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Viewing 1 to (8 Total) Technics EX35 - can anyone help? |
United Kingdom
Total Posts: 5
Joined: December 8, 2014
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I have an EX35 which has developed a strange fault. The entire organ works beautifully BUT on the solo manual when the POLY is selected, the organ will only key 7 notes in sequence. The 8th note anywhere on the solo (poly) will not play. Then it plays the next 7 but misses the 8th again. Very strange. Can any clever person throw some light on this? Would really appreciate any help. Thanks - Charlie. ([email protected])
Posted on November 25, 2015 at 9:23 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 360
Joined: June 8, 2014
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Re: Technics EX35 - can anyone help?
Hi, jd5live here, as an ex Techics dealer from the 1990's you EX 35 was from the smaller range of organs (ex 5 /ex15/ex25/ex35 ).to keep costs to a manageable level and keep in line with models from other makers at the time,the number of notes that were able to be produced at any one time was limited. This was a problem if you wished to play with both hands on one manual at the same time. the number of notes that could be played on a manual was preset, so when using say the top manual the note capacity set for the lower manual did not transfer to the upper, so as you only have 5 fingers on your hand 7 notes were plenty even allowing for the use of "Solo" voices which only could play 1note anyway. If you are used to playing theatre style it was expected by many manufacturer including Technics/Yamaha etc that you would purchase one of the larger models like GN 3/5/9 which had larger processors thus generating more notes at any one time, but this came at a substantial rise in price.
hope this explains your query.
RegardsJohn (jd5live)
Posted on November 27, 2015 at 11:54 AM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 5
Joined: December 8, 2014
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Re: Technics EX35 - can anyone help?
Hi John (jd5live) - many thanks for taking the time to reply to my query ref my Technics EX35. I appreciate what you say ref only being able to play so many notes at one time but this is not the problem. A friend of mine has another EX35 which works fine. I think I did not explain the problem properly.
Everything is working perfectly on accomp and pedal, drums – the lot. No problems whatever. The fault is on the solo manual and only on the Poly section – flutes and other poly things. To make it clear – say I push the Poly button and select one or indeed all the organ flute sounds. Now I am not playing anything else, just the solo manual. If I push any single key, say C – just this one key, then I can only push it 7 times. The eight time I press it, it will not sound. Another example, if I play the scale of C (single notes) C D E F G A B (all fine so far) but go for C and it does not sound. This is the same for any 8th note being played – all very strange. It does exactly the same if I play seven random single notes anywhere on the solo manual (on Poly only) the eighth will not sound. It is really annoying and makes the organ almost unplayable. After the eighth non-sounding note, I can again play another seven but not the eight! Confused?????
Any clue from this description of the fault? John – I really do appreciate you trying to help and if you have a spare minute to get back to me, I would really appreciate it.
If this was a pipe organ, I could fix it in a minute! I have a few rescued pipe organs including a WurliTzer 5 rank theatre pipe organ.
Hope you can help
All very best
Charlie (Davidson)
Posted on November 27, 2015 at 12:59 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 360
Joined: June 8, 2014
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Re: Technics EX35 - can anyone help?
hi Charlie, now got what you mean,i thought you were just showing off and playing block chords with both hands on the top manual !! I will pass you query to our engineer, although i am an engineer Dave is a specialist in electronics,but from my initial thoughts it may be part of the keying trigger circuits ,as it only on the one manual i think the fault may well be on the contact board below the manual, but as I say I will pass your post onto Dave.
Regards John.
Posted on November 27, 2015 at 1:36 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 166
Joined: January 12, 2015
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Re: Technics EX35 - can anyone help?
Hi Charlie
This is perfectly normal for an organ or piano of this age. There is nothing wrong with the organ. The design specification as noted in the user guide states that you get 8 note poly but there is an exception when you have the accompany button engaged in which case this drops to 7 and in some instances 4. Although the manual does say you can have all 8 sounding, whenever you select something in addition to what you are playing these organs do run out of resources. In addition you may have one of the organs that has been fitted with a EX25 board which is also slightly less capable. The three organs in the user guide are all based on the same set of hardware and there is very little that can be done to repair them let alone modify them to give you more notes.
I get asked about this sort of thing on old organs and piano's very often. The older pre key scanning organs had 100% polyphony but generally poorer sounds. Once the better sounds and the need to share these resources took off it took around 6 years for 16 note poly got going followed 4 years later for 32 note with layered multiple voices.
To compare with another organ of the same type and model you must run it with the same number of buttons pressed as you are on the edge of the capability of the organ.
Posted on November 27, 2015 at 5:02 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 1055
Joined: February 2, 2014
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Re: Technics EX35 - can anyone help?
Hi Chas,
Sorry, I've removed your email address from your post. That's to prevent you from getting spam but people can contact you here in the forum or via private message on your profile and you can share email addresses there if you like.
Dave,
I think you've misread the post. I have an EX35 here and it doesn't display this behaviour. Chas is just playing one note at a time and the eghth note he plays doesn't sound. Very odd.
I've had a few weird problems with my EX35 over the years that have always resolved themselves when I clean the bass pedal connector and socket thoroughly. However, it really sounds like something else!
Cheers,
Mike
Posted on November 27, 2015 at 6:47 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 1055
Joined: February 2, 2014
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Re: Technics EX35 - can anyone help?
Hi Charlie,
This message is from John:
Charlie I have had a thought you have played the same note repeatedly and you say it plays 7 in succession and the eighth note does not play/sound, is this the same if you do this on the same note using a solo voice and poly turned off. The other thing is ensure that all other things are turned off no drums/don't play the lower manual or bass pedals. The answer to this may well point us in the right direction .
Regards John.
This message is from Dave:
Even if its a hardware fault there is very little chance of a fix as it is unlikely there are any spares available for it. The keyboards themselves are unlikely to be faulty, it far more likely to be in the rest of the electronics. The key scan dumps the whole note record of any keys held at the end of the key scan into ram and it is the results in ram that makes the sound. If the keys are doing the job correctly then a midi cable into another more modern keyboard will confirm it. Any keyboard with midi in will do. Most modern keyboards do 16 note poly and should be happy to play out what's coming from the Ex35. If this doesn't play 8 notes then there is something in the ram section of the main board.
Its another one I don't have a service manual for but given it is only 8 note poly if the sustain is on and its not clearing the ram it would suggest that either the ram is at fault, or the sustain isn't working correctly and is keeping the notes in ram such that there is no room for subsequent notes after the 7th. Of course it could be that any note played never clears from ram and its a pure fluke that it does anything at all on the solo manual. All very interesting but I need to have a dig through the circuit to see what else I can guess! LOL
This message is from me:
I've just added the Technics sx-C300 Service Manual to the Members Area. The C300 is the portable version of the EX35 so much of the circuitry should be the same. C300 has additional connectors for amplifiers and portable cabinetry so there are some differences.
Having said all of that, if your EX35 needs a repair it would almost certainly be cheaper to get another one. The EX35 isn't achieving high prices on Ebay etc these days. I remember trialling one in Swindon when they first came out and I was blown away by the sound quality at the time. However, I'm only keeping this one at the moment so that I can do some MIDI experiments and publish them on the site sometime. I don't play it often because I have bass pedals on my KN7000 but I'm thinking of hooking it up to a small laptop running some Hammond style virtual instruments (because that would suit an organ with no touch sensitivity).
Best wishes,
Mike
Posted on November 27, 2015 at 10:38 PM
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United Kingdom
Total Posts: 5
Joined: December 8, 2014
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Re: Technics EX35 - can anyone help?
HI John,
Yes - what you say is correct. This fault only occurs on the upper manual Poly voices. The 'Special' and 'Solo' voices all work and repeat exactly as designed. Only the upper manual Poly voices are affected. I tried the lower manual Poly voices and they are fine and repeat every note played as many times as required.
SO..... upper manual 'Poly' is the only section one the organ affected by this strange fault. I tested this without any other voices or drums or pedals etc being used / turned on. Is this any pointer as to where this fault may be????
Thanks again guys for trying to help. I wanted to put the organ into a local church for Christmas Eve carols - we shall see!
All best
Charlie
Posted on November 28, 2015 at 11:00 AM
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