So I may have hosed my FC-300

[jb4674]

I was up late last night, couldn't sleep and decided to update the firmware on my Roland FC-300 hoping that it would resolve an issue where the bank up button was locking the foot controller while in PC mode.

So, I downloaded the file, downloaded the little program that Roland offers to load the file into the unit and then proceeded to hook up the FC-300 into my Firestudio's midi output.

Now, the process to do the update is quite simple. You plug the unit in, run the software, point it to where the midi files (64 of them) are and then hit the send button to push the update.

The problem happened after the 4th file was pushed. All of the sudden I got "Err" on the display and now I can't get it to come back up. The only thing it'll do is allow me to put it back in update mode. I tried several times to do the update but, everytime I tried it, it kept on failing.

So, now the only thing I can try is to get a midi transfer device like a midisport and try the procedure again. Has anyone ran into a problem like this before? I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that foot controllers and midi devices are picky when getting updated and sometimes it's better to use a dedicated device rather than going through an interface.

Any additional ideas would be helpful.

Thanks

 

[jb4674]

Update:

My suspicions were correct. I went to GC and bought an M-Audio Midisport Uno this afternoon. I'm happy to report that the issue with the failure on the update was caused by the midi transfer rate on the Firestudio.

I installed the latest driver from M-Audio, and then plugged the Midisport Uno on my machine and it was instantly recognized. I then proceeded to do the update and it worked seamlessly as the directions stated. I did notice that the midi transfer was consistent between each midi track (by the flashing of the light on the "Write" button on the FC-300). The best part of it was that all my settings remained the same and everything works quite well now.

So, the moral of the story is that a dedicated midi interface such as the Midisport Uno will work (most of the time) as intended when attempting to upgrade or flash a midi device with new firmware.

While the Firestudio (or any other Firewire or USB interface) may have imdi inputs and outputs, they're not intended to be used for this type of application.

If anyone ever runs into this type of problem upgrading or flashing a midi device, I would highly recommend using a dedicated Midi interface instead of using an audio interface to avoid the same type of problem that I ran into this morning.

That's my story and I'm sticking with it

 

[snouter]

Thanks for this info. Very interesting! I use my Echo Gina3G for MIDI applications and could not imagine it would be an issue when downloading firmware and data to something like a Strymon TimeLine which previous responded to the MIDI cable via Sonar Producer, but after multiple downloads it says it is the latest version, an important feature, the VALUE knob, is malfunctioning. Might have to try the M-Audio USB UNO and see if that helps.

 

[jb4674]

It definitely made a believer out of me. If you do end up buying one, make sure to download the driver from their website and install it in your machine prior to plugging the device into your computer.

Good luck!