Vintage Simmons Drums (UK) Users Group

Hi, I've just taken delivery of an SDE. I think the battery has gone - all I'm getting is different flavours of digital noise on the patch outputs. The control system appears to work though, and it seems in vetry good condition.

The battery is an Emmerich NCM 3.6, which research suggests is a NiCad, so I'm hoping it will recharge and I won't have to replace it.

I have the factory patches on a (20 year old) cassette tape. It has a gallant go at loading the patches, recognising some of the patch numbers, but eventually all attempts have resulted in failure.

I'm thinking my best bet is for someone to dump their patches to an audio file and I'll try loading that instead of using cassette. Hopefully the battery will recharge and I'll be able to store the patches and it will all come to life.

Otherwise I'm open to suggestions.

Cheers
Susie
http://www.myspace.com/susangardener

An update...
It looks like it is now saving data, as I can make changes, switch off, and those changes are there when I switch on again.
However, I'm still getting silence (with a lot of digital noise), even though it is definitely receiving data, as the channel leds light up as I play.

I've dumped the cassette to digital file and tidied it up. It makes a better attempt to read it, but I still get ER after reading 9 patches.

I discovered that if I hold the select button while switching on, I can get it to go into some sort of diagnostic mode where it chases through all the leds, but I haven't found a factory reset.

I still think the problems are due to it losing its memory, but I'm not sure about the ROM patches - if they were protected RAM and i've lost them, how do I get them back? The voice numbers on the ROM patches all appear to be set to 1, so may have been zeroed, but I'm still trying to figure out the user interface, so could be wrong on that one.

Any ideas anyone? Not sure how many SDEs there are out there. DO we have any SDE experts?

Thanks
Susie






--- In Simmons_Drums@yahoogroups.com, "Susie" <gardens@...> wrote:

>
> Hi, I've just taken delivery of an SDE. I think the battery has gone - all I'm getting is different flavours of digital noise on the patch outputs. The control system appears to work though, and it seems in vetry good condition.
> 
> The battery is an Emmerich NCM 3.6, which research suggests is a NiCad, so I'm hoping it will recharge and I won't have to replace it.
> 
> I have the factory patches on a (20 year old) cassette tape. It has a gallant go at loading the patches, recognising some of the patch numbers, but eventually all attempts have resulted in failure.
> 
> I'm thinking my best bet is for someone to dump their patches to an audio file and I'll try loading that instead of using cassette. Hopefully the battery will recharge and I'll be able to store the patches and it will all come to life.
> 
> Otherwise I'm open to suggestions.
> 
> Cheers
> Susie
> http://www.myspace.com/susangardener
>

Susie skrev:
> An update...
> It looks like it is now saving data, as I can make changes, switch off, 
> and those changes are there when I switch on again.
> However, I'm still getting silence (with a lot of digital noise), even 
> though it is definitely receiving data, as the channel leds light up as 
> I play.

So, receiving is OK and editing too.

> I've dumped the cassette to digital file and tidied it up. It makes a 
> better attempt to read it, but I still get ER after reading 9 patches.

With the description above I don't think this matters. Something is 
rotten in the SDE.

> I discovered that if I hold the select button while switching on, I can 
> get it to go into some sort of diagnostic mode where it chases through 
> all the leds, but I haven't found a factory reset.

No manual?

> I still think the problems are due to it losing its memory, but I'm not 
> sure about the ROM patches - if they were protected RAM and i've lost 
> them, how do I get them back? The voice numbers on the ROM patches all 
> appear to be set to 1, so may have been zeroed, but I'm still trying to 
> figure out the user interface, so could be wrong on that one.

But if you can edit sounds the originals won't matter. But if something 
is wrong in the selecting matrix/interface it won't matter if you load 
new patches. But some skilful SDE user ought to have found their way 
onto the list.

> Any ideas anyone? Not sure how many SDEs there are out there. DO we have 
> any SDE experts?

Not me for sure. :) But a classic tip is to check the PSU with a volt 
meter. The digital parts are always sensitive if the juice just drops 
10% or so...

-- 
electronically yours, jesper

- -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -
www.electronic-obsession.se

Thanks for the tip Jesper. I had a PSU problem with my Novation Drumstation just as you describe. I'll check it out.

I do have a manual, but there's no mention of system resets or test routines. It's a complicated beast!

Fingers crossed!
Susie

--- In Simmons_Drums@yahoogroups.com, jesper <jesper@...> wrote:

>
> Susie skrev:
> > An update...
> > It looks like it is now saving data, as I can make changes, switch off, 
> > and those changes are there when I switch on again.
> > However, I'm still getting silence (with a lot of digital noise), even 
> > though it is definitely receiving data, as the channel leds light up as 
> > I play.
> 
> So, receiving is OK and editing too.
> 
> > I've dumped the cassette to digital file and tidied it up. It makes a 
> > better attempt to read it, but I still get ER after reading 9 patches.
> 
> With the description above I don't think this matters. Something is 
> rotten in the SDE.
> 
> > I discovered that if I hold the select button while switching on, I can 
> > get it to go into some sort of diagnostic mode where it chases through 
> > all the leds, but I haven't found a factory reset.
> 
> No manual?
> 
> > I still think the problems are due to it losing its memory, but I'm not 
> > sure about the ROM patches - if they were protected RAM and i've lost 
> > them, how do I get them back? The voice numbers on the ROM patches all 
> > appear to be set to 1, so may have been zeroed, but I'm still trying to 
> > figure out the user interface, so could be wrong on that one.
> 
> But if you can edit sounds the originals won't matter. But if something 
> is wrong in the selecting matrix/interface it won't matter if you load 
> new patches. But some skilful SDE user ought to have found their way 
> onto the list.
> 
> > Any ideas anyone? Not sure how many SDEs there are out there. DO we have 
> > any SDE experts?
> 
> Not me for sure. :) But a classic tip is to check the PSU with a volt 
> meter. The digital parts are always sensitive if the juice just drops 
> 10% or so...
> 
> -- 
> electronically yours, jesper
> 
> - -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -
> www.electronic-obsession.se
>

Susie skrev:
> Thanks for the tip Jesper. I had a PSU problem with my Novation 
> Drumstation just as you describe. I'll check it out.
> 
> I do have a manual, but there's no mention of system resets or test 
> routines. It's a complicated beast!

It often comes with size if you ask me. The smaller the unit, the bigger 
the problems. SDS-6 may be the biggest exception to the rule. :)

-- 
electronically yours, jesper

- -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -
www.electronic-obsession.se