|
|
Post by Hollow Sun on Jan 17, 2007 22:14:24 GMT
Was chatting via Messenger with my US HS cohort last night and he said he'd found a bug!!!! He was trying to fine tune some zones in SAMPLER mode but when he selected Zone 2, he was editing Zone 1  Tried it here - no problem He tried all sorts of things but to no avail... editing one zone caused the adjacent one below it to be affected. Anyway, I left him to it coz with the UK/US time difference, I had to get some sleep (this was 3am!!!) The following morning, I received an email from him to say he'd found the problem - for some reason, global TRANSPOSE was set to -1 (he must have nudged it inadvertently). Setting that back to 0 and all was fine again. But that got me wondering..... How many of the so-called "bugs and problems" we see reported all over the net ARE bugs or as a result of something somewhere else. Dan's a level-headed Systems Analyst by day so he tracked it down but I wonder how many vitriolic, knee-jerk posts have been made on forums where the poster simply had a problem like this and turned to his PC to launch an attack on Fusion and/or Alesis (which then escalates as others join in the bunfight and then spreads like wildfire across the net as quotes from that are posted on other forums and so on)? It also reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend who works at Alesis tech Support in the US. He told me of this guy who called in ranting and raving that when he selected programs on his new Fusion, samples were missing and he was getting loads of error messages. He'd switched it on and off - even re-installed the OS and so on. Half an hour later, a resolution hadn't been reached. Everything was working fine at Tech Support on an identical model but not on his. And so it went on. Then my mate asked "So what happens, for example, if you try and select the Holy Grail piano ... Bank 01, Preset 001?" to which the user replies "Oh - I deleted that from the HD coz I'd heard it isn't very good". Further probing showed that the user had hooked his Fusion up to his PC almost as soon as he got it and deleted stuff he didn't like the look of and had moved stuff around to be more as he wanted it (like putting multi-samples in with the samples in separate folders and so on)!!!  Not an isolated case it seems. Of course, I am not denying that issues (and bugs) still remain because that would naive and stupid -- and some people HAVE had genuine problems -- but I do wonder how many of the vitriolic rants about Fusion/Alesis seen elsewhere are a product of this kind of thing ... people dicking around in one area of the system and screwing up something elsewhere in the system!!! Steve |
|
|
|
Post by andrews928 on Jan 17, 2007 23:10:35 GMT
There is no doubt there is a lot of knee jerk reaction on the Fusion, maybe because of all the negative stuff posted on the internet people want to blame the unit first and not even consider operator error. The Sweetwater forum is famous for this. The thing I find ironic is you hear all this garbage on that forum and nothing negative on something like the Korg Oasis. Go over to the HC forum and you find a lot of negative stuff on the Oasis, so much that after awhile I thought I was on a Fusion thread over at Sweetwater.
|
|
|
|
Post by gwenhwyfaer on Jan 18, 2007 0:50:53 GMT
Maybe it's just that nobody on the Sweetwater forum has $8k to spend on a synth..?  Speaking of bugs... the description above reminds me of something I tripped over the other day. I'd select a new sample-based patch, go in to edit it, try to change the multisample on one of the oscs... but I kept finding that whilst I could see all of the patches, I couldn't select the higher ones! Not even a reboot rectified the anomaly... After a bit, I realised that switching multisample banks made the problem go away; a bit more digging told me that the problem only occurred when the bank before had fewer multisamples than the current one. And then it dawned on me; sometime previously, I'd created a new multisample and neither saved nor moved off it... I checked, and it was still hanging around there - at least 2 reboots later! I moved away from it, and everything was fine again. But is it a bug, or is it only a quirk that I found by doing something silly in the first place? And what if someone less patient or technically-minded (or perhaps less convinced of their own fallibility, or of the deterministic nature of software) than I am had found it? These synthesiser things, they're complicated critters, and they need a lot of patience and a systematic approach to get the most out of them... |
|
|
|
Post by Hollow Sun on Jan 18, 2007 1:49:42 GMT
These synthesiser things, they're complicated critters, and they need a lot of patience and a systematic approach to get the most out of them... Yep - even in the early days of modulars, it was never easy and it was very easy to patch things together and not get a sound .... unless you knew what you were doing and were 'systematic'. Same later with pre-patched synths. But internet forums didn't exist back then - if they did, I am sure that many of the synths we now regard as 'classic' would have been slated and trashed by some 14-yr-old who maybe tried a VCS3/MiniMoog/MoogIIIP/Prophet 5 in a shop for 5 minutes .... Rewind 36 years with the internet in place .... " man... i tried one of them vcs3 things in GC the other day - what a crock of shit! i plugged in various pins to the matrix and got no sound out of it. i tried turning the various controls but still got no sound. this thing has some serious bugs. the shop also had a moog but it was the same - i patched in all these cables and got nothing. so i tried one of them arp odisee things - no cables or pins but it was the same. all these things have some serious bugs and its a fucking disgrace these manufacturers let this shit out the door coz its all junk.
i heard the moog demos at the walter carlos website and also all that stuff at the bbc radiophonic workshop website but they must have special versions coz i couldn't make any of this shit work.
i believe in defending the consumer coz they have rights and this is just shit man" Fast forward 36 years and what do we see? The same. Anyone with with an unfounded opinion can post what they like regardless of their experience or knowledge ... everyone's an 'expert' now (ahem!) and they have the net to voice their opinion albeit (and conveniently) anonymously Hmmmm... Steve |
|
|
|
Post by mps on Jan 18, 2007 2:08:07 GMT
I liked the Sweetwater thread where the dude that takes all of Sweetwater's return for service orders, sorts them out and posts that the Fusion DOES NOT have a higher return rate than the big three. Wouldn't he know? Not according to the experts. Poking around in the hard drive and downloading samples that have been God-knows-where are a cause of a sizable number of bug reports IMHO. Someday when collectors are paying top dollar for this highly priced, classic, turn of the century synth, you can bet that some of the same detractors will be bragging about how they had one of the first ones out of the factory. And about how they sounded so much better than the ones that came out in the second run. |
|
|
|
Post by kpr on Jan 18, 2007 8:10:25 GMT
False bug reports are also reaching magazine reviewers. And obviously they believe what they hear from others and not what they hear and see from the instrument itself. The german music magazine amazona.de did a Fusion review last September. Besides a simple feature description the reviewer wrote some comments about his personal experience during the test. So he thought that he found a terrible bug: The Cutoff parameter doesn´t close completely when turning the knob to the far left, to 0, it opens again. At first I couldn´t recreate this phenomenon, I checked everything in the filter section, but I couldn´t confirm it. Then I had the idea: This guy misunderstood the Controller Knobs as Data Entry!!! In default position the Knob 1 is in Cutoff mode, when pressing the second Button from top. And this Knob is acting correctly as the filter is closing when turning the Knob to the left, but opening to the default position when reaching the amount 0. It´s a kind of safe Knob setting what Alesis did and the range of the setting is for avarage use too. But it´s a Controller, even programmable too, and not the Data Entry. I guess this "reviewer" even never went through all Edit pages. He had not too many things where he could moan about, so he did with this false bug, what is an extra fun when reading it. And obviously he wasn´t intended to ask someone who is working with the Fusion to countercheck what he found. And the magazine is online and readers can leavve their comments. Some were ultrahappy about the review and praised him for his honest and frank writing and calling all existing bugs, hurray!! A couple of days later the review disappeared from the site, until today. Perhaps the editor found out, that publishing false bugs is more embarrassing than he thought  Another interesting point in this review: He praised the Physical Model as very useful. Eehm, every Fusion user knows that this is actually the weakest section, not really bad, but not very impressive. But obviously the PM is what the reviewer likes more ... |
|
|
|
Post by markone on Jan 18, 2007 10:18:54 GMT
Sort of Apropos of this thread... (But only sort of!) Those of you who who have seen the Moog documentary, may remember Rick Wakeman in conversation with Bob Moog, re-telling how he got his first Minimoog.
Apparently it belonged to the actor Jack Wilde who played the artful dodger in the stage show Oliver (Why he bought it goodness knows), and he was getting rid of it because it "didn't work" Ricks agent had got it for silly money and Rick got hold of it and it was 100% functional. Feeling a little guilty about ripping the guy off he rang Wilde and said that the synth was working fine, was he sure about the price.
"nah mate, it's definitely broken"
"What was the fault you had?" asked a mystified Rick
"It only plays one note at a time."
"You know it's monophonic... It's supposed to be like that."
"Well that's no good to me... Hope you have better luck with it."
|
|
|
|
Post by Hollow Sun on Jan 18, 2007 11:47:27 GMT
Sort of Apropos of this thread... (But only sort of!) Those of you who who have seen the Moog documentary, may remember Rick Wakeman in conversation with Bob Moog, re-telling how he got his first Minimoog. Apparently it belonged to the actor Jack Wilde who played the artful dodger in the stage show Oliver (Why he bought it goodness knows)..... Ha!  Apropos to nothing, Tangerine Dream bought their first big Moog modular from .... The Rolling Stones  And BTW, (the late) Jack Wilde was also in the film version of Oliver. Steve |
|
|
|
Post by Hollow Sun on Jan 18, 2007 12:50:30 GMT
False bug reports are also reaching magazine reviewers. Unfortunately yes  I have read far too many reviews (not just of Fusion) where the reviewer wants to look a smart arse by revealing some obscure little quirk or omission or drawing attention to some minor issue. I remember expending a lot of energy arguing with someone reviewing the Akai S2000 for a US magazine about the implementation of envelope scaling or something equally obscure. In the end, we had to agree to disagree but the reviewer made a big song and dance about this little issue in the review with a separate sidebox highlighting it.... sorry to say, but some failed muso trying to look like a clever git power user. And I have read far too many reviews where it is obvious that the reviewer has spent no more than an afternoon with it. In fairness to some mags, they only have the review model for a very limited period of time before it has to be passed on to another mag for review but I do know of products that have been 'reviewed' by someone on their desk with a pair of headphones at the magazine's offices! I think this is why UK mag, Sound On Sound, is one of the best and most respected magazines around. Products they review are generally done by professionals in the field who have enormous experience of the type of product they are reviewing (whatever it may be - recorder, synth, sampler, monitors, etc.) and they normally insist on having the review model with the reviewer in situ and in use at the reviewer's studio for some weeks before publishing the review. And when the review is submitted, the editors and proof readers at SOS HQ will often get back to the reviewer to check on certain things that may be in the review. But yes ... some magazine (be they paper or on-line) reviews don't help a product depending on the magazine/reviewer's own agenda. Steve |
|
|
|
Post by dfahrner on Jan 18, 2007 17:56:03 GMT
Another interesting point in this review: He praised the Physical Model as very useful. Eehm, every Fusion user knows that this is actually the weakest section, not really bad, but not very impressive. But obviously the PM is what the reviewer likes more ... The Keyboard Magazine review of the Fusion said that the PM engine models "spring to life" when used with a MIDI wind controller. I hadn't been able to do much of anything with the Fusion's PM and my WX7, so I wrote to Keyboard asking just what PM programs the reviewer was referring to, how he set them up for use with the wind controller, etc. He replied a month or so later that he had actually loaned the Fusion to someone else who used wind controllers, and said that when he went back over a couple of days later, the guy sounded "just slammin' " with the Fusion/wind controller...at least he had actually heard some sounds... df |
|
|
|
Post by jokeyman123 on Jul 14, 2021 13:57:23 GMT
I love to revive "Zombie" posts-especially this one. Wish some of you OP's were still around to bask in the glow of what is becoming a "classic" workstation. If you visit the Alesismusic.com website-you will see-there is a renewed interest-somewhat from me with 2 restored 8HD's under my belt-and I roamed the music halls during the Pleistocene age, still do. I was pleased to see Hadley posting (please don't be offended my dropping your name) recently on alesismusic- and suddenly realized his pedigree here for these groups. New is not always better.
Sadly like so many things our instruments are becoming more "plasticky"-i don't mind lighter weight-but the mechanicals too. Having recently passed on a Roland FA-08 for giggles-seeing as how it was busted up all over-didn't take much I suspect-and having several "lightweight" piano-action 88-key digitals which are fine for what these are-I find myself returning to the Fusion when I want to hone my serious chops-and-discovered through much research-that 15 years plus later-many new/newer 88-key workstations and controllers are still using the TP-40-found in the Fusion. And it looks like the newer Fatar TP-40 iterations might still fit in the Fusion-if you can get one. I'm trying but my Italian is molto crappo. Buying a 70 plus pound 4000 Montage or Kronos still doesn't seem quite right in 2021 when I have 2 perfectly working Fusions and yes I am bragging as both vendors I bought these from pretty much wrote them off as useless, priced them accordingly, ha ha. You can study my work at alesismusic.com-did take alot, but wow are these worth it. KPR, Hollow Sun, Maestropiero, JDM so many worked so hard developing the huge program database I have never seen for any other workstation, and still are. Jesse and parametric there-I studied their user group before I pulled the trigger as i saw an incredible amount and quality of posts for solving technical problems, and for just plain making music with these, thanks all.
I am pushing on the groups-thinking Numark might think twice about reviving some form of the Fusion-perhaps a desktop version-of which the MPC5000 already is-also no longer being made-try to get one of those for less than 2 grand US if at all. I know virtual and software has taken over for the last 10 years or so-but I see a renewed interest with younger musicians in actual physical instruments again, a pleasing trend. Anybody privileged enough to see a virtuoso organist (or drummer) using both hands and feet to play-Ginger Baker was a competitive cyclist before becoming the ground-breaking drummer he became-I worked as a kid with Rich McCrea (think Jimmy Smith/Joey DeFrancesco style)-a little guy who danced on the Hammond with his hands and feet while I kept up on drums-which was my inpiration for wanting to learn the Hammond like him. Nothing like the real thing.
I did discover one disturbing thing that might have turned off some original Fusion players who might not have realized at first-glad you got rid of your Fusions, I have yours now-you know who you are-SOME OF THE WHITE KEYS ARE MISSING A BLACK KEY IN BETWEEN (caps purposely intended)! Actually quite a few-seems to be a problem between the b and c keys-and unfortunately between the e and f keys-and they did this right across the entire keyboard! And both of mine, this is outrageous!!! Somebody should have spotted this right away! How am I going to get those keys, it will take some major mods to stuff them in between there. Alesis, what were you thinking!!!
|
|
