What to do when the Genos freezes ?

[Kaarlo von Freymann]

Hi Everyone,

When a Windows PC freezes the only remedy I know is a restart.  Keyboards are basically computers so no wonder they also do freeze which has fortunately never happened to me with Tyros 5/6 but happens regularly with Genos one of the reasons I have uses Tyros so far on most gigs as a reset is  very inconvenient at gigs as the reset also destroys some  important "global settings"  like locked  MIC setting.
The same happens with Tyros on power cycling but it is not much of a problem as I never experienced a freeze except in Italy where the mains stability is as unreliable as Mr. B.....cony.

The freeze seems  erratic. I have not been able to associate it with any style, any reg. bank, any midi file, any voice  or any button pushing.  Mains voltage in Helsinki is known for its stability.

Anyone else having this problem, any comments highly appreciated.

Cheers
Kaarlo

[Pauljones]

Hi Kaarlo,

My frozen few time.  It happened when changing from Reg. To Reg.  The only way back is like you said, restart, like a computer.

[EileenL]

I have never had any keyboard freeze up on me so can't really help. I would think it did not like something you were trying to do or load. Just turning on and off should free it and leave your settings in tact.

[Kaarlo von Freymann]

I have never had any keyboard freeze up on me so can't really help. I would think it did not like something you were trying to do or load. Just turning on and off should free it and leave your settings in tact.

Thanks Eileen and Paul,

I am sure Eileen you are right and I like the way you put it:

"I would think it did not like      something you were trying to do or load."

But it is like with my wife, sometimes she "freezes" and will not tell me when I ask "what's the matter" because she feels I should be able to understand , which I am not.  And the very important Mic setting is not left intact but reverts to 3 part harmony as Fred has explained it is designed to do irrespective of the setting.

Anyway I feel the only acceptable reason for my keyboard to freeze is unstable mains.   
Paul, you say with your Genos it happened when changing from Reg. to  Reg.  I will try to watch out whether I have overlooked that mine does it for the same reason.  BTW Pal did you mean changing reg bank or just pushing an other reg. button ?  I feel just another button could not qualify for "disliking" as that is a VERY normal thing to do and in case the content is "disliked" Genos should have reacted when the reg. was done.

Cheers

Kaarlo

[Al Ram]

the reset also destroys some  important "global settings"  like locked  MIC setting.

Kaarlo
You may want to consider creating a 'special' setup registration with the settings you want the keyboard to start.   For example include the desired Mic settings, instrument, style, etc. 

I have created this registration and named it "A AAA Setup".   That way it will always be at the top of all registrations.   It only has one button.    Once you recall that special reg, you will have the settings you want and not the settings the keyboard wants.

When rehearsing or when setting up a new song, i turn on the keyboard and call up that special registration just to get MY settings.  In my case, that includes mic settings, VH (Studio Vocal), piano instrument, octave, transpose value, style, tempo, etc.

Afterwards, of course, each song/registration bank has it's own unique settings.

Hope this helps.

Thanks 

[travlin-easy]

In more than 3 decades on stage performing arranger keyboards of every brand, several of which were Yamaha, I never had a freezeup or keyboard failure. Keep in mind, however, that I thoroughly auditioned each and every third party style I used, tried them out in registrations or MFDs, tuned and tweaked styles and voices, then tested everything again, just to be on the safe side. I did the same with MIDI files I intended to use on stage, and later went to playing those few midi files through my laptop instead of directly from the keyboard.

Another thing I did was to minimize the number of external components and connections to the keyboard. The only midi connected device is my TC Helicon Harmony-M, which is controlled by the keyboard.

Now, I have experienced USB storage device failures, which is why I always carried a backup USB storage device that was the exact same size and configuration as the one that stayed in the keyboard.

Kaarlo, I would suggest unplugging everything other than the speakers from the keyboard, and if the problem persists, return the keyboard for an exchange, or full refund of the purchase price and try another brand.

Good luck,

Gary :cool:

[Kaarlo von Freymann]

Kaarlo
You may want to consider creating a 'special' setup registration with the settings you want the keyboard to start.   For example include the desired Mic settings, instrument, style, etc. 

I have created this registration and named it "A AAA Setup".   That way it will always be at the top of all registrations.   It only has one button.    Once you recall that special reg, you will have the settings you want and not the settings the keyboard wants.

When rehearsing or when setting up a new song, i turn on the keyboard and call up that special registration just to get MY settings.  In my case, that includes mic settings, VH (Studio Vocal), piano instrument, octave, transpose value, style, tempo, etc.

Afterwards, of course, each song/registration bank has it's own unique settings.

Hope this helps.

Thanks

Thanks,
your like/thanks ratio to posts is among the very highest on his site.  I will try to do what you suggest.

BTW there is a Finnish saying  "Good advice is expensive"  which actually can also mean "good advice is invaluable." Which in this case would be the correct interpretation.

Cheers

Kaarlo

[tyrosman]

hi Karlo what you should do is start your registrations from fresh on genos and do not put any thing old into genos as this will prove a point that there is nothing wrong with Genos and put your ticks on what you want to put in to your registrations then save

[Kaarlo von Freymann]

......I never had a freezeup or keyboard failure. Keep in mind, however, that
1
I thoroughly auditioned each and every third party style I used, tried them out in registrations or MFDs, tuned and tweaked styles and voices, then tested everything again, just to be on the safe side.
2
I did the same with MIDI files I intended to use on stage, and later went to playing those few midi files through my laptop instead of directly from the keyboard.
3
Another thing I did was to minimize the number of external components and connections to the keyboard. The only midi connected device is my TC Helicon Harmony-M, which is controlled by the keyboard.
4
Now, I have experienced USB storage device failures, which is why I always carried a backup USB storage device that was the exact same size and configuration as the one that stayed in the keyboard.

Kaarlo, I would suggest unplugging everything other than the speakers from the keyboard, and if the problem persists, return the keyboard for an exchange, or full refund of the purchase price and try another brand.

Good luck,

Gary :cool:

Dear Gary,

Thanks for very clear and all-covering advice. The only thing I was not sure about what you meanrt was "in registrations or MFDs,"  (MFD according to the  acronyms.thefreedictionary.com  can mean 53 things     

As a fact I believe we did a couple of the things you suggest.

1
deleted everything "imported to the Genos user drive from Tyros", (the underside USB stick has never been installed)  eg.

- all  midi files
- all  styles,
- all  voices
- all  reg banks
- we disconnected  the wireless mic and earphones both from the mains and the Genos (which actually seemed to reduce the
  reg bank errors slightly)  and the Roland VP 7 vocal harmonizer.

Nothing could be found on the user drive so we presumed it was empty

- we formatted the user drive
- made a factory reset
- started from scratch using only preset styles and preset voices in newly created reg.banks.
- connected a Shure dynamic mic
- connected the active speakers directly to L/R Out on Genos.

Still the volume settings on the reg banks were unreliable, some volume set 65 for the style would hurt your ears with 127. Some regs where the style was set to begin with intro began with  A , tempos where no more as set and so on. The info pages for the regs show these errors. (photos made)

I  do like the Genos for several indisputable advantages like weight, size and sliders and fortunately the YAMAHA importer for Finland says,  keep the Tyros and dig into the Genos. We will make the exchange when we both feels it works as it should, and actually they at stage 1.1 already gave me a second Genos as we suspected it had a defect. Did not help.

Having had only YAMAHA keyboards since Tyros 1 switching brand would be too steep a leaning curve for me so I feel my only alternatives are to stay with my Tyros 5/6 and let others carry it as it has become too heavy for me or wait for an update or try a third unit.

Cheers

Kaarlo

[DonM]

MFD = Music Finder

[andyg]

Freezes are rare, but not unheard of. Digital control of instruments appeared in the late 1970s, followed by fully digital instruments not too long after. The entry of the 'D' word meant the arrival of the potential freeze.

I can personally think of just two freezes that were regular, or predictable. I know how to make a Yamaha AR100 organ freeze on demand, by asking it to do more in a performance than its CPU can handle but that's down to me and I obviously had to modify that particular piece of music!

The other may be more relevant. I did a Christmas concert and the keyboard was next to a large Christmas tree with multiple sets of flashing lights. The circuits in the lights' controllers were electrically 'noisy' and this noise got into the AC mains. With the  keyboard plugged into the same extension socket lead, it locked twice. Turned off the lights, all was OK.

So is there anything you're using that might be 'noisy' or 'dirty' electrically. Anything from a poorly made or faulty power supply in a piece of equipment to an errant circuit in something like a lighting controller?

Power cycling - "Have you tried turning it off and back on again?" in computer terms - is enough to recover from a freeze in almost all cases. A reset is probably too much 'force'.

And the 'AAA Setup' is the same as the 'A BLANK' bank that I've discussed as a better starting point for registrations than the 'out of the box' blank bank favoured by some. Worth its weight in gold, over and over!

[panos]

Kaarlo,I know that is time concuming but if I were you I would just correct everything was not sounding right with my regs,styles,midis,voices and I would check all those which I am using,one by one, to be like I wanted them to be.

I would use new voices,new style parts etc to make everything sound better.
That is the reason I would buy a new keyboard...to sound better!
I wouldn't buy it because it would be lighter or just prettier than my older one.
While computer related technologies can do more things every few years in a unbelievable rate, every electric machine can use them to be better.

I have a bunch of styles I could use but nearly everytime I am starting to learn a song I spend my time editing or making a style that sounds good to me.
It could be from a scratch,or by combine style parts or at least making some changes on the mixer, the OTS voices, the multipads etc.
And that is a part of a fun to me.

To put it in another way how we all can see/understand/do things in a different way:
If I had to listen a symphony from a new director played exactly the same way that Bernstein did with nothing new in it,I can see no reason for him to make the same copy.
I will just listen to the original.Why bother?

[Audrey Turner]

I was at the Organ & Keyboard Cavalcade event recently where the subject of 'weak' Wi-Fi came up.  In reply, the professional musician told us that on several occasions when he was entertaining' (particularly in Hotels) the Wi-Fi became too weak for his keyboard to operate properly and it just shut down on him which was obviously frustrating and very embarrassing.  To overcome this, he bought a Bluetooth Adaptor (which is more reliable than Wi-Fi apparently) and now keeps it permanently plugged in to his Genos and the keyboard hasn't given him any trouble since.

Could a Bluetooth Adaptor be the answer to the problems some people are experiencing at the moment?  I'd really like to know the answer.

Audrey Turner

[EileenL]

The keyboard dose not use Wi Fi to run it. It just uses mains supply as it dose in your home. He must have been using added equipment that needed Hi Fi to run it.