John Bowen Synth Design

OK, we have finally determined this Legato bug is due to a corrupted global INIT file!

The file is located in your Factory folder on your CF card, and is named, 'glo.ini'. Every time you boot the Solaris, this file is loaded, and it turns out there was some funky stuff going on when saving to the card and using the data wheel.

Anyway - please download this file from here, and I'll also put it in the Data Files section.

Great to see some progress on this issue.
Thank you Patate for figuring this out! I've tried it and I can definitely confirm that renaming Patches triggers this bug.

However I do remember running into this particular issue just by playing various patches without editing anything at all. So I had another go at hunting for this nasty bug and I believe I have found another way of triggering it. It seems to depend on what method I use to change patches. As long as I use just the numeric keypad or the up/down arrows to enter the bank and program numbers, everything is fine. But being an old Wavestation veteran, I like using the list view (page 3/3 of the "Preset" menu). If I switch patches by scrolling through the list using the alpha dial and then select the highlighted patch by pressing ENTER, this triggers the bug! In fact, it seems like selecting a new patch isn't even necessary. Just using the alpha dial in patch list mode instantly messes up the Legato behaviour.

Try this directly after booting the SOLARIS:
1) Select a monophonic patch which has the Legato parameter set to "Reassign" by using the keypad or the up/down arrows.
2) Play a few notes to confirm that "Reassign" works properly.
2) Go to patch list mode (page 3/3 of the "Preset" menu).
3) Use the alpha dial to scroll through the list.
4) Play a few notes; the patch now behaves as if the Legato parameter was set to "Retrigger".

Excellent work! I'll check it later today as well.
Thanks for your help!

John

OK John i have found a way to reproduce the bug.
It makes no sense for me but it always function ( i tried 10 times and i obtain it 10 times )

Restart your unit
Begin with the usual init patch :
Choose :
Play mode : mono
Legato : Reassign
EgReset : Running
On the EG 6
Decay : 600 ms
Sustain : 20

all is fine

now store this patch and give it a new name ( this is important )

Bug!!!!

Now if you restart your unit and listen to the store patch you have made it's just fine.
If you store it again without changing is name all is fine.
If you store it and changing is name : Bug.

Now try this : restart your unit, listen the store patch : fine.
Make another patch, not in mono, not in reassign, not in running, store it on another location and change is name.
Go back to your mono patch : Bug.

So it seems that the saving procedure has something to do with this bug.
I don't know if it is the only way we can have the bug, but if it is the case, only the users who are storing sounds can have notice it.

Hmmm, I did see it happen now....rebooting fixed the behavior. I'm not sure what I did to make it happen, though. That's the key, before we can fix the bug.

Hi John, do you know if this problem will be fix in next OS ? ( i know it's on the list )
I'm acutally working on Monophonic Timbre ( Moog Like ) and i have to restart my unit every hour to avoid it.
In polyphonic mode it is less embarassing of course.
If you want i can make a video of the problem if it can help.

OK, thanks....odd that I cannot see the behavior happen here.
I have reported it to the bug list.

Christopher wrote:

John Bowen wrote:And to clarify - you are playing a preset that you saved with the Legato parameter set to 'assignable', and it plays as if it were set to 'retrigger', correct?

Correct. Patches saved with the Legato parameter set to 'Reassign' behave as if they were set to 'Retrigger'.
To put it another way: When the problem occurs, all patches (at least the monophonic ones, where this kind of thing matters most) generally retrigger—regardless of how they were saved. I can't get anything to behave like 'Reassign' until I restart the synth.

John Bowen wrote:Is it set to Poly or Monophonic Mode?

So far, I have only noticed it on monophonic patches. It might affect polyphonic patches as well, but I guess in that case it would only be noticeable in the way voices are stolen if the polyphony is maxed out. So it would not be as crucial as in monophonic patches, where this parameter is quite essential.
Next time the problem shows up, I will check to see whether polyphonic patches are affected as well.

John Bowen wrote: … does it matter for EG Reset?

On monophonic patches, I pretty much always have it set to 'Running' which I tend to like better than 'Shutdown'.
Nevertheless, I have tried both and changing the 'EgReset' parameter doesn't seem to help.

Same for me.

John Bowen wrote: 1) go to any preset, select the Home page with the Legato parameter, and set the value to 'reassign'
2) select a different preset that has Legato set to Off (such as the first preset of mine in Bank 0), and look again at the Legato value

Does it display 'Off'?

Let me know...

Yes it does ! But isn't it normal ? Off is the value i expect, no ?

John Bowen wrote:And to clarify - you are playing a preset that you saved with the Legato parameter set to 'assignable', and it plays as if it were set to 'retrigger', correct?

Correct. Patches saved with the Legato parameter set to 'Reassign' behave as if they were set to 'Retrigger'.
To put it another way: When the problem occurs, all patches (at least the monophonic ones, where this kind of thing matters most) generally retrigger—regardless of how they were saved. I can't get anything to behave like 'Reassign' until I restart the synth.

John Bowen wrote:Is it set to Poly or Monophonic Mode?

So far, I have only noticed it on monophonic patches. It might affect polyphonic patches as well, but I guess in that case it would only be noticeable in the way voices are stolen if the polyphony is maxed out. So it would not be as crucial as in monophonic patches, where this parameter is quite essential.
Next time the problem shows up, I will check to see whether polyphonic patches are affected as well.

John Bowen wrote: … does it matter for EG Reset?

On monophonic patches, I pretty much always have it set to 'Running' which I tend to like better than 'Shutdown'.
Nevertheless, I have tried both and changing the 'EgReset' parameter doesn't seem to help.

OK, well, in that case, we have a bug. I will report it.
If you can find a way to absolutely repeat it, please post...

And to clarify - you are playing a preset that you saved with the Legato parameter set to 'assignable', and it plays as if it were set to 'retrigger', correct? Is it set to Poly or Monophonic Mode? Likewise, does it matter for EG Reset?

John Bowen wrote: 1) go to any preset, select the Home page with the Legato parameter, and set the value to 'reassign'
2) select a different preset that has Legato set to Off (such as the first preset of mine in Bank 0), and look again at the Legato value

Does it display 'Off'?

Yes, it does.

Hmmmm.....I wonder if I maybe didn't update the Presets in the recent production CF cards.

So, here's a test for both of you -

1) go to any preset, select the Home page with the Legato parameter, and set the value to 'reassign'
2) select a different preset that has Legato set to Off (such as the first preset of mine in Bank 0), and look again at the Legato value

Does it display 'Off'?

Let me know...

Christopher,
you are not alone, my unit does exactly what you describe.
From time to time, perhaps randomly ( i shall study that ) the reassign parameter is not working : it does what Retrig does.
And effectivly reboot the Solaris is the only way i found to solve the problem.

Sorry, but I have to bring this up again.
John, while your long distance Juju was greatly appreciated , it seems to not have resolved the issue permanently. Sometimes, it still happens that seemingly out of nowhere the 'reassign' parameter starts misbehaving. I've been trying to figure out the exact circumstances which lead to the problem, but so far I haven't been able to deliberately reproduce it. Thus all I can say is that it seems to appear randomly.

I have seen the problem show up after all I had done was playing and switching between various patches (from different banks) without doing any editing at all. In case the problem appears, it affects not only a certain patch, but all patches which make use of the Legato parameter set to 'reassign'. All I can do in that case is to re-boot the SOLARIS.