Vintage Synth Explorer Forums

Hello Vintage Synth users,

I have just brought yet another FB383 for my mono synth, I am having trouble getting in to sound anything any sound out;

I am wondering why, I'm supplying the correct volts & am using a PC 180 Roland midi controller via midi to try getting the sounds out, but nothing happens, there are 4 switches on the back should I have these phased in any sync pattern? or is there something wrong here in that the units are faulty, we actually have 2 of these FB383's the other one powers up but doesn't recognize midi as well from a keyboard midi controller but has a sound when the power goes through the circuits on power up. Its become strange here I am worried about having to pay out a lot of money in repairs in the UK!

Any help would be great as I am obviously not a midi expert & these are my first 2 synths beside a korg EA1 which works with the keyboards no worries.

I feel a bit of irritation at this point! As I would like them to work properly. I cannot use them, boo hoo hoo!

I'm in a band & need to use them for my keys obviously as we're working on new material which needs FB383 in the keys, any help would be great help. Thanks so much

with my MB-33 mkII i have to have all four switches flipped down for it to receive midi.

edit: oops... M not F!

The DIP switches on the back are to set the MIDI channel, they're binary so all up or all down should be Channel 1, try both settings while sending on Channel 1 from your keyboard.

Also make sure you're sending notes within the note range it responds to - it's only 3 (maybe 4) octaves I think so if you've got a short keyboard try different octave settings.

The noise it makes on start-up is the unit tuning itself.

Edit: Found a manual for the Mk2, this has a diagram for the DIP switch / MIDI channel assignment: http://ftp.terratec.de/Producer/SINE/Sy ... ual_GB.pdf

nice find! yeah, MB-33 is limited to 4 octaves.