[sdiy] ? About Alesis Keyboard Controllers @ All Electronics (Van Nuys, CA)

[Byron G. Jacquot]

>completely-working unit).  What were the problems you encountered with
>these?  Were they easy to fix, or pretty involved/complicated?  How would
>one go about fixing said problems? Any total disaster stories from anyone?
>I'm interested in piecing together a nice controller from a couple of these,
>but am pretty green with diagnosing/fixing problems, etc. Any input/help
>much appreciated...

My guess is that they are naked Fatar keyboards.  From the comments that
someone on the list made a while back (Gene?  Jim?), a lot of them we're
marked with comments like "loud C#3," I can guess what you'll find.

The Fatar actions aren't the most robust ones out there.  They can have some
fiddly subassemblies for the switches & weights on piano-weighted ones.

What probably happened was these keyboards were hooked to a test rig at
Alesis, and gone over, and failed for various reaosns.  The "loud key/soft
key" marks tell me that the pair of switches for velocity sensitivity on
some keys was out of whack.  If you find one that has all of the parts, then
it will probably work fairly well as a non-velocity-sensitive controller.
You might be able to find & fix what's wrong.  You might also be able to buy
a large one and find enough of it working to make a good smaller one.

Byron Jacquot