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Incidents/Injuries Roland received one report of a consumer connecting the power cord to an XLR output jack. No injuries have been reported.
Remedy Consumers should immediately stop using the pianos, unplug the power cord from the wall outlet and the piano and contact Roland U.S. for a free repair kit or to locate an authorized dealer or service center to have the repair kit installed free of charge.
So one knucklehead caused all this commotion?! of course the remedy is for you to stop playing that concerto NOW! Unplug the piano that was operating perfectly normal and run out of the room and do not go near it until you get your free repair kit! After all, being human, you never know when the urge to plug an electric cord into the wrong place might strike!
Anyway, maybe there was more going on than this says. Regardless, I applaud Roland for taking the pain and getting out in front of this, although i think they probably could have gotten away with ignoring it.
Steinway M; Roland V-Piano; Yamaha P250; Ivory II Grands, Italian, American D; Galaxy Vintage D; True Keys American; UVI Yamaha C7; Ravenscroft 275; Garritan CFX
So, you've just been held up in traffic, you arrive late at the gig and you're stressed. You plonk the RD on the stand, reach over from the front to the general area where the AC receptacle sits and feel your way to the socket where the cable fits....
The scenario is not unrealistic. You can only see where the cable is supposed to go from the rear, and from a relatively low angle. There is no top-of-the-board marking to help you, and the XLR sockets are close to the AC - and according to what I've read, the AC plug fits easily onto the XLR pins. Many venues are also very dark.
Knucklehead or not, I can visualize this happening as more than a one-off, and Roland had to act. To me, as I've said before, it was a design blunder where aesthetics (or other considerations) trumped functionality. I agree that Roland should be commended for acting so swiftly - and it must have been painful to have to do that just after the launch of a flagship.
Unfortunately, the chosen solution is a touch inelegant, and may cause minor issues for transport. But it's a darn sight better than a dead musician (unless they're playing Phil Collins covers ).
"you don't need to have been a rabbit in order to become a veterinarian"
Seems a bit odd that this "one" complaint trigger off such massive attention and action.
No, I don't think so.
It doesn't really matter how many people complained. The important point is that Roland took the necessary action to correct a potential safety issue with the instrument.
It doesn't really matter how many people complained. The important point is that Roland took the necessary action to correct a potential safety issue with the instrument. x
I suppose you are correct as you are in the industry. I guess Im just still trying to wrap my head around the whole matter because it seems so insignificant to me on the user end. But through corporate eyes I imagine it must be a huge matter.
Suppose it was 128 (0-127) levels of sensitivity before.
128 x 100 times more sensitive = 12,800 levels of sensitivity. That's a touch over 1000.
That's how I interpreted the video, and guessed it slipped through the net.
This is my interpretation too. I assume they've gone from 127 levels (+ zero), ie, MIDI standard, to their claim of 1000 levels. So that's about eight times more, not a hundred times more.
The right thing to do would have been to do what they should have done in the first place, frankly. Fit a standard IEC input. Roland has no excuse for this debacle and the 'fix' is shoddy, inconvenient and not even necessarily 100% effective.
Suppose it was 128 (0-127) levels of sensitivity before.
128 x 100 times more sensitive = 12,800 levels of sensitivity. That's a touch over 1000.
That's how I interpreted the video, and guessed it slipped through the net.
This is my interpretation too. I assume they've gone from 127 levels (+ zero), ie, MIDI standard, to their claim of 1000 levels. So that's about eight times more, not a hundred times more.
For clarity. There is a separate processor that scans the PHA-4 keybed and allows the sound engine access to velocity information at 100 times greater resolution than before. Meaning the sound engine has it's processing load reduced and is now being fed velocity information for processing, instead of having to do all the keybed scanning, AND processing.
This saves bandwidth for the increased ability of the SuperNatural Piano.
I have one coming in on an order, which case would you guys suggest for road-use?
I use the GATOR GK-88 for my ES7 and RD800. Good case and good value. Works fine with both boards. Its roomy for cables and accessories. Loaded case fits in my SUV no problems. Easy to handle and its fairly heavy duty for a light duty case - well made. Plus, love having rollers.
Gator internal: 57.5" x 18" x 6" Roland RD800: 55" x 14.5" x 5.5"
Possible cons: Keep in mind the case is BIG and might be tight in some cars as it measures over 5'.2" ft long. Also, no shoulder strap. I would personally like a shoulder strap but non issue for some.
If you travel or need heavy duty, this might be the better option:GATOR ATA
Similar to the gator and again has room for leads and pedals. Has slightly less excess internal space, but there's not much in it. The wheels are handy, but seem to be built for the smaller cases (I've found that at the angle you pull it at, the base of the case can sometimes drag).
Edit: sounds a bit obsessive, but I compared 8 different cases for internal dimensions, weight and wheels/pockets, etc. For the last 20 years I've had flightcases, and they've just been overkill. It had never been flown or put in the back of a lorry, so I have up on that dream and treated my back.
I notice that the RD-800 is available for sale at retailers in the U.K. Does anyone know how the AC cord outlet is configured ?
The cable is moulded to a mount that is screwed to the back of the board near the power socket. It's done in such a way that it can only be plugged into the power and won't reach the XLR. It is therefore fixed to the keyboard.
There are two screws holding the cable bracket on. Should you wish to transport the board in a conventional case/bag, I guess it could be removed. At your own risk, of course...
It's got a fixed cable-tie on it that allows you to coil the cable up which protects it during transit (although when boxed, the plug has foam around it). I'm dubious as to whether the keyboard is protected using this solution.
Interestingly (or not) the version that I demo'd didn't have any of the recall fixes on, but the version that I purchased did.
Interestingly, from 0:24 of the video, you see a top pan of the keyboard showing the EQ & Tone Bank 0 LED's 'flashing', under what conditions would this happen?
Roland RD-800, RD-700, SRX-02, SRX-04, SRX-07, SRX-11, EV-5
The LEDs don't actually pulse like that. That effect in the video is caused by interaction between the camera's shutter and the LEDs themselves, which appear constantly illuminated but actually turn on and off many times per second.
The LEDs don't actually pulse like that. That effect in the video is caused by interaction between the camera's shutter and the LEDs themselves, which appear constantly illuminated but actually turn on and off many times per second.
The LEDs don't actually pulse like that. That effect in the video is caused by interaction between the camera's shutter and the LEDs themselves, which appear constantly illuminated but actually turn on and off many times per second.
It's a form of non-linear distortion called "aliasing". To not experience it you need a low pass filter which sufficiently attenuates the source harmonics that exist above 1/2 the sample rate. Being non-linear, you can't remove it once you've introduced it.
The LEDs don't actually pulse like that. That effect in the video is caused by interaction between the camera's shutter and the LEDs themselves, which appear constantly illuminated but actually turn on and off many times per second.
It's a form of non-linear distortion called "aliasing". To not experience it you need a low pass filter which sufficiently attenuates the source harmonics that exist above 1/2 the sample rate. Being non-linear, you can't remove it once you've introduced it.
Hmm. It's a bit over my head, but I can see that the effect is a form of temporal aliasing, insofar as the temporal sampling rate (the shutter speed and the frame rate, as a whole) of the camera is too low relative to the frequency of some periodic motion in the captured scene.
Conceptually, though, I don't see how one could produce a low-pass temporal filter for a motion picture camera
With respect to light sources, this kind of problem can be addressed by synchronizing the shutter with the circuit driving the lamp, as is done with certain kinds of motion picture lighting, IIRC. In effect, you are aligning the temporal sampling grid with the time base of periodic variations in the scene content.
With natural phenomena like the canonical example of wagon wheels, all you can really do is jack up the frame rate, which isn't an option if you have to conform to standards for playback and distribution systems.
Alternatively, you can at least mitigate the problem by effectively increasing your camera's shutter angle, at the cost of introducing additional motion blur.
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