I HAVE A PROBLEM!!!

Hi Everyone,

It has been awhile since I have posted. Hope everyone is fine. I hit the panic button when I turned on my KN7000 awhile ago. The C key, above middle C (4th C from left) is playing louder than the other notes and seems to be a bit more brilliant. At times when I play the note it repeats. Has anyone experienced this? If not, does anyone have an idea what is wrong or how this can be corrected?

A concerned Mark

Have you tried a 'Factory Reset'?

Hold down 8 & 16bt, rock, ballad and jazz buttons and switch on. You'll lose all settings except the custom styles.

Good Luck!

Thanks, Bill. I tried that and it hasn't helped. I also used a vacuum cleaner with a brush and it hasn't helped. I keep the keyboard very clean but thought that maybe dust was the problem. The other day, a spider came out of the keyboard. Much to say, I was surprised and killed it immediately. I tried turning it off for a while and then back on. I loaded several songs, hoping loading would get rid of the problem.

Here is another interesting point. Playing songs through the sequencer, the notes played when hitting this C come out perfectly in volume and sound. Yet, when actually playing the note, it comes out much louder and slightly more brillant. Very odd.

Bill’s suggestion is most often right.

If that doesn’t work, those symptoms indicate poor or erratic contacts of the key mechanism. Often, just hitting the key multiple times can wipe the contacts and create more consistent contact. The fact that a single “C” note is louder than the others indicates that the velocity sensing process is not working right. You can check the velocity sensor by setting the Overall Touch Sensitivity to zero (See the top of page 179 of your owners manual). If the key is the same volume as the others after that, velocity sensing is not working properly.

Excellent test, Bob. I put the Velocity on zero and all the notes, including the C, sound the same. If I go higher than 1 on Velocity, the C note becomes louder. When this happened today, the first thing I did was to hit the note numerous times fast from soft to very hard and it didn't help. I tried hitting B,C,& Db together a number of times and it still didn't help. I tried using different piano voices - they all come out loud on the C note. The same with sax and other voices.

I'm afraid that you will need a technician to fix the bad key mechanism . . .

I assume you know that you can still play the keyboard with Overall Touch Sensitivity set to zero. It's like playing an organ.

Kitkat,
Years back my Kn6000 had that same problem, after 10 trips to N. Miami ,100 miles round trip it was not any better. I feel the technicians were at fault, I do not think they were trained to work on keyboards. Bottom line; they gave me, no cost a new Kn6500.

After the problem was over I learned that the problem was in the keyboard contacts. Bob’s post is right on the subject, his knowledge is good, “poor or erratic contacts of the key mechanism”.

John C.

PS, A spider in the keyboard?? I wonder how good of a player he was.

John, this is a good question: "PS, A spider in the keyboard?? I wonder how good of a player he was."

I have (or had - hopefully, still) an excellent technician. He is about 90 miles from where I live. I haven't tried to contact him because it just happened and I thought one of you geniuses would have a perfect answer. Bob H. is exceptionally smart on so many of our keyboard issues. I am mainly doing sequencer work right now and hope this won't create a problem. Strangely enough, as I said in a previous reply, playing any song that I have previously done in sequencer doesn't change the volume when the key is hit. Knowing well that I played that key in the sequenced songs, it sounds perfect, volume wise. One would automatically think that the key being played in the sequencer would be the same as physically playing the key, sounding louder. The wonders of technology!

Have you checked your split-point?

This is sometimes accidentally changed when 'working' on the keyboard or using someone else's setup who has used a different split-point to your own which could possibly cause a distortion.

Just a thought!

Audrey

Hi Aud,

Tried changing the split points to no avail. Sometimes holding the key down it repeats a couple of times. Gees, I hate this! I am going to try and continue doing work in the sequencer and eventually contact the technician. It is most frustrating trying to play live with that note sounding so loud.

Kitkat, using the sequencer is not quite the same as actually hitting the key. In fact, you can edit the sequencer file to change the velocity setting of any note of the sequence. The sequencer playback is not influenced at all by the key mechanism. For example, if you recorded a sequence with the bad key which sounds too loud, you could then edit the sequencer file to change the velocity setting of that note wherever it is used, and make it sound at whatever volume you want.

If you must play live gigs with the bad key, I would keep the Overall Touch Sensitivity at zero and put up with the loss of touch sensitivity until I could get the keyboard repaired.

By the way, this problem is not at all uncommon with Technics keyboards. It came up the first time for me about twelve or thirteen years ago with a question for my old KN5000 “How To” web site. See the last item on this web page http://home.online.no/~j-gotaa/bobs/letters.htm .

Deleting duplicate post.

Can't get the link to work in the above post The link works if it is copied and pasted to the browser. Don't know why it doesn't work in the post itself.

Thanks, Bob - You're always most helpful. For the time being, I am going to just use it doing sequenced songs. Not playing much at this time live. I am wondering if it is just perhaps dust or that spider that made a nest on the mother board. I am not brave enough to open the keyboard by taking off the cover and giving it a good cleaning with the vacuum cleaner.

Kikat,

Playing a sequence and playing the “C” note manually are not the same. The sequence works internally it does not use the key mechanism. Playing the “C” note manually does use the key mechanism.

John C.

I have fixed that for you Bob. Yes, normally just pasting in a link makes it work automatically, but if there are any non standard characters in it ( I'm guessing like the ~ ) then it requires the "url" tags around it. The 2nd button "Link To A Web Page" above the reply box will do that for you ( though if you have "popups" turned off you may have to agree to temporarily allow them then click the button a 2nd time ) . Though once you know what the tags are it is easy enough to type them in yourself. They are just the words url and /url in square brackets at the start and end of the url.

Thank you, Nigel

Bob,

Hope you see my question. Since this is going to have a technician fix the key problem, do you know how much is involved to fix this? I hope it doesn't require replacing a new sounding board or anything like that. Hopefully, it will be just doing whatever adjustment needed for the one key. I would appreciate your thoughts.

Mark

Mark, I have never personally done the actual repair. My work in the past was to design similar equipment. But, I just looked at the service manual. My guess (AND IT IS ONLY A GUESS) is that the switch assembly will need to be replaced. I don’t think that Technics provided individual switches for replacements. There is a switch assembly that contains switches for a complete octave. The part number is QMWG6009BAK OR QMWG6010BK. Not sure which one it is. One is for 13 keys and the other is for 12 keys. I would guess that the entire assembly for one octave will need to be replaced. But, I cannot over-emphasize that it is only a guess. If a circuit board assembly were the cause, I would expect that the symptom would involve more than one key.

Since this problem is not uncommon, it is possible that your technician has already done a similar repair. He would be your best source of info.

Thanks, Bob for your reply. As always, most helpful. I will work with the keyboard the way it is for awhile but wanted to know from an expert as you with what I am up against with the technician.

Mark

Bob,
From your post I understand that you have the service manual of the KN7. Where can I get this? Is it available in .pdf format?
I have an electronic background and want to be prepared for possible failures in the future.
Bert

Check your email Bert

Good Show, Bill! I didn't know a pdf version was available.

Hi Bill,
I already got the KN6500 service manual and I've been looking on the net for a while for the KN7000 version. Could you send it to me too ?

Thanks,

Serge

I don't have your email address Serge - send me an email - my address in my profile.......

I have had the same problem and took my keyboard to an engineer. The result was he just tightened up the screws which holds the bottom and top together. I suggest you turn the keyboard on and grab together the top and bottom of the right hand back corner and see if this does the trick. If so, tighten the screws from underneath the ones around the outside that hold the bottom and top together. Hope this works. Ron

Hello friends,

Manuals to downlad be found at:

http://service.us.panasonic.com/OperMan/findmanual.aspx?cat=ORG

and

http://www.panasonic.de/html/de_DE/44350/index.html#anker_44350

Thanks, Ron. I responded to your email you sent.

Mark