Lotus

How does it sound if you don't hit autotune?

 

That is, if you power it up from dead cold and let it sit for a half hour,
is it pretty much in tune on it's own, or is it way out?

 

The autotune only has so much authority. If the tuning setup is way out, it
might not be able to bring it in. Seems unlikely on all eight voices though.

 

  _____  
Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: oberheim@yahoogroups.com [mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:29 AM
To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [oberheim] Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

 






I have an OBXa that I finally got to 100% percent with a lot of help from
here and some dumb luck a few months ago. I have the Encore MIDI kit. I
haven't touched it for about 2 months or so since I've spent any free music
typed time fiddling with some Linn 9000s I'm trying to get working. The Obie
worked just swimmingly the last time I used it. Now though... everything
works find and sounds good but when I hit autotune instead of zipping
through the voices like it does usually it spend about 2 seconds on each
voice and then disables all of them. Any ideas what could have happened in
these two months of inactivity? Doesn't matter how long the board is on
before hitting autotune... get same result. 

 

Sincerely,

Rich Clarke

Re: [oberheim] Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-21 by Nick Zampiello

sounds like the voices aren;t getting to the tuning read point.

 NEW ALLIANCE EAST!!!!

--------------------------------------

New Alliance East - Mastering
New Alliance East - Facebook

X :::: B :::: S 


     On Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:37 PM, "'65 Lotus' Lotus@... [oberheim]" <oberheim@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
   

     How does it sound if you don’t hitautotune?    That is, if you power it up from dead coldand let it sit for a half hour, is it pretty much in tune on it’s own, or is itway out?    The autotune only has so much authority.If the tuning setup is way out, it might not be able to bring it in. Seemsunlikely on all eight voices though…    From:oberheim@yahoogroups.com [mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2015 12:29AM
To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [oberheim] Autotune onOBXa suddenly shutting down all voices    


 I have anOBXa that I finally got to 100% percent with a lot of help from here and somedumb luck a few months ago. I have the Encore MIDI kit. I haven't touched itfor about 2 months or so since I've spent any free music typed time fiddlingwith some Linn 9000s I'm trying to get working. The Obie worked just swimminglythe last time I used it. Now though... everything works find and sounds goodbut when I hit autotune instead of zipping through the voices like it doesusually it spend about 2 seconds on each voice and then disables all of them.Any ideas what could have happened in these two months of inactivity? Doesn'tmatter how long the board is on before hitting autotune... get same result.     Sincerely, RichClarke

Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-22 by richtrix@...

Thanks for the responses everyone @65 lotus... It sounds fine when turned on. Played it for quite a while. Nothing terribly out of whack.... until you hit autotune.

@Bob thanks again. I will do that. At the risk of sounding lazy do you have a component and pin where I could find that or at least know which schematic to look at?

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-22 by Bob Grieb

On the first ed schem, A118, A119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 114, 112, 113 are all involved 
"AT" means autotune...

Not sure what chips on the later schem, as I don't have that one.

Check the clk pin on A118 first as that is the input to this circuit from the oscillator
that is being tuned.   You will have to dnld the 4021 data sheet to get the pin number,
as the nice folks at Oberheim were too lazy to put it on the schematic.

Bob

--------------------------------------------
On Tue, 7/21/15, richtrix@... [oberheim] <oberheim@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
 Subject: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices
 To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com
 Date: Tuesday, July 21, 2015, 9:52 PM
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
         
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thanks for the responses everyone @65 lotus... It sounds
 fine when turned on. Played it for quite a while. Nothing
 terribly out of whack.... until you hit
 autotune. 
 @Bob thanks again. I will do that. At the risk of
 sounding lazy do you have a component and pin where I could
 find that or at least know which schematic to look
 at?
 Sincerely,Rich Clarke

Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-25 by richtrix@...

Thanks yet again Bob for your help. You are a treasure in this Yahoo! community.

So the results are strange. I scoped pin 10 (clock, according to the internet) of U118, a 4021B, and when unstimulated it simple read 5 volts DC. If ever I hit a key and triggered a note a whole slew of strange signals would ensue. When hitting the autotune button I would get approximately the same resulting signals. I've tried to capture some of the madness in a series of screenshots attached. Notice these shots are mostly less than one second apart.

Any thoughts? Is this normal? Doesn't seem normal.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

Attachments

Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices [18 Attachments]

2015-07-25 by Bob Grieb

Hi,

    I would agree that that waveform has some issues.

    The signal "oscmux" is the output of an op amp fed by a sum of the voices.
It will be swinging rail to rail with whichever voice is enabled during tuning.

    That signal feeds into a circuit that only takes the positive part of the op amp
output, and feeds it into a schmitt trigger.   This is A119, a 4049 and several 
resistors.

   The output of that circuit should be what you were probing.   Looks like it
also goes to a connector.  Not sure if it's also used somewhere else?  If so, 
that circuit could be loading it down.   But first I would replace A119, or at least
scope the signals in that area.   And set your scope to capture a complete period
of the input signal, not 1 uSec/div.   That was useful to see the oscillation on 
the signal, but not so much for all of the other photos.  I would also try to measure
with your DMM if the resistors around A119 are OK and hooked up to the chip
properly.  You can measure right at the pins of A119, then you will know they are
hooked up and also see their values.  If you have a decent meter, A119 won't affect
the measurement much.

     If you decide to change out A119, cut all of the leads next to the body of the chip,
remove the body, then remove the pins one at a time with the soldering iron and tweezers.
Then clean the bd, and install a socket and a new chip.

     Of course if you were replacing a hard-to-find chip and you were not sure it's bad, 
then you would do it differently to save the old chip.

    Bob

--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 7/25/15, richtrix@... [oberheim] <oberheim@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
 Subject: Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices [18 Attachments]
 To: oberheim@...m
 Date: Saturday, July 25, 2015, 1:15 AM
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
         
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 [Attachment(s) from richtrix@...
 [oberheim] included below]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thanks yet again Bob for your help. You are a treasure in
 this Yahoo! community. 
 So the results are strange. I scoped pin 10
 (clock, according to the internet) of U118, a 4021B, and
 when unstimulated it simple read 5 volts DC. If ever I hit a
 key and triggered a note a whole slew of strange signals
 would ensue. When hitting the autotune button I would get
 approximately the same resulting signals. I've tried to
 capture some of the madness in a series of screenshots
 attached. Notice these shots are mostly less than one second
 apart. 
 Any thoughts? Is this normal? Doesn't seem
 normal.
 Sincerely,Rich Clarke

Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-25 by John Leimseider

When it's suddenly failed, I'd make sure that there aren't bad trimpots in the bender section. If it's in tune before the autotune, make sure it's actually in concert pitch, not just OK in relative pitch, and make sure the octaves and bender functions are correct.
I also recently saw an Xa where everything was appearing right, but the autotune was totally messing the tuning. It was a TL084 with a weird offset. I spent HOURS finding it. There was also another bad 84, so I swapped them all out, since they were all the same date code and the failures were so unpredictable. This one had to be shipped about 700 miles and I didn't want to risk a return over some 50 cent parts...

Sent from my iPad

On Jul 25, 2015, at 6:37 AM, Bob Grieb bobgrieb@yahoo.com<mailto:bobgrieb@...> [oberheim] <oberheim@yahoogroups.com<mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com>> wrote:



Hi,

I would agree that that waveform has some issues.

The signal "oscmux" is the output of an op amp fed by a sum of the voices.
It will be swinging rail to rail with whichever voice is enabled during tuning.

That signal feeds into a circuit that only takes the positive part of the op amp
output, and feeds it into a schmitt trigger. This is A119, a 4049 and several
resistors.

The output of that circuit should be what you were probing. Looks like it
also goes to a connector. Not sure if it's also used somewhere else? If so,
that circuit could be loading it down. But first I would replace A119, or at least
scope the signals in that area. And set your scope to capture a complete period
of the input signal, not 1 uSec/div. That was useful to see the oscillation on
the signal, but not so much for all of the other photos. I would also try to measure
with your DMM if the resistors around A119 are OK and hooked up to the chip
properly. You can measure right at the pins of A119, then you will know they are
hooked up and also see their values. If you have a decent meter, A119 won't affect
the measurement much.

If you decide to change out A119, cut all of the leads next to the body of the chip,
remove the body, then remove the pins one at a time with the soldering iron and tweezers.
Then clean the bd, and install a socket and a new chip.

Of course if you were replacing a hard-to-find chip and you were not sure it's bad,
then you would do it differently to save the old chip.

Bob

--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 7/25/15, richtrix@...<mailto:richtrix@...> [oberheim] <oberheim@yahoogroups.com<mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com>> wrote:
Show quoted textHide quoted text
Subject: Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices [18 Attachments]
To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com<mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Saturday, July 25, 2015, 1:15 AM























[Attachment(s) from richtrix@...<mailto:richtrix@...>
[oberheim] included below]







Thanks yet again Bob for your help. You are a treasure in
this Yahoo! community.
So the results are strange. I scoped pin 10
(clock, according to the internet) of U118, a 4021B, and
when unstimulated it simple read 5 volts DC. If ever I hit a
key and triggered a note a whole slew of strange signals
would ensue. When hitting the autotune button I would get
approximately the same resulting signals. I've tried to
capture some of the madness in a series of screenshots
attached. Notice these shots are mostly less than one second
apart.
Any thoughts? Is this normal? Doesn't seem
normal.
Sincerely,Rich Clarke

Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-26 by richtrix@...

There may be some merit to your idea John. I got out my trusty digital strobe tuner and everthing seemed close enough to concert to be only a short tweak of the master tune from dead on. However on further inspection I discovered that every voice's octaves are out significantly. Both on the keyboard and when engaging the UP/Down octave buttons. This was on all voices (including one I'd recently calibrated) so it does point to some problem with the master control of volts per octave. May it is some corrosion in a pot which would make sense considering it sat unused for a couple months. I will explore this further tomorrow. This would certainly baffle autotune correct?

@Bob, I'm going to explore this avenue and hopefully I won't have to replace any ICs... If I do though I have unfortunately gotten pretty good at removing and socketing them (thanks to this board). Thanks for the pointers though. I wish I'd gotten that with the first one I tried to remove... I destroyed the (non-valuable) IC... but that was not my intention lol. Now I have a nice desolder station with a few nice suction pumps too.

Though just replacing slews of these seems like a good weekend project as the components begin to have the misfortune of being manufactured a long time ago. Especially after John's story.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

Re: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-07-27 by richtrix@...

So exploring my volts per octave problem I verified that my transpose voltages are on the money. Pin C5: 0V (down) 1V (open), 2V (up). The voltage method is obviously not the best though as I was able to tweak it a little closer to perfect octaves with the strobe tuner. I then checked each voice more thoroughly and it seems that each voice's VPO is fine unlike my claim last night. It was just that the voices are getting more out of whack from each other as time goes on which gave me a false impression of that I suppose. For fun I checked all main voltages at Connector K and D and they are dead on. The only real shift in behavior is that when Autotune is pressed now it goes slowly through 1-4 but races through (like normal operation) 5-8... It still disables them all though. Guess it's back to troubleshooting Autotune.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-08-25 by richtrix@...

So I finally figured out the problem with this machine. I was on the phone with Bruce Forat about my Linn 9000 and he suggested disabling the midi kit and taking the machine back to stock. I did so an autotune works fine now.

Unfortunately my memory seems to not be working anymore on the OBXa though. I can only use manual mode. Anything I save to memory doesn't work. Even loading the presets via tape backup leaves memory not working correctly. It seems like some things change with the changing of patches i.e. Saw to Pulse etc. but the sound that comes out is just a slow attack rumble/whine of dischord.

So any ideas there? And I'd REALLY love to keep this MIDI kit in. I emailed Tony at Encore MIDI but as per usual I get no response. So any ideas there are welcome too.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

RE: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-08-27 by 65 Lotus

Did you see/try the instructions at the bottom of the link below about
voices shutting down with the auto tune function?

 

Also, there's a firmware upgrade not too long ago if you haven't done that
yet (pick the right one for your processor part number).

 

http://www.encoreelectronics.com/cont_new6.html

 

Scott in Ohio

 

  _____  
Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: oberheim@yahoogroups.com [mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 10:23 PM
To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

 



So I finally figured out the problem with this machine. I was on the phone
with Bruce Forat about my Linn 9000 and he suggested disabling the midi kit
and taking the machine back to stock. I did so an autotune works fine now. 

 

Unfortunately my memory seems to not be working anymore on the OBXa though.
I can only use manual mode. Anything I save to memory doesn't work. Even
loading the presets via tape backup leaves memory not working correctly. It
seems like some things change with the changing of patches i.e. Saw to Pulse
etc. but the sound that comes out is just a slow attack rumble/whine of
dischord. 

 

So any ideas there? And I'd REALLY love to keep this MIDI kit in. I emailed
Tony at Encore MIDI but as per usual I get no response. So any ideas there
are welcome too. 

 

Sincerely,

Rich Clarke

RE: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-08-27 by 65 Lotus

Also, pulled from Gearslutz. Sounds odd, but if you're at the end of "stuff
to try" it might be worth the effort.

 

Larry Church, an ex-OB tech, told me to reset the RAM before doing anything,
because most problems on the OBs can be fixed by resetting the RAM. This is
super easy to do, and could save you a lot of time.

Gently remove your RAM chips from the main board, and push the pins through
a few layers of tin foil. This causes them to short out, and completely
discharge any corrupted data. The problem with the OBs is that the onboard
computers were a little too complex for their own good, and corrupted data
gets stored in the RAM quite easily.

This will erase all presets, of course.

He also told me that he's brought back to life dead voice chips by doing
this.

 

  _____  
Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: oberheim@yahoogroups.com [mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 10:23 PM
To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

 



So I finally figured out the problem with this machine. I was on the phone
with Bruce Forat about my Linn 9000 and he suggested disabling the midi kit
and taking the machine back to stock. I did so an autotune works fine now. 

 

Unfortunately my memory seems to not be working anymore on the OBXa though.
I can only use manual mode. Anything I save to memory doesn't work. Even
loading the presets via tape backup leaves memory not working correctly. It
seems like some things change with the changing of patches i.e. Saw to Pulse
etc. but the sound that comes out is just a slow attack rumble/whine of
dischord. 

 

So any ideas there? And I'd REALLY love to keep this MIDI kit in. I emailed
Tony at Encore MIDI but as per usual I get no response. So any ideas there
are welcome too. 

 

Sincerely,

Rich Clarke

RE: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-08-27 by 65 Lotus

And finally, this is the extent of my info on the subject. From harmony
Central:

 

Memory is a significant issue with the OB series of instruments (well any
instrument with memory) in that it will do some pretty crazy things if the
memory is bad or scrambled. Sometimes loading the memory is not enough. If
problems still persist after loading the memory and replacing the battery,
you may have to follow the procedure below:

Set unit to manual mode
pick patch A1
Turn every pot a couple times
Turn on and off every switch a couple of times.
This includes all the page 2 stuff also.
After the above, set a simple patch that you can easily identify. One
oscillator, wide open filter, gate like envelope.
After you have the patch, write it to memory location A1. 
Verify the patch is there by switching to another patch and then returning
to A1.
Once verified, write this patch to every memory location. A real pain for
those with 120 programs.
Load your program tape.

Scrambled memory creates issues because many times the value held in memory
is is outside the memory address range. So where the expected value is 0-255
and the actual value is -1,304,495. CPUs do not do well with this type of
issue. Rotating the knobs allows the instrument to create a value within the
expected value.

Wes Taggart
Analogics
http://www.analogics.org/

 

  _____  
Show quoted textHide quoted text
From: oberheim@yahoogroups.com [mailto:oberheim@yahoogroups.com] 
Sent: Monday, August 24, 2015 10:23 PM
To: oberheim@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

 



So I finally figured out the problem with this machine. I was on the phone
with Bruce Forat about my Linn 9000 and he suggested disabling the midi kit
and taking the machine back to stock. I did so an autotune works fine now. 

 

Unfortunately my memory seems to not be working anymore on the OBXa though.
I can only use manual mode. Anything I save to memory doesn't work. Even
loading the presets via tape backup leaves memory not working correctly. It
seems like some things change with the changing of patches i.e. Saw to Pulse
etc. but the sound that comes out is just a slow attack rumble/whine of
dischord. 

 

So any ideas there? And I'd REALLY love to keep this MIDI kit in. I emailed
Tony at Encore MIDI but as per usual I get no response. So any ideas there
are welcome too. 

 

Sincerely,

Rich Clarke

RE: [oberheim] Re: Autotune on OBXa suddenly shutting down all voices

2015-09-24 by richtrix@...

Thanks for all the great replies folks. I just got an new memory module in the mail. (First one got lost in USPS that's why there is such a delay) Anyhow... That fixed it. YIPPEEEE. It didn't at first and I was sad but then I realized I had put protect back on at some point for some reason while testing it. Turned protect off and viola!!! I can now write patches again and they'll stay. Now I just need to do a tape dump of my backup :)

Then I need to figure out what went haywire in my Midi Kit that broke autotune.

Sincerely,
Rich Clarke

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