The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

Hi Jimmy,

>I think this he's spot on - get a good sysex dump from the AN1x 
>and change the Battery...

Your original request -- a professional keyboard that lasts ten years -- is not unreasonable.  Most of them will last at least 15-20 years under normal circumstances.  However, a BACKUP BATTERY that lasts ten years is asking a lot.  Unfortunately, some keyboards don't recover well from bad data in memory, which can be caused by a bad battery.  I've noticed that the AN1x is very sensitive to this kind of situation.  I had a funny MIDI wiring setup that changed patch 128 to something very strange -- values outside the normal ranges, strange characters on the display, etc. -- and my whole synth started acting weird until I overwrote patch 128 with some decent data.

If you have any means of saving MIDI data, hook up your Annie to the device, and use Bulk Dump All to save all of your data.  I would recommend that you save the patches alone ("all voices") and the sequences alone ("all ptn") as well, in case the system data is messed up.  (Fixing the system data only takes a few minutes afterwards, compared to the other stuff.)  Then replace the battery, do a factory reset -- hold the 7, 8, and 9 buttons down while powering on -- and then reload your "all data" set.  If you still have problems, rerun the reset procedure, then only load the patches and sequences, and manually adjust the system settings if you need to.  In fact, it might be worthwhile to just save the data, run the reset, and reload the data WITHOUT changing the battery, just in case the battery is still fine, but the planetary alignment last week was not. ;^)  If your Annie is less than five years old, a dead battery is a little rare.

Regards,

-BW

--
Bruce Wahler
Design Consultant
Ashby Solutions\ufffd   http://consult.ashbysolutions.com
978.386.7389  voice/fax
bruce@...