Familiar w. Roland A-80?

Hello Carsten,

I happen to own an A80 since it was new in 1990, and it has served me very well every day since then.

I am assuming you are able to get audio output from the A90 when you play its keyboard.  If this is so, then you need to ensure that the A80's output midi channel matches the input channel of the A90.  Moreover, you need to ensure that the A80's CC#7 (continuous controller for Volume) is set to some positive value other than zero.

If the three above assumptions are not met, then you will get no audio output signal from the A90. 

Question:  Are you absolutely sure you are outputting, say, Midi Channel #1 from the A80?  One way to check would be to temporarily hook up your midi cable to a midi interface.  Upon pressing any note on the A80, you should see some sort of LED lighting up on the midi interface confirming it is receiving Midi Channel #1 (in this example).  If you happened to have a defective midi cable, then you will have found out your midi signal is going nowhere.

Hope this helps, at least as a start.

Cheers,

Joe

pianoteq has a nice midi event window where you can see which messages you get from your controller. This event list is hidden in the options window under midi.

Hope that helps.

are you sure this is a problem with your keyboard, rather than with the computer? I am having issues with my soundcard that sometimes mute the sound when the asio driver crashes.
Do you have a midi adapter that flashes when there is midi data sent and does that stop too if your bug occurs?

It did not occur to me to switch to Midi Out 2 instead of Midi Out 1;  that was a good thought on your part!

Apparently the original owner had used Midi Out 1, and may have accidentally damaged the connector from repeated use (plugging and unplugging a midi cable over the past 20 years), or perhaps from a single trauma to the midi cable while still plugged into Midi Out 1. 

Just as I was typing this reply, I looked at the back of my own A-80, and to my surprise I find I am using Midi Output #4!!!.

I am glad your problem is solved, because the A-80 is an extremely fine controller keyboard, even after some 22 years of owning it and using it every day.

Cheers,

Joe

I had an A-80 from 1990 to about 2000, when I replaced it with an even older Kurzweil MIDIBoard (which has since been replaced with a new VAX77). I always thought the piano touch on the A-80 was excellent, even better than the A-90 that came after it. The manual was so convoluted, though, that Roland USA actually put out an 8 page document to "translate" what the manual specified! My main problem with the A-80 was the poorly implemented aftertouch- you needed hands of steel to get it to work, and it felt like trying to play concrete. But for piano, definitely a worthy controller- just a bit heavy to gig with.

CJ-

Unfortunately, I don't- it was nearly twenty years ago when I called up Roland USA with questions regarding the manual, and they mailed this document to me directly- it was about 8 type-written pages and was called "A-80 User's Guide," if I remember correctly. It was great because it explained all the basics in plain English, a lot of it having to do with when to hit the Edit button. I sold my A-80 about a decade ago, and the user guide went with it, sorry!

-M

Joe-

Unfortunately, that is not the document I was talking about. The original manual was very confusing as to how certain basic functions were implemented, so much so that Roland USA produced a second, 8-page document to explain the manual. That document does not appear to exist on the web, as far as I can tell. If I could remember who I sold my A-80 to (this was ten years ago!), I might be able to contact him and get him to scan the user manual.