Chord Memory Bug

[Stormchild]

Hi everyone, new System-8 owner here. Love this thing, and I've been enjoying all the discussions here.

I've come across what looks like a bug…wondering if anyone else is seeing the same thing. Sometimes when I hold the Chord Memory button to assign notes to the chord, it gets stuck in "note assign" mode after releasing the button. Once it happens, the Chord Memory button no longer does anything and remains lit no matter how many times I press or hold it. The screen is still showing the assigned notes, and pressing additional keys will add them to the list. Even after the list is full, I can't get out of that mode.

I can press Exit to get out of note assign mode, but the chord memory button then becomes unlit and cannot be toggled on. Switching to another patch then coming back makes the button work again — I can toggle chord memory on and off, but only for the chord that was already assigned to the patch. If I attempt to edit the chord it'll get stuck in note assign mode again.

The only way to fix it is to turn the System 8 off and back on again. After doing that, the Chord Memory feature works as expected. I can toggle it on and off, and edit the chord, everything works. Not sure what causes it, but after playing around for awhile (going through different patches and plugouts) it will eventually get into that state again. Bit annoying having to power cycle it all the time, as I use chord memory all the time…especially while designing a patch.

My System 8 shipped with the latest firmware already installed — 1.30.

[Manic]

Never experienced that. Better contact roland?

[Stormchild]

Yeah I'd like to file a proper bug report, but I haven't found a reliable way to reproduce it yet. However, I'm certain it's a software issue. Power cycling always fixes it, and the button never fails to respond, so there's nothing physically wrong with it.

After running into this again today, I tried a bunch of things to make it happen again after a power cycle. Switching between plugins, loading different patches, controlling it locally vs. MIDI through Logic, with and without the USB connection to my Mac. None of these things triggered the problem. But when I came back to the System 8 after using other audio software and hardware for awhile, it was happening again.

I haven't tried a factory reset yet, so I guess that's next.

[Stormchild]

I figured out what was causing this. As soon as I use my sustain pedal this starts happening. When it gets stuck in chord memory edit mode, simply pressing the sustain pedal fixes it.

I think this might be happening because I have a reverse polarity pedal (Korg PS-3). I had to set "HoldPolarity" to "RVS" in the system settings for it to work properly. Maybe chord memory edit mode doesn't correctly respect that setting. I'll send a bug report to Roland.

[Manic]

Try powering up the S8 while holding down the pedal. This might flip its polarity. Maybe you can then set the settings to default

[Stormchild]

Try powering up the S8 while holding down the pedal. This might flip its polarity. Maybe you can then set the settings to default

Good idea, but that trick doesn't work with the System-8. Whether it's held down during power on or not, it behaves the same way. It ignores the power on state and only respects the menu setting (and the chord memory edit mode always expects a normal polarity pedal regardless of that setting).