AFE controller getting "sticky" keys

[blither]

Hello all. Had my analogue factory now for 3 weeks, in which time the controller has cracked the sads at EVERY gig I've played (7 out of 7!). It's pretty annoying and embarrassing. It works PERFECTLY everywhere but at a gig.

I bought the unit because I had heard that it was a great controller, and it's smallish so easy to take on planes etc. I've got it connected up to a nord rack 2x. Basically, when I press a key it just sticks, and the sound doesn't decay. It's annoying on mono patches and causes chaos (literally unplayable) on poly patches, because there'll be 20 notes sticking and causing a cacophany. It seems to happen randomly. Sometimes I notice it's just for one particular patch I use. Other times it happens for every patch I use. It has never malfunctioned when I plug it in at home, or at practice, or at soundcheck or backstage before a gig (probably just murphy's law), which makes it pretty hard to diagnose exactly what's wrong. I know it's not the nord, because I have used it for 20+ gigs using a DX7-2s as a controller.

Last night's gig was fucked and if I don't figure out a solution I'll probably throw it away. I gave up on it mid gig and instead used my bandmate's teenage engineering OP-1. What a mind boggling thing that is. Plus it has about 6 keys.

Enough rambling, anyone know how to fix this?

[Koshdukai]

The only time I had this happen to me was when using an M-Audio Axiom 61 with Mg's AniMg iPad app v.1.0 wasn't aware that some controllers send NoteON with Velocity 0 ("9x nn 00") as NoteOFF (which, officially should be "8x nn vv").
I reported that to Mg and they fixed it in the app upgrade, fortunately.

Some controllers simply send NoteON Vel0 instead of NoteOFF and some synths (maybe Nord's an example) don't know about that and only expect "pure" NoteOFF MIDI msgs.

I have a TE OP-1 and an Arturia THE FACTORY 32, so let me see what each send...

hmmm... just tried them and both are sending the officially correct MIDI sequences:

NoteON: 9x nn vv
NoteOFF 8x nn vv (I'm even surprised that THE FACTORY is actually sending Release Velocity, something I had never checked )

so... it's really weird that you were able to use an OP-1 instead of the Arturia controller, since both are sending the exact same type of Note msgs. Also, one can scratch the Nord ignoring "8x nn vv" messages or else, the OP-1 wouldn't work as a controller

uh... unless you didn't use it as a controller but as a synth ?

[blither]

Hey, thanks for reply. That was something I did not know about midi... thanks for that.

I managed to reproduce the error by going from Performance mode back to Program mode on the nord rack whilst still holding keys down... but that's something I never do with the nord at a gig. It's always on Program mode because all I really use it for is simple square wave bass patches or the occasional pad, none of requiring 4 layers and hence a program.

I asked a synth repair guy and he said before I do anything get a new midi cable because a damaged one can cause weird message transmissions to occur and the "note off" was not reaching the nord. I got a new cable and it's been fine since, but haven't gigged. I guess I'll just keep going with it and see if it does it again... not sure if what he was suggesting was even possible.

Was using the OP-1 as a synth. Not sure which part of it's synth engine i was using because I can't understand all the cool little diagrams on it. There was a telephone somewhere in there. Man it's a weird thing. Looks pretty sleek, though. My friend who uses it takes it with him everywhere and records little sketches of songs onto the tape recorder.