A list of REV2 known issues

[Millisec]

Hello to everyone!

This is my first post here. I must say that you have built an excellent community here!

I've always been fascinated by the Rev 2 since its release and it's definitely a no brainer for me as my polysynth.

I've spent hours on this forum reading about several issues that one may encounter. As I am not very well versed in synthesis yet, I was wondering if we could dedicate this forum post to making a list of known Rev 2 issues (and perhaps provide help on how to solve them).

This way, future buyers including myself, will know if they have a defective Rev 2 that needs to be sent back or if an issue is solvable with a simple re-calibration etc.

Thanks in advance.

[creativespiral]

Hello to everyone!

This is my first post here. I must say that you have built an excellent community here!

I've always been fascinated by the Rev 2 since its release and it's definitely a no brainer for me as my polysynth.

I've spent hours on this forum reading about several issues that one may encounter. As I am not very well versed in synthesis yet, I was wondering if we could dedicate this forum post to making a list of known Rev 2 issues (and perhaps provide help on how to solve them).

This way, future buyers including myself, will know if they have a defective Rev 2 that needs to be sent back or if an issue is solvable with a simple re-calibration etc.

Thanks in advance.

Last year there was a push to collect a list of any outstanding bugs... a bunch of members chimed in via FB groups, GS and here... there wasn't many that were actually confirmed/repeatable bugs.  Sequential evaluated the issues that were reported, then released version 1.1.5.9.7  (and the following 1.21 os) which fixed them up.     

There are, of course, lots of feature requests / design choices that people would like implemented, but in terms of bugs, the Rev 2 is pretty much bug free at this point, at least in my opinion.   I highly recommend it.  Have had mine for four years now, and consider it a desert island synth.  Incredibly versatile and great sounding synth.  If you do get it, and ever run into any issues, you can feel confident that Seq has top notch support, and if you post on the forum, there's lots of members here who might be able to help troubleshoot or guide you in the right direction. 

[Sacred Synthesis]

Right.  I wouldn't expect any more bug fixes or added features.  The Rev2 is what it is.

[AlainHubert]

I'd say that the biggest bug of my REV2 is that it doesn't sound very good. It's not awful, it's just that there's something not quite right about it. It's missing something. Buried in a mix with other tracks, one might be hard-pressed to notice it, but next to my OB6 it's pretty obvious. I can't wait to replace it with something else (UB-Xa).

[gus]

Hi Millisec,

If you're looking for common problems/solutions, we recently put together troubleshooting guides for the Rev2 Keyboard/Module. They are public on Sequential's Zendesk page (links below). All pretty basic stuff, but useful!

https://support.sequential.com/hc/en-us/articles/4407479502227-REV2-Keyboard-Troubleshooting
https://support.sequential.com/hc/en-us/articles/4407483702163-REV2-Module-Troubleshooting

[LPF83]

I can't wait to replace it with something else (UB-Xa).

I think the UB-Xa might be geared toward an audience that prefers to wait.  Has so much brand-damage occurred here that it's impossible for them to sell a product unless it's "inspired by" something else?

[jamisnemo]

On January 12, 2022, I sent Sequential support a message to report a Rev2 bug related to LFO's not working correctly when they Clk Sync is enabled and an external MIDI clock is being used.

I'll reproduce most of the details here:

I've found unexpected behavior with how LFO Clk Sync works while using the divided settings on the FREQUENCY knob. I've tested this in 1.1.5.9 and 1.2.1.

I've attached a sysex patch with LFO 1 driving the filter.

LFO 1 has both KEY SYNC and CLK SYNC enabled. The FREQUENCY is set to "1/4 Step".

Reproducing this behavior requires external MIDI clock in, "MIDI Clock Mode" set to "In No S/S", and the external clock set to 80 BPM. (120 BPM does not show this issue. 60 BPM has different behavior that might be helpful which I'll explain a bit later.)

The behavior does not happen using the internal MIDI clock. Nor does it happen with Clk Sync disabled on LFO 1.

After starting the external sequencer, loading this patch, and pressing a key, you should hear the filter opening and closing in time with the external MIDI clock and synced to when you pressed the key.

Press the Stack A+B button to enable stacked mode. Then press it again to disable stacked mode.

Now, when you press a key, instead of hearing a single LFO affecting the filter cutoff, you'll hear what sounds like two out-of-sync LFO's affecting the filter cutoff instead.

Getting the synth to behave again requires using the PROGRAM knob to re-select the same patch.

As far as I can tell, this has something to do with how the LFO sync logic functions. At 80 BPM, the behavior is noticeable because the resulting LFO sounds like a galloping horse.

At 60 BPM, before triggering this behavior using the Stack A+B button, the filter opens and closes in time with 60 BPM. But AFTER triggering the behavior, the filter opens and closes twice as fast as it did.

You can also trigger this behavior using the Split A|B button.

This is the response I got from support:

Thanks for reaching out with your thorough bug report. I'll be sure to add this to our bug list for the the Rev2.

As far as I can tell, the updates that landed in 1.1.5.9 touched bugs in similar areas of the synth. So either this never worked quite right, or it was a regression.

Either way, it makes it pretty difficult to program stacked patches with Clk Sync'd LFO's. And uh... I don't think that's a trivial bug to leave hanging around.

[AlainHubert]

Yes. The LFOs on the REV2 are really very poorly implemented. No "unified" or "all in sync for each voice" mode, almost useless LEDs indicators that barely show anything at faster speeds, poor LFO sync to MIDI, random waveform is pretty useless because each voice has a different random value resulting in a mishmash of modulation. And there's certainly no excuse for any of this because they're all software-based LFOs, to begin with!

I challenge anyone to try and reproduce the synth patch used on Natural Science song by rock band Rush at the beginning of the song on a REV2. It's simply impossible, even though this is a very basic, simple patch. The LFOs on the REV2 are incapable of this.

[skrohmer]

I'd say that the biggest bug of my REV2 is that it doesn't sound very good.

I would agree with this if it was an objective functionality and this was clearly stated in the specification. It is not a problem of the software if it does not meet the expectations of the users. So I would not call this a "bug". As so often the bug rather sits in front of the keyboard.  Seems anyway to sound not too bad since you have been using it for years...