Using an S-550 with SCSI Card/80MB HD

An ongoing problem with my S-550 is that even with a direct MIDI connection, my S-550 stops responding to MIDI whenever I change parameters, instuments, voices etc. I have found that by placing a unit (in my case, an FB-01) in between the interface (Studio64x) and the S-550 and sending the MIDI in to the S-550 via the THRU port of the FB-01, I can trigger the FB-01 which "wakes up" the S-550 (MIDI light begins blinkng again). It seems like I always have to send a MIDI message through the intermediate unit before the S-550 will respond. Has anyone else had a similar experience, or know what is wrong?

It is almost like a "threshold" response..the MIDI message from my sequencer is not strong enough on it's own, but seems to get "amplified" by passing a message through another intermediate unit first. Note that I have to send the message to the FB-01 FIRST, and then send it to the S-550 which is now "awake".

(64x --> IN [FB-01] THRU --> IN [S-550])

This has made it imposible to send samples to the Roland via MIDI, because whenever I initiate the transfer the MIDI light does not illuminate, as if the MIDI signal is not strong enough to elicit a response from the S-550.

Related to this topic, has anyone succeeded tranferring samples via commercial software (not D-Sound Pro) to the S-550 (Alchemy, perhaps), and if so have any insight on how the two need to be configured.

Long post, sorry!

-Steve

[This message has been edited by 83degrees (edited 04-29-99).]

[This message has been edited by 83degrees (edited 04-29-99).]