Alesis Andromeda

maindeglorie · Post by **maindeglorie** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 5:30 pm

Is the Andromeda really as buggy as some of the reviews state it is? I've noticed a lot of A6's in the studio pics at the top of the forum and thought I'd finally find out. Does it matter if it's an older one?

Post by **Jack Spider** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:15 pm

One thing to be careful about, is that a bad batch went out last October which were beset by problems. I actually had one on preorder and as there were problems with stock, my order was cancelled.

Alesis told me that they were waiting for certain parts to arrive to complete the next batch. I believe this batch contained faults, and someone on here had problems with out-of-tune oscillators.

mao · Post by **mao** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:55 pm

There were a production of bugged voice chip on the 2006 Andy. If you find a previous 2006 or a 2007 production you'll probably get a good one. Simply avoid late 2005-2006 production to be sure. During that period some Andy had some osc chip that never went on tune.

Do this. Switch on the Andy... leave it 30 min of warm up to be sure. Do the autotune. Choose a init sound and press a key sixteen times. every time you press a key the andy will change the voice chip and you can test if it's in tune on all the voices. Grab a tuner to be sure. Remeber that some cents are normal.... it's analog... but if you find semitone of difference... leave the A6 over there and run away.

If you find a good one... It's a must buy.

amni · Post by **amni** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:41 pm

I bought one this year new, no problems at all

Track2 · Post by **Track2** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:51 pm

amni wrote:I bought one this year new, no problems at all

Ditto

slowalan · Post by **slowalan** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 12:04 am

Mine six years old or so s/n ends with 300166.
No problems at all...a fantastic machine...although very "touchy" as I am still on an old operating system and can't be bothered battling with sysex dump. Apparently a more recent os makes the knobs less twitchy.

maindeglorie · Post by **maindeglorie** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:51 am

Does anybody know which block of serial numbers to avoid then?

Track2 · Post by **Track2** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:08 am

Yes, sort of:

The members of the a6 mailing list started publishing the serial numbers of a6's with the tuning problem.

Search the archives here and you will see them:

http://mailman.code404.com/pipermail/a6/

Alex E · Post by **Alex E** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 5:49 am

Not sure why, but I didn't know Alesis still made A6's. I thought they stopped making them around late 2001 when they were bought by Numark or something.

Peake · Post by **Peake** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 7:49 am

The last software release, 1.40.12 was written -during- the bankruptcy. Alesis evidently sell enough each month to continue production.

I don't know how a batch of bad chips got by the automated test fixture. The same one that has been selecting working chips for years...

Jazzpunk · Post by **Jazzpunk** » Sun Nov 04, 2007 8:07 am

Has Alesis issued any sort of statement in response to the batch of bad chips? Seems if it's this well documented they should have some sort of replacement offer.

Bitexion · Post by **Bitexion** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 8:51 am

It's not buggy at all, really. You might encounter some bug with stuck notes if you use all 16 midi channels at once in a split (16 sounds across the keyboard). But it's very rare.

The faulty voice issue was a batch from a couple years back, synths you find in stores now shouldn't have that problem. Alesis never spoke much publically about this problem. I have an "old" one from 2003 and it has no problems at all regarding tuning. I love it. It is BIG and has BIG analog sound. Specially the unison is totally sick.

sam · Post by **sam** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 11:27 am

Mine is 500 3XX....No problems.