hey All,

Well i've just inherited my brothers old R70 drun machine, but it's coming up with a couple of errors.

They are both apparently related to the Midi. The errors in question are a serial error and some type of ACT error.

In a nut shell - these errors mainly appear when trying to play back a recorded pattern or song. They have appeared when manually playing - but not all that often.

When they do appear, I hit the no/exit button and can continue - but obviously this is just not on if i'm recording.

So, I'm hoping someone on here will have some experience in this area and may be able to tell me what i need to do to fix it. It's been taken to logitronics (Roland service centre here in melbourne), but those numbskulls said it was fine and without fault - funny that - the fault appears within a minute of turning on the machine everytime.
So they sold my brother a new powerpack and sent him on his way with a still faulting machine. Must've been a friday huh? :o/

So any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Luke.

I'm not sure anyone can help you without knowing what the errors actually are.  can you give us the details on the errors?

hey beagle - sorry for taking so long.

The two faults that come up are: "serial error" and "ACT sensing err".

That's all that it says, and the manual doesn't say much about it either. The faults appear when hooked up to the midi and when running standalone.

when you say "standalone" do you mean NOT through sonar?  if so that doesn't make sense because ACT is a Sonar function.

for those errors, I would look at your MIDI interface.  I looked for a reference on the R-70 but can't find anything without registering to 3rd party websites which I'm not interested in doing.  so since I can't download your manual, tell me how does the R-70 connect to your computer?  does it have a USB cable connecting it or does it have only a MIDI out port that you connect to something else?  and if you have a MIDI output port connecting to something else - what are you connecting to?

Standalone - meaning not connected to the PC or anything at all.

I have a copy of the manual - I can upload a link to it here if you'd like - hell i'd be super appreciative if you could help me solve this issue.

Like you, I'm puzzled as to how these errors are appearing when not connected to anything.
I even did the whole "hold MIDI and Assign buttons - then power on" hard reset - as soon as it powered up - the serial error appeared again.

I have to run out for a bit - but when i get back I'll take a couple of pics of the fault and post them here - you'll be able to see that it's not connected to anything - yet the errors will appear. Also keep in mind I have only just reset it too.

Once again - thanks for taking the time out to assist me - It's really cool of you!

Wow... an R-70? That really takes me back. The error message is most likely related to the implementation of Active Sensing, common in early MIDI devices. It's a pulse (about ever 300ms if I recall correctly) that simply confirms the connection of a MIDI cable -- caused more trouble than it was ever worth. Hopefully there's a way to disable it in the system settings. If not, try connecting a MIDI cable to it and something else, then see if the errors stop.

Tried to connect it up via the midi to see if that'd reset it or something - nothing.

Still on the prowl for a fix for this.

BUMP!

Hi Luke. I was going to suggest the main initialization function as per outlined in the manual in Chapter 9 Section 9-2. It may not work but sometimes people do some weird things during their time with the machine and alter or screw up settings etc. 
 
But I see you have done it which is a good thing to do. Maybe do it more than once. Battery might be low too. It could be causing the error. According to the manual you will get a battery low message if it is low. They say the life of the battery is 5 years.