Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Hello. I'm hoping someone has an answer to my question . I have a Roland u20, which I'm using mainly as a midi controller. I'm running it to a computer with cubase via a hammerfall sound card with a midi cable, then accessing soft synths within the computer. Worked great for years. Then... I heard a low c note start to play..by itself. Started like the theme from jaws, then got faster and faster till it qualified as mental. I turned the Roland off. Turned it on again and all was quiet till jaws returned. I don't have a midi return cable into the Roland, only a send cable. It seems to be sending random midi commands to my soft synths. Any thoughts would be so greatly appreciated.

First of all- record it!

Haha , he is right, you should record it !

Unfortunately , there are a few things that can trigger this behavior, all related to the keyboard assembly.
- Have you noticed any sticky keys ? sticky epoxy glue might interact with the contacts thus producing the ghost notes
- the keybed pcb is a flexible strip with a flexible extension glued together. if this connection is intermittent then ghost notes might occur.

The U20 is one of the worst synths I have worked on, I dont recommend opening it up and experimenting, you better take it to a tech.