Today I had a weird glitch on my 2100. When singing with vocal harmony turned on there was a distinct crackling/buzzing coming from the speaking. As soon as vh was turned off it stopped. Of course I got all nervous, tried a whole bunch of things, and nothing helped. Until I turned the kb off and on, and the problem disappeared...

Anyone else have this before. Should I be worried...?

Phil

I had a similar noise with the mic input in use. The cable and mic were of high quality. Adjusting the mic input had no affect on the noise. I then ran the mic thru an external preamp, then into the 2100 with the line input switched on. Quiet as a mouse. No problems.

Crackling is not a good sound to hear coming from any piece of equipment, especially a new keyboard. The thing that concerns me most is when you said the sound dissapeared when you turned off the board and turned it back on.

First and foremost, make sure the keyboard is plugged into a well grounded outlet or surge protector. Crackling sounds can come from outside sources, such as florescent lights, electric motors, appliances and other devices that produce RF waves or static.

If the keyboard is plugged into a well grounded circuit or outlet, and the problem persists, there is always the possibility that the problem lies within the power pack, which has been a problem with both the 2000 and 2100 because it is operating at maximum load. While yamaha will likely tell you that the power pack meets the requirements of the keyboard, the device cannot tolerate any overload whatsoever. When the volume is turned up on the keyboard, the power pack will get hot. They were poorly designed at best and do not have heat sinks like those constructed for the 740. Unfortunately, the 740s power pack will not work, because the 2000 and 2100 power packs are 16 volt--not 12 volt.

If it's not the power supply, the problem could be where the power supply connects to the keyboard's mother board. The connectors are flimsy and the solder joints can easily break. I've repaired several for friends during the past year, and although the actual repair was not difficult, it takes longer to take the keyboad apart than to fix the problem. Yamaha and some other manufacturers should go back to internal power supplies and eliminate the power packs. The only reason they use the power packs is so they can sell the same boards to markets outside the U.S. and only have to change the power pack.

Good luck, and I sincerely hope the problem solves itself.

Gary

Could be mechanical contact noise, especially if the plug going into the PSR is just "hanging around" or an intermittent dodgy wire. The vibration due to playing the keyboard might be enough to highlight the problem.

Use of the harmoniser may highlight the problem as internally I suspect it uses quite a high gain to improve its ability to detect pitch accurately.

The weird thing here is that it ONLY happened when vh was on. I played the kb at max volume and sang through the mic with vh off, no problem. Then the second i put vh on it came back...

That pretty much narrows it down to either the vocal harmony switch, the VH board or the VH's processor. Either way, it's a factory service job.

Good Luck,

Gary

[This message has been edited by travlin'easy (edited 09-04-2003).]

My piece of crap does it too. (I hope I don't have to KEEP this too long !)
I adjusted all the mic settings to workable levels, but the harmonizer is still buggin'.

BTW - looks like that Tyros deal is gonna fly. I must be nuts, but I can't overlook the finacial plusses of this deal. The PA80 will probably go on Sunday afternoon. That means i HAVE to play this 2100 for a while. Yuk. At least I have that one night on a real piano to distract me.

I'll fiddle with the mic settings and see if I can narrow the glitch down.
sigh.

My piece a crap doesn't do it even at full volume..

Mine works just fine. No snap, crackle or pops.
DonM

Don, maybe our engineers are alive!