Hello everyone,
I recently bought a used SP. It was working fine until I got home and tried to connect it to my external midi controller (Alesis QS8.2).
The synth was on, I could toggle through the menus, the presets and all the knob dials were responding. I made sure the channel was set on 1 for the synth and the midi controller. Tested note on, and got a beautifuI sound. I also made sure the output button was on. I even downloaded the user manual in order to make sure everything was setup properly. It is not my first time operating midi devices and studio gear, so I was surprised when I found myself having issues.
I went online and found this forum. I was astonished to find many people were having similar issues with their SPs. most recommended rebooting and reinstalling the firmware. I went to the official moog page, downloaded the appropriate version, and followed the instructions on my mac to perform the reinstallation. To my surprise, instead of getting the Please send firmware message, it got stuck on (usb module), and in the process, erased my previous firmware (version 3.21). Now the SP turns on only to show the same message (usb module).
In the forums I found a post of someone from England, who had a bricked Little Phatty and reflashed the main board using a usb debugger adaptor from Silicon Labs. I ended up getting it, in order to attempt a reflash, with no luck because, the adaptor version I had was not compatible with the Flash utility software found on Silicon Labs website and recommended in the post.
I tried downloading other softwares compatible with the EC3 adaptor also with no luck. I then tried reinstalling the firmware from different computers, mac, pc, windows 7, etc. No luck either. Then i tried connecting other usb and midi cables since I read it is a common issue to have usb and midi off sync. On a post by Amos, he explains how to reflash the usb board only (not the main frame). I also tried that.
Despite not being able to reinstall the firmware, I did get some message activity in the LCD display during some of the troubleshooting. When I tried to reflash the main board with the usb debugger, I finally got the Please send firmware message a couple of times. When I tried to send the firmware it didn not respond or show Receiving.
Then, when i followed instructions to reset the usb board provided by Amos, the SP reacted to data and showed Receiving Record #0, but got stuck and failed to install.
Now that I think about it, it seems the SP had a usb/midi descalibration before I tried to reinstall the firmware the first time, and now with no operating system the SP is bricked and inoperable. I cant seem to find a way to kick it back in sync ( i tried power cycles with and without cables connected to the SP).
Please help!
Franco