Phatty's dancing LEDs: ultimate guide intent
Posted: Thu Jul 23, 2020 5:08 am
Dear Phatty lovers,
Several months ago (shame on me), I may have found out a work around to this common problem on discontinued instruments, discussed many times here: dancing LEDs. Maybe someone else uses it but I cannot record having read that, so I share it.
How to know when it happens:
In some occasions, the LEDs around the potentiometers of Little/Slim Phatty will move by themselves, causing the sound to change accordingly.
Several users here have testified (see these search results), here is my own experience.
My Little Phatty does this when switched on and for +/- the time it warms up. Then, things get quieter (that being said, I've found an example of Slim doing it only when warmed up). It will never do it at home nor in my usual rehearsal studios, but in places I've never been, making recording sessions and gigs a bit more stressful that what they should be
I once had the problem in a usual rehearsal studio and solved it by plugin the LP to a different wall plug than my 2-3 effect pedals.
I once had the problem during the set up of a two night recording session; as I was worrying, the second day, I brought a Slim I had been using at home without any problem so far... and its LEDs danced too in the recording studio. Cursed!
That tends to corroborate the hypothesis of the problem being due to local electrical facility specificity and/or current quality variations.
Why it is annoying:
Well, the effect is just like if the potentiometer was physically moved.
Consequently, the parameter value actually changes, so does the sound.
Plus it makes program save operation risky as you end saving a different value than the one you've just set.
It is interesting to note that -if I remember correctly- only the parameter the potentiometer is currently controlling will be affected.
For example: if the FILTER section pot is controlling the cut off frequency, you can definitely see the LEDs moving and the sound being filtered accordingly. However, the resonance will not be affected... until you select it to control its value with the pot.
So it's like if the pot itself suffered narcolepsy (rather than epilepsy...) and the controlled parameter just could do anything but following it - as usual.
That means that this problem will not affect all sound parameters but a maximum of 4 of them. That's kind of a good news! Well, it was to me, at least... because it allows to use a tip I'll describe below.
What I was used to do:
First off, I breathe, cross fingers and leave the Phatty switched on as long as possible before using it. So far, I never had the problem during the actual show or recording session.
Then, there is this tip: as only the controlled parameters are affected, and as the active parameter of each section is memorized in the program, you can save your programs with the pot currently controlling a unused MIDI #CC through pot mapping. This is kind of tedious because 1- you may want to load a program with the immediate access to the relevant parameters and 2- you cannot do that on the spot where the problem is occurring: when it's occurring, it's to late for saving programs.
A good idea could be to save all the programs you use in a librarian and to build copies of the relevant ones with this particular pot mapping just for special occasions; read: bring those with you when you go to new places and make sure you can send them into your Phatty in emergency.
Now, what I've discovered:
Sweeping the potentiometer a couple of times on the whole range seems to help stabilizing the parameter value. I say parameter value and not potentiometer behaviour because -once again- the problem occurs only on the parameter what is being controlled by the pot. Hence the tip above.
So I do this several times before the gig or recording.
Hope this will be useful to some of you guys.
Others tags for searching this topic: LED collar collars lights light ghost zombie alone epileptic
Several months ago (shame on me), I may have found out a work around to this common problem on discontinued instruments, discussed many times here: dancing LEDs. Maybe someone else uses it but I cannot record having read that, so I share it.
How to know when it happens:
In some occasions, the LEDs around the potentiometers of Little/Slim Phatty will move by themselves, causing the sound to change accordingly.
Several users here have testified (see these search results), here is my own experience.
My Little Phatty does this when switched on and for +/- the time it warms up. Then, things get quieter (that being said, I've found an example of Slim doing it only when warmed up). It will never do it at home nor in my usual rehearsal studios, but in places I've never been, making recording sessions and gigs a bit more stressful that what they should be
I once had the problem in a usual rehearsal studio and solved it by plugin the LP to a different wall plug than my 2-3 effect pedals.
I once had the problem during the set up of a two night recording session; as I was worrying, the second day, I brought a Slim I had been using at home without any problem so far... and its LEDs danced too in the recording studio. Cursed!
That tends to corroborate the hypothesis of the problem being due to local electrical facility specificity and/or current quality variations.
Why it is annoying:
Well, the effect is just like if the potentiometer was physically moved.
Consequently, the parameter value actually changes, so does the sound.
Plus it makes program save operation risky as you end saving a different value than the one you've just set.
It is interesting to note that -if I remember correctly- only the parameter the potentiometer is currently controlling will be affected.
For example: if the FILTER section pot is controlling the cut off frequency, you can definitely see the LEDs moving and the sound being filtered accordingly. However, the resonance will not be affected... until you select it to control its value with the pot.
So it's like if the pot itself suffered narcolepsy (rather than epilepsy...) and the controlled parameter just could do anything but following it - as usual.
That means that this problem will not affect all sound parameters but a maximum of 4 of them. That's kind of a good news! Well, it was to me, at least... because it allows to use a tip I'll describe below.
What I was used to do:
First off, I breathe, cross fingers and leave the Phatty switched on as long as possible before using it. So far, I never had the problem during the actual show or recording session.
Then, there is this tip: as only the controlled parameters are affected, and as the active parameter of each section is memorized in the program, you can save your programs with the pot currently controlling a unused MIDI #CC through pot mapping. This is kind of tedious because 1- you may want to load a program with the immediate access to the relevant parameters and 2- you cannot do that on the spot where the problem is occurring: when it's occurring, it's to late for saving programs.
A good idea could be to save all the programs you use in a librarian and to build copies of the relevant ones with this particular pot mapping just for special occasions; read: bring those with you when you go to new places and make sure you can send them into your Phatty in emergency.
Now, what I've discovered:
Sweeping the potentiometer a couple of times on the whole range seems to help stabilizing the parameter value. I say parameter value and not potentiometer behaviour because -once again- the problem occurs only on the parameter what is being controlled by the pot. Hence the tip above.
So I do this several times before the gig or recording.
Hope this will be useful to some of you guys.
Others tags for searching this topic: LED collar collars lights light ghost zombie alone epileptic