Urgent - Sub Phatty Filter Knob stopped working

[sfdjeo]

Ugh.... this happened to me about a month ago. I was prepping for a gig and the cutoff knob just stopped working. I power cycled, did a factory reset, everything. Nothing would bring it back to life. I had to scramble last minute for a synth to play the SubP's parts, along with all the stress that goes with it.

I left town for a few weeks and when I got back: PRESTO! The cutoff knob worked.

I would rather have had it be a hardware problem that could be definitely fixed or not as oppose to this software dodgy-ness. The reason I buy hardware is because it is supposed to work and not "crash" like a computer. A trusty SH-101 filled in that night and a 30 year old box put Moog to shame when it came to reliability.

I have a friend with a Minitaur who has had no end to problems with it's panel not responding, changing patches randomly etc. And this thread is proof that these problems are pretty widespread.

I love the sound of Moog, and the SubP sounds amazing! It's taking the place of my Rogue, which is much more limited, but has never "crashed". Can the powers that be PLEASE make the software side of things work reliably? Moog will get a reputation for buggy hardware and that's about as bad a trait hardware can have in my opinion. Something that sounds great but doesn't work just doesn't sound great anymore....

[ul303]

Hi,
I had the same issue yesterday with v1.2.5.
Solved after 2 power off/on.

[Amos]

Hi,
I had the same issue yesterday with v1.2.5.
Solved after 2 power off/on.

Please tell me how you were using the Sub Phatty at the time --
was DIN MIDI connected? Was USB connected? Were you running any DAW software?
How long had the Sub Phatty been turned on when the filter stopped working?

thanks - I'll get to the bottom of this.

[ul303]

Hi Amos,

DIN MIDI (as I still have issues with USB)
DAW= Ableton Live 9
I was using the Sub Phatty for at least 1 or 2 hours if not more.
The first power off/on did not solve the issue.

[Amos]

[repost from another thread, same topic]
- if anyone who is reading this has the filter stop working... please answer the following questions:

1) does the LFO affect the filter when it's in this mode? go to Active Panel mode, turn up LFO modulation amount knob, turn up Mod wheel, make sure LFO is in a mode where you can hear what it's doing... turn up resonance so you can hear if the filter cutoff freq. is moving... let me know

2) when the cutoff is "dead" like this, what is the actual cutoff frequency, roughly speaking? is the filter open all the way? is it closed all the way, or is it somewhere in the middle?

[CleverConQueso]

Howdy,
I have a 5-pin connected. Also routing 'out' to another synth. Experienced some confusion with the thru (likely unrelated) so I played around with the globals. Then I reset all of the globals and experienced this issue.
When in a preset, the cutoff sounds like whatever the preset is. When in panel mode, it sounds pretty open. Moving the rez in my case only made the signal quieter which makes me think it's open. Setting the mod as you describe does not change the sound any. Disconnecting the MIDI in or the MIDI out didn't change anything. The issue persists through reboots.
For the record, it's Electribe EMX on M1-6 thru the Sub on 5 to a TI on 1-4 then clock out to a KP3. I messed with different MIDI filter and other settings on the Sub. I've got a Moog expression pedal on the filter CV. Everything's fine if I take the Sub out of the loop.
I think I've actually had (and reported) this issue before upgrading to the latest firmware posted on this forum.
Happy to make the time to test other scenarios.
Thanks,
CCQ

[CleverConQueso]

One more, and this is so oddball I'm reluctant to even post it.

I've been trying different scenarios and this time I have the Sub at the end of the chain. After a reboot the filter works fine but the S and R of both envelopes are stuck. (Closed, I think, but I'm not positive.) I've since rebooted and everything's as it should be.
-CCQ

[Amos]

I've been trying different scenarios and this time I have the Sub at the end of the chain. After a reboot the filter works fine but the S and R of both envelopes are stuck. (Closed, I think, but I'm not positive.) I've since rebooted and everything's as it should be.
-CCQ

Hi CCQ,

what firmware version are you using?

When this happened, did the attack and decay stages of the envelopes seem to work normally?

what kind of chain is the Sub at the end of? (describe your setup) Thanks for posting

[CleverConQueso]

Hi Amos,
The post above the last is mine as well so the chain is EMX-Sub-TI-KP3 for the top post and EMX-Sub for the second. The firmware was the one that was uploaded last week. Is it 1.2.4? Is there a way to tell?
The A and D knobs were functioning fine when the S and R knobs did not. I didn't try any hidden knobs.
And no USB in any scenario.
Thanks,
-CCQ

[Amos]

The post above the last is mine as well

woops, I missed that

[...]
When in a preset, the cutoff sounds like whatever the preset is. When in panel mode, it sounds pretty open. Moving the rez in my case only made the signal quieter which makes me think it's open. Setting [...] Disconnecting the MIDI in or the MIDI out didn't change anything. The issue persists through reboots.
[...] I've got a Moog expression pedal on the filter CV.

Did you test the above with the expression pedal disconnected as well? I would expect the expression pedal to be always active, at least in panel mode... the pedal voltage sums with the panel knob so if the pedal's fully depressed it would tend to push the filter cutoff all the way open. Not saying there isn't also an underlying issue here, but that detail about the pedal to the filter CV input jumps out as worthy of further investigation...

[CleverConQueso]

I haven't. It didn't occur to me until after I disconnected everything. I'll mention though that I use the Sub about 8 hours a week (practice, gigs, showing off) and always have the pedal connected (The Moog EP-whatever) but no MIDI. I haven't connected MIDI in a month because the issues are pretty reliable. We just finished a spate of gigs so I gave the firmware upgrade a try and was hoping to use a sequencer on some new tracks.
I'll experiment with pulling the EP out. Is there anything else you'd like me to try while I'm at it?
Thanks,
-CCQ

[CleverConQueso]

For what it's worth, I'm still having this issue as recently as last night when I tried to hook a DIN sequencer again. Is there further work going into this or is it possible I'm the last one and it's not a software issue?
Also I keep checking the downloads section of the Sub Phatty page on the Moog web site and don't see any firmware at all. Is there an authoritative spot I should be looking or just keep trolling MoogConnect for updates?
Thanks,
-CCQ-

[Amos]

There certainly are not a lot of people reporting this. I am still doing a bit of work on the envelopes, but I don't think there's anything left in the code that would just cause the filter CV to stop updating, as you are reporting. Unless that is you're doing something unique (or nearly unique) that most users are not doing.

latest beta firmware version for Sub Phatty is v1.2.7.

have you made certain that the filter pedal is not affecting the situation (unplugged the filter pedal while having trouble, to see if the trouble changes in any way)?

also when you say "I'm still having this issue as recently as last night when I tried to hook a DIN sequencer again"
-- were you playing normally *before* hooking up the DIN sequencer, and the issue started when you hooked up the sequencer? Or were you having the issue from the start of this particular session?
-- Have you had the same problem when there was definitely no MIDI connected? or has there always been some MIDI running when the issue has cropped up?

Thanks. I'm definitely still committed to helping to work this out.

-Amos

[CleverConQueso]

Hi Amos,

I left the machine on, played a bit with the expression pedal, connected the Electribe and played a bit more. Turned the Sub off and on and the issue started right away. I removed the expression pedal and the issue persisted. I think I'm on 1.2.4 at this point. The envelope knobs work OK here, just the filter wheel and the expression pedal don't work. I think it's wide open.

Left the EP out. Upgraded to 1.2.7 with the DIN out and it was fine after roboot. Connected the DIN, fine. Reboot, DIN in, problem right away. Inserted the EP, no difference.

In response to your questions, I play 8 hours a week or so without a sequencer connected and without issue. I would like to use the sequencer as well but basically can't. The issue is always connected to the DIN being connected.

Thanks,
-CCQ-

[blomme]

He,
I just installed the 1.2.7 update, but the filter "jumps" are still there
The LFO does affect the filter but a small touch to the main cutoff knob and the filter goes from closed to open or vice versa with some random jumps in between.
This problem wasn't there when the unit arrived (though the original "dead filter knob" problem was, at least for a while) but started occurring after a couple of updates. Now it's always there which makes it very hard to play in a consistent manner.
I really hope this gets sorted out or does it look like something hardware related ?
Blomme