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Talk me out of buying an Andromeda A6


MM420

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I've gotta admit that I've never really played an Andromeda even thought I've tried to three times. They were all malfunctioning in major ways. If you go through with this idea, just be very careful. An in person demo would be advised.

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Does anyone know if the tuning issues of new Andy's has been sorted, I seem to remember a while back someone having major problems with 1 or 2 voices out of tune...

 

I was one of those people. I still have two voices out of tune, one much worse than the other. It is easy to work around, as I just switch those voices off and it becomes a 14 voice synth. Nevertheless, I want to get it fixed.

 

I emailed Alesis about it, and they dismissed my request for a fix saying "we are currently not working on any out-of-warranty Andromedas. Look for an authorized repair facility in your area".

 

:rolleyes:

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I owned a beta A6 since 2000.

 

I started having voices 5, 6, 7, and 8 go out of tune and out of commission in 2005.

 

When I replaced the battery on the cpu board, I had to unplug the large connector to the voice boards. When I plugged this connector back in, the bad voices started working!

 

Dirty connector contacts seems to be a common problem on polysynths (esp memorymoog). If your A6 has problems with voices, try re-seating the connectors.

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I owned a beta A6 since 2000.


I started having voices 5, 6, 7, and 8 go out of tune and out of commission in 2005.


When I replaced the battery on the cpu board, I had to unplug the large connector to the voice boards. When I plugged this connector back in, the bad voices started working!


Dirty connector contacts seems to be a common problem on polysynths (esp memorymoog). If your A6 has problems with voices, try re-seating the connectors.

 

 

Interesting.. and thanks, I will definitely give this a shot.

 

Were your bad voices consistently out of tune? After tuning the synth, voice 4 is always slightly flat, and gets progressively flatter moving down the keyboard. I always figured it must be a bad chip, but I'll try re-seating the connectors and report back.

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just my 2 cents. i will never own an andromeda because i don't like how it sounds. i have played an andromeda at a couple of music stores. i have heard hundreds of mp3 samples. nothing about the andromeda sound is that fantastic to me. i would much much rather own a prophet 08. or even most VAs!

 

maybe it's just that i'm not that wild about the oberheim sound.

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Talk you out of it? Well, I owned one for awhile, and will probably get one again at some point. But what I didn't like about it....no complaints about the sound, or the sheer number of mod routings. I'm all for those...however I didn't think that the sound was as good as the that of the sunsyn (by a pretty good margin), and I really didn't think that the interface was very good. The comparison was made to a modular - and it's true - it's a very powerful synth. But on a modular, everything is right there in front of you, and on the Andromeda, it's scattered all over the place mostly in menus, and it just doesn't feel that immediate to me. Now, the Xpander is an awfully poweful synth also, but it's so, so much faster to edit. The sunsyn doesn't have the sheer number of mod routings, but you can do crazy stuff with it, and again - it's really easy to edit it - everything is right there in front of you. Now, I'm emphasizing what I feel are the bad points, because that's what you're looking for - I did like it, and I can't remember the exact reason why I sold it. I'd like to give it another try...but (I hope) I have a Q+ Phoenix coming, and (to my mind) I prefer the sound and the interface to the Andromeda.

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Were your bad voices
consistently
out of tune? After tuning the synth, voice 4 is always slightly flat, and gets progressively flatter moving down the keyboard. I always figured it must be a bad chip, but I'll try re-seating the connectors and report back.

 

 

They were out of tune and resembled nothing like a musical tone - sounded like random noise. Autotune would freeze, I had to disable the voices using the global menu.

 

They would work fine when the A6 was fired up cold, as it warmed up they would eventually fail.

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The comparison was made to a modular - and it's true - it's a very powerful synth. But on a modular, everything is right there in front of you, and on the Andromeda, it's scattered all over the place mostly in menus, and it just doesn't feel that immediate to me. Now, the Xpander is an awfully poweful synth also, but it's so, so much faster to edit.

 

There is not much you can do when a synth has such a deep structure. I for my part like the Xpander approach better too though since everything is treated as a module. The common approach of giving common parameters their own knob/slider can be cumbersome to master since lots of features are buried in the menu.

 

Just be prepared to spend lots of time learning and tweaking the A6. If you need to practice this technique you always can start with an ION. ;)

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Well I hated it, therefore it's objectively bad. If I could play I assume it would have been a bit more fun, but who can really say in this crazy mixed up world. You have to factor in of course I'm not an analog freak, and that I, heresy of heresies, preferred the Virus. Therefore I'm obviuosly mad and should be ignored.

 

But it sucks...

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