OK, I am officially frustrated now.

I have done everything I’ve been told to get my XP Notebook and Song Manager to talk to the PR54.

The USB “Panasonic Instrument Drive” is installed and I’m on the home page (the page that comes up when I turn on the 54) and I still get a Transmission Error.

It seems the only thing I have is a really big set of speakers for the Notebook since I can play midi songs on the Notebook and the sound comes out of the PR54 but so do all the others Notebook sounds.

Since there are no other PR54 owners on here (that I know about) and my dealer in clueless is there any chance for help!

Right now I’m glad I didn’t buy a new Notebook for Christmas to use just for this purpose.

Heather

Heather,

What exactly is the 'Error Message" ?



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Larry Hawk
Technics For All

Hi Heather,
what exactly are you doing. Ie you've recorded your song are you now trying to send it to the song manager, or what???

I assume our kn's work the same way. Maybe we could replicate what you're doing and see if you're doing something wrong?

best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by shcox:

Hi Larry,

That is the error message!

"Transmission Error"

Heather

Hi Rikki,

It does not matter what I do. Whether I am trying to upload or download I get the same results.

I load Song Manager, select a midi file or a PR54 song that is on the computer disk and drag it to the keyboad area on the screen to upload it to the keyboard. It tells me it is going to send the file and it starts. In about 5 seconds the error message appears.

If I select Download I get a list of song/memory locations. I select one and again it starts then I get the error message.

Since my notebook is my work computer and I don't always disconnect it from the network and take it home I'm not able to work on it every night.

Heather

I get that error message if I'm not on the Home Page, but you are on the Home Page so that isn't it.

Is the installation complete? With KN2600, USB and Win XP notebook once the driver was installed I had a second set of steps to follow. In the Control Panel/Sound and Audio Devices, I had to choose,configure,install the Panasonic USB MIDI. If you like I can post the steps but perhaps you have done this? If so we'll just have to put our thinking caps on

Hi Heather,
I'll do some checking on my song manager ( haven't really used it yet) but you'rs sounds like it may work differently.

I'm not aware of a " drag to the keyboard area" feature on the kn7 version.

With the kn7 version, there's a little folder that you open, up comes your list of areas where your styles reside ie a drive, c drive etc then pick the song you want, and it pops up in the screen, then click on download technics, up pops another screen, click on the song you want to send, and away it goes.


Have you tried reinstalling your software etc


best wishes
Rikki

[QUOTE]Originally posted by shcox:
[B]Hi Rikki,

I load Song Manager, select a midi file or a PR54 song that is on the computer disk and drag it to the keyboad area on the screen to upload it to the keyboard.

Heather

If you are absolutely sure that the USB panasonic drivers are installed correctly then assuming you have more that one USB port on your laptop try using another.
I have 4 ports on my laptop but my KN2600 will only appear to talk to one of them. On the others it gives me a transmission error.
Hope this works as I know the frustration involved.


Sapphire

Hi Heather

I had the same problem with my KN7000. If you connect the card reader or KB before you load the drivers,windows chooses the default drivers. The drivers have to be loaded first. If that is what happened,you need to update your drivers.

That may not apply to you,but I kept getting the same message and had to do the above.
Best regards
Bernie

Hello,

I know the frustration... I had it myself. The solution is to take the instructions and don't bother that the sequences of the dialogs are not coprrect. Just go on to do EXACTLY what is said. As said about the MS Signing.... that came much later than announced in the instructions. So my problem was more the confusing instructions than something else. Good luck. The previous writer is correct: don't connect you instrument and uninstalled the driver that give the Transmission error. Then follow the instructions of Technics and after installing, you can connect your hardware.

I thank everyone for their suggestions.

I had done every thing everyone said to try except for two and that at least gives me something to work with.

I had not tried using different USB ports. Since my Notebook has four I'll try that.(Thanks Sapphire)

And while I manually installed the USB port I did not check the Audio Devices in the System setting. I'll try that one also.
Since the PR54 and the KN2600 are very close to the same instrument that could very well be the problem. (Thanks Aprilla)

I doubt I'll get to test this before next weekend so if there are other suggection let me know and I'll be able to try them all at once.

Thanks All Again

Heather

All of these problems with programs today is the result of putting stuff on the market without properly testing it and letting buyers go nuts trying to make it work.
To me, it's not worth the hassle to have a program you paid good money for and cannot use it without going to a forum and finding out that everyone has the same problems with the software.
For what this program doe's, forget it !!!!
Lloyd

Hi Lloyd,

I understand your frustration as a consumer. Obviously I'm frustrated too.

But as a programmer, I also understand the problems with trying to write software that supports 3 or 4 versions of an opperating system. Especially when it has to support both 16 bit (Windows 98/ME) and 32 bit (Window 2000/XP) all at the same time. Microsoft does not make that as easy of a task as you might think.

But there it no excuse for not testing, documenting and offering a fix for these kinds of problems. So far I've seen nothing from Technic specific to this problem for the PR54 (only for the KN7000) and certainly not patches or fixes for it.

If I had been buying an instrument based just on this feature, from what I've experienced it wouldn't be a Technics product because once they put it out there seems to be very little direct support.

I can not find a "Technics" website that is geared toward all their instruments (other than sales) that offers help, patches, downloads and direct technical support.

Even their new "www.technicsprpiano.com" site does not mention the PR54 in their Sales Lit. And when you click on Software it takes you to the KN7000 site.

Thus the need for the Synth Zone! Thank God for it.

Take Care,
Heather

Heather, I found my installation instructions quite straightforward to understand considering they do have to cover all and any setups and people. Let me know if your install manual doesn't cover this part and I'll email mine to you. I'm quite chuffed to have been useful

So far I've found the manual pretty good, and I've seen some awfully bad manuals. Most of the questions I have that aren't answered well (for me), if at all, relate more to computer aspect than to actual keyboard stuff, and I guess this is fair enough considering.... I reckon I'd be heading for SynthZone as my 'main' manual even if the Technics one was 110%.... cause it'll always be the best, be more fun, answer questions both asked and never even thought of....

Technics Web sites are totally useless though, better if they had none I think.

Hi aprilla,

The installation in the manual is straight forward except that the installation doesn't work correctly on XP even though the disk is supposed to be for XP.

Alec sent me some trouble shooting instructions for the Song Manager (KN7000) and XP which I did and that didn't help.

I don't know at what level you are with the your keyboard but the I find the manual very good for learning basic functions. But the more advanced features are only touched on. In many cases it only tell me the obvious. If the manuals were comprehensive there would have been no need for Alec to write additional manuals.

As for the web sites, what is there is great if you own a KN7000 and the converted styles that Alec just did are priceless but where is the support for all their other instruments.

The KN7000 is not only not the only instrument they make but is is not the highest priced one either.

Best Wishes
Heather