XP-80 Sequencer Makes Odd Sound Upon First Note

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samueltsherman
Posts: 1
Joined: 03:38, 11 June 2013

XP-80 Sequencer Makes Odd Sound Upon First Note

Post by samueltsherman »

I've got a question for the community. Have any of you experienced the following and if so, what have you done about it?

I've been using my XP-80 since the late 90s and I've often stumbled upon this problem. It occurs when I record notes at the very beginning of a song's sequence. (01-01-000) When I press play to listen to my song, there will usually be some kind of odd artifact with the sound when the notes first play. The sequence can be a very simple one and usually the the artifact will be present.

Here are some observations I've made:
- Artifact only occurs at 01-01-000 of song
- If I set a loop to start at 01-01-000 then the artifact will sound when I press play but will not happen on subsequent loops.
- The artifact doesn't always happen on the same track. For instance, say I've got a melody on channel 1 and a rhythm track going on channel 10. If I hear the artifact, I can sometimes isolate it to just one channel. If I mute that channel, the artifact does not sound. At other times, with just a one channel simple riff, the artifact may sound.
- If the artifact is present, it will always sound at the beginning of the song without fail. (exception is the note previous)
- The artifact will not occur when using patterns assigned for RPS. That works without flaw.

As a workaround, I usually insert one measure at the beginning of my songs. If I do this, the artifact never occurs. However, this extra measure at the beginning is a bit annoying.

I've adjusted a few of my MIDI setting like disabled all Tx of MIDI messages that are unnecessary. I can't seem to find the magic setting that could cure this problem.

So, have any of you experienced this? And, what have you done about it.

Thanks for reading.
FJSeraf
Posts: 4
Joined: 12:19, 10 December 2014

Re: XP-80 Sequencer Makes Odd Sound Upon First Note

Post by FJSeraf »

Yes I've often run into this problem where an unwanted artifact occurs at the beginning of a sequence for certain patches. It never happens with patches that use a fast attack such as pianos but it does happen with patches that use a slow attack and long decay with multi tonal colorations such as E-Motion. I've found no way around it either and I do as you do and add a note on the 4th beat of the preceding bar at an inaudible volume level to eliminate the artifact on that otherwise intended 1st bar of the sequence. It's a bit of a nuisance but I doubt there's any other way around it.
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