MIDI broken on my RM4 (sorry, long post)

Synergy/MTS Forum

Help Support Synergy/MTS Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

antag

Active member
Joined
Sep 3, 2010
Messages
43
Reaction score
0
Location
UK
Hi All,
Last night, I experienced some weirdness with the MIDI switching on my RM4. I have a horrible feeling that it's going to need a repair, but perhaps someone knows a trick to get it going again. Here's what happened:

For the last few months I've been switching my RM4 with a Rocktron MIDI Mate, plugged in to the MIDI in with a 7-pin cable - it powers the MIDI Mate as well as taking the MIDI instructions.

Last night, I powered it up. The MIDI mate came on like normal, but pressing the buttons didn't change channels.
Also, while the MIDI mate was plugged in, the Channel button on the front panel didn't work either, so I was stuck with the module in slot #1.
When I unplugged the MIDI mate (yes, I switched the RM4 off first! :)), the "Channel" button worked again.
The sound from the RM4 was fine - at no point did the tone suffer, only the switching between the modules.

So this morning, I tried it again. Same: no switching with the Midi mate plugged in, even with the Channel button.
I tried 4 completely different modules, no difference.

So I tried a different MIDI controller: Engl Z12 via my Engl SE & TC GMajor's MIDI thrus to the RM4 input (5-pin cable). This is what I used when I first got the RM4.
At first it didn't work, though oddly enough, the Channel button did work.
Then after cycling through patches 1-4 a few times, it occasionally did change the RM4 channel, but not to the channel I'd selected - it was acting as if I had pressed the channel button to cycle to the next channel - but not every time I pressed a button.

So I plugged the MIDI mate back into the RM4 & ran another cable (5-pin) from the RM4 MIDI thru to my TC G-Major - to see if it could send signals out.
No. When I pressed buttons on the MIDI mate, the patch on the G-Major sometimes changed (about 1 in 3 times), but not to the patch I selected.
In other words, I'd go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 on the MIDI mate, the G-Major patch would go 1, 1, 8, 8, 8, 17, 3, 3, 3, 2.
It also randomly changed patches a few times without me pressing any buttons as if there was "noise" or crap coming out of the RM4'd MIDI thru.
The RM4 channel changed at no point.

So I plugged the MIDI mate into my Rocktron VooduValve (with the same 7-pin cable) - it worked perfectly. Every time I pressed a button on the MIDI mate it changed the VooduValve to the patch I chose.

I opened up the RM4 & verified that the little jumper switches were still on MIDI channel 1. They were.
I changed to MIDI channel 2, changed the MIDI Mate to channel 2 & tried again. Same - no switching.
So I switched back to MIDI Channel 1. Same.


So from this I conclude:
There's nothing wrong with my MIDI Mate, Engl Z12, Engl E570, TC G-Major.
The RM4 still powers the MIDI mate down the 7-pin cable, but does not seem to process MIDI instructions sent in, or send them out properly.

Is there some sort of "factory reset" I can try? Anything else?

Please someone, tell my my RM4 isn't fried :(
 
Top