Forum rss-feed

Forum

Help: Tau No Sound

Most Recent

written by: stuwyatt

Thanks for the fast reply & warm welcome.

For some reason, I didn't think to check the top menu options - instead I was looking for weird button combination presses and eigenbrowser prompts. The interface has certainly come on a long way since I last used it. Needless to say, once I actually selected the UA-5, it started to work perfectly :)

I don't have the Pico any more, but had I known that you could use both at the same time, I would have kept it. I sold it cheaply to a friend, but I'm unsure if he is using it - so there is a chance that I might be able to buy it back.

Thanks again. I'm now going to create some happy noise :)

written by: motic

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 12:02:57 +0100 BST

Yeah, Geert, It's very strange that got into this state indeed and the stranger thing is.. i'm still pluggin' it in, every time i'm gonna play it without resistance and getting the green light right away... and yes i was aware of the arrow as soon as i saw the neutrik's so no forcing or something like ever happen.
The other one i fixed with some hot-glue was straight as far as i could tell only easy to push back in it's hole and pushing it back, it didn't lock like the other 4 do, only after seeing the photo my self, is when i saw the bending.
Still haven't opened that one cause as i said, if i didn't come to this thread i wouldn't have noticed or inspected... never had problems with connection from the first day, two months ago!!
My believe is that those pins never had a locked sitting in the first place.

Have disassembled now the second one (on photo) and by this one, after pushing the pin back in it's place, locked!!, only had to bend it straight again and now is like it should be, locked in it's place... the connector can't be plugged other than with the arrow up so it's not possible to bend a pin like that (tried with only the jack without the cable in it, the front part of it, and it can only be plugged in one and only way!!)
Not giving an orange light, i suppose it passed the check on Eigenlabs, but really wasn't 100% and if i got it right, those pins only contact to the shielding, which i suppose don't give any major error if not connected, except with strong magnetic or electric disturbances, whilst the other four are for the actual data stream.

Moreno

Btw, sorry Ace if i'm sort of hijacking your thread... and FYI, i've experienced what you were telling about the screwing tight.... not only the outer jack goes in only one way in the TAU, the inner component with the pins goes only in one way in the jack and also the last clamp on the cable, to assure it doesn't turn around by screwing the back tight on the front... if that last one isn't in his locked state, the inner work can shift back and you can get the orange light pulling it a little.


written by: john

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 12:41:35 +0100 BST

Hi Ace

The bug report you sent in indicated that one direction of the communications between base station and instrument wasn't starting up properly, which is very unusual and indicative of a poor connection somewhere, most likely a poorly secured and therefore loose pin on the connector cable. These pins latch in place when inserted, so if you can push one in then it's not latched properly. You can check this by gently pushing on them one by one with your little finger or a matchstick - use a low pressure only to do this, if you bend them you'll break the cable. If they can be pushed into the connector then you have a faulty cable which you should return to us for replacement.

These cables are manufactured for us by Neutrik (who make the connectors) and it's possible that there has been a production problem. Neutrik are normally a very good company (they make the lion's share of pro audio connectors these days) but there's always room for error. I'm going to have the current stock of cables checked to make sure he pins are properly latched next week as it's possible that our current pre-delivery checks can miss this fault due to it's potentially intermittent nature.

@Moreno, it looks as if you may have had a similar problem. The pin you have had trouble with is the ground connection and if it is not properly connected it shouldn't have a great deal of impact, although it is better if it is connected. The power supply to the instruments is a fully isolated 24V so there are no safety issues involved in a poor ground connection but if the ground connection were to be broken at the base station end then it would reduce the electrical noise immunity of the serial link and also increase the potential for the instrument to create electrical interference. If you return your cable to us, we will replace it FOC. If anyone else out there has this problem within warranty, please don't attack it with a glue gun (although I understand the temptation), please return the cable for a replacement - we can return the faulty items to the manufacturer and that both saves us money and makes it less likely we'll see the problem in the future.

Apologies to all for inconvenience caused...

John


written by: motic

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 14:13:49 +0100 BST

john said:
@Moreno, it looks as if you may have had a similar problem. The pin you have had trouble with is the ground connection and if it is not properly connected it shouldn't have a great deal of impact, although it is better if it is connected. The power supply to the instruments is a fully isolated 24V so there are no safety issues involved in a poor ground connection but if the ground connection were to be broken at the base station end then it would reduce the electrical noise immunity of the serial link and also increase the potential for the instrument to create electrical interference. If you return your cable to us, we will replace it FOC.


That's what i thought about the ground connection and eventual interference which i still don't have.
John, mine is fixed now, one side a little 'drop', other side properly in place and i don't like to miss the instrument (cable) for a few weeks so i'll keep this one.
Didn't want to make much of a fuzz, was just trying to help find out how and why and not 'whining' or so... i think the Neutrik is a good choice for the instrument and a professional connector.. things like this can happen... Ace is now out the problems and he can happily play his TAU and me?... never stopped practicing.. well, sometime to eat and sleep, he he.
Not much harm done here, nothing i couldn't fix in a few minutes; would have been the TAU or the base station then i would start worrying but the only headache comes so now and then only from the windows system :D
Still astonished about the sensitivity of those lil' keys.. i'll keep enjoying mine as before.
Knowledge is power and we know now more than yesterday...
Thanks from this side for the explanation and support.

Moreno


written by: stuwyatt

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:00:57 +0100 BST

Rather than create a new thread, I thought I'd post my issues in here.

I am running a Win7 i5 laptop. The base station has a green light, and the Tau's lights function correctly (i.e. I can see the arranger working etc).

I'm not getting any sound whatsoever, and I'm flummoxed. I'm using an Edirol UA-5 soundcard, and have just installed the Edirol 64bit windows drivers from their site. I've been playing around with Stage, loading in sounds just in case the detault Tau setting was blank, and nothing.

The UA-5 is set up as the default sound card. Is there something that I need to set in EigenD to use the UA-5?


written by: john

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:15:34 +0100 BST

Hi Stuart

If you select the 'Window' menu on the toolbar, you'll see an entry in there called 'Audio Settings'. If you select that you can set the audio device to use and set it to your Edirol. If that doesn't do the trick let us know. Audio on Windows machines can be a trying experience after a Mac.

Welcome back, btw, I hope you're going to enjoy your Tau, it's quite a different experience after a Pico. You can also make setups now to use both at once, if you're keeping your Pico, and the new Fingerer Agent brings a lot of new possibilities to the Pico that can be fun to explore.

cheers

John


written by: byakuganace

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:23:13 +0100 BST

Stuwyatt,

Part of what I had overlooked in my issue was configuring the audio to work in EigenD. From what you have described, my guess would be that this is the step you have overlooked.

Be sure that after loading your Tau setup in EigenD that you go to Window --> Audio Settings. From this window be sure to select both your device type and the device name. This configures EigenD so that it is aware of what device to use for audio output. When you're finished configuring this, just hit ok. From this point you should have sound! Note that you'll have to configure this each time you reload your setup.

If this doesn't work, you can attempt to use ASIO (as it has lower latency). Most Eigenharp players recommend ASIO4ALL, which can be downloaded from here: http://www.asio4all.com/

Once you've downloaded this and installed it, select ASIO in device type and then ASIO4ALL in device names in the audio settings window.


If this doesn't help, then the rest is probably out of my realm of expertise. However I'm sure that if this is the case, others will gladly assist you!

Best of luck,
Ace


written by: stuwyatt

Tue, 17 Jul 2012 14:25:31 +0100 BST

Thanks for the fast reply & warm welcome.

For some reason, I didn't think to check the top menu options - instead I was looking for weird button combination presses and eigenbrowser prompts. The interface has certainly come on a long way since I last used it. Needless to say, once I actually selected the UA-5, it started to work perfectly :)

I don't have the Pico any more, but had I known that you could use both at the same time, I would have kept it. I sold it cheaply to a friend, but I'm unsure if he is using it - so there is a chance that I might be able to buy it back.

Thanks again. I'm now going to create some happy noise :)



Please log in to join the discussions