note cutout
abruzzi | Posted on Thu 09 Oct 2025, 02:09 AM I just received my MASK1EX, and I noticing that on sustained notes I hearing occasional random note stops--like teh synth received a note-off event. Its not audio cutout, I still hear the reverb tail or delays. I don't think it is part of the patch (one that seems to do it a lot is P37 OldSolo. Right now I have DIN MIDI from a Kork Prologue 8 plugged directly in MIDI OUT to MIDI IN, so I don't have a MIDI monitor to see if anything is being send, but I will try to get something setup to let me monitor that. It does seem like the MASK thinks it got a NOTE OFF because patch P37 is mono and I can hold one note and press another keyon and off repeatedly, and the MASK moves back to the first note everytime I lift the second note. But when a note gets cutoff unexpectedly, the second note will trigger, but when lifting it won't go back to the first note, it will just release. When the weekend arrives, I'll do some more testing. Note, I do hear this on multiple patches, its just its very noticable and frequent on P37. Otherwise, the hookups to the unit are DIN MIDI from the Prologue, power from the included adapter, and a headphone (Audio Technika ATH-M50x.) I did have audio plugged into my mixer but there was a nasty ground loop going from the Korg, though the MIDI cable to the MASK, through the unbalanced audio cables. I'll get that sorted later, but now I just wanted to audition the synth. |
| abruzzi | Posted on Thu 09 Oct 2025, 02:17 AM another detail, P38 is poly, and I was trying to see if the cutout was on a note-by-note basis or all sounding notes, and I played it for several minutes and never generated a cutout--at least not one I could hear. So I moved up to P39 Choruser which is also a poly, and I did hear that one cut out while a chord was depressed (I think three notes) and all three notes cut out at the same time. |
| abruzzi | Posted on Thu 09 Oct 2025, 04:12 AM sorry, for continually talking to myself, but...I dug out a Sequential Take5 (my studio is on ice at the moment, so I only have one or two keyboards in my living room to play with--the prologue got first shot at the MASK, even though it has not AT, because it was what I was playing when FedEx knocked.)Anyway, the MASK does not exhibit the issue here when the Take5 is playing it. I'll hook the Prologue's MIDI DIN to my Mac to see if there is anything weird its sending. Otherwise, maybe its an unusual hardware compatibility issue? |
KODAMO | Posted on Fri 10 Oct 2025, 01:17 PM From what you are describing it might be Active Sensing. If Active Sensing is received, the MASK1EX will initiate a countdown and after about 1 second without receiving it will cut all notes. If a device sends this message, it should keep sending it at regular intervals otherwise it doesn't respect the standard.Best would be to look into settings of the Prologue if it might be that, or check with a MIDI monitoring tool what it sends exactly (MIDI-OX works great and is free) |
| abruzzi | Posted on Fri 10 Oct 2025, 07:35 PM thanks for that detail. I've been doing some testing in my rare spare time. So I should have some more detail to post this weekend. I'll look to see if the Prologue is sending active sensing and whether it can be disabled (like most modern synths, that kind of MIDI stuff is a black box you can't config, but I'll look.) Realistically, its not really an issue since I can play it with a different keyboard but its probably worth documenting, in case its an issue that needs resolution for someone else. |
| abruzzi | Posted on Mon 13 Oct 2025, 04:09 AM So I plugged DIN MIDI (since that was what I was using to play the MASK) into my Mac using a MIO iConnectivity 1x1 USB to MIDI cable, and ran MIDI Monitor and the Korg is sending Active Sensing, but it is sending it every 10 seconds, not every second. (Ignore that the screen shot says "Moog Voyager" it was just what the MIO had been setup for in my Mac.) It looks like spec is to send active sensing at least every 300ms, so Korg is WAAYYY out of spec with about 10,000ms between AS messages.Unfortunately, it doesn't have any config to turn AS on or off. |
| KODAMO | Posted on Mon 13 Oct 2025, 01:39 PM This is very weird and wrong! Thank you so much for taking time to inverstigate. We might offer a firmware update to ignore it. It is very rarely used, but its intended purpose is to avoid stuck notes in case the MIDI cable is disconnected (a safety measure for live performances) |
| abruzzi | Posted on Mon 13 Oct 2025, 03:17 PM yeah, its clearly a Korg bug. I emailed their support but I don't really expect them to fix it. Even though the Prologue still shows as a current synth, it really seems to have been discontinued for several years. The last firmware update was 5 years ago. |
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