Jaysee

Where Have They Gone In Tiger?

I recently bought Tiger for my G5. Is it meant to include imovie,iphoto,garageband and itunes?
All I have now is itunes, the others are nowhere to be found. All was well in Panther, but since I switched the other three aren't there. Am I expected to buy the ilife package over and above the tiger OS? All mine came with was a trial *iwork* CD which isn't very useful to me really.I know ilife is not very expensive but i do miss imovie.
cheers, JC

Itunes Visualizer

Hi, just a thought....When playing CDs or MP3s etc in itunes with the visiualizer on when I first got my G5, I used to get almost no visuals when music had stopped, just the odd straggler trail now and then against a black background. Now my machine is over a year old I've noticed its still tripping away visually when the music stops, picking up on little 'dr who' type visual feedback tracers and iterating away like crazy. It's obviously responding to *something* going on, does anyone think it betrays a noisy component of my sytem? I'm puzzled. It doesnt worry me particulariy...but maybe it would be a good test of something either mechanical or electrical showing signs of ageing??
cheers, jc

Calling Any Kurzweil Users

Normally when I switch the k2661 on there is a brief reassuring blink from all the various lights across the front panel, followed a few seconds later by the usual 'no sample RAM installed' message on the main blue screen, I press ' OK' and a few seconds later the list of voices appears, starting with the grand piano.

A few days ago I pressed the 'ok' button as usual, then instead of the list of the onboard sounds appearing I just got a plain blue featureless screen. I wondered if a 'hard reset' was possible (as described in the manual on the Mast2 page), but as there was nothing at all on the placid blue screen to let me know which buttons to press I decided against it! I then tried inserting the SM card in the blue slot, as I gather there would be some sort of backup of the factory preset sounds, but again no response....just the same featureless blue screen staring at me. It was as if it had total amnesia. Any idea what might have gone wrong? Is there any simple procedure I can carry out, like 'starting up while pressing secret combinations of buttons? Or is it a major fault.? :-(

The only recent change in my midi setup I can think of which might have caused problems is that I recently bought an MAudio Keystation 88pro controller, as I hoped its fully weighted keyboard would feel great with the unweighted K2661's piano. However, like the Kurzweil, the 88pro has rather overwhelming midi specs for a novice like me to understand... (eg the fact it sends midi via USB and the normal midi out socket) Perhaps in my trial and error exploratory knob twiddling I've sent the K2661 some obscure midi/sysex/nrpn message to clear its entire OS and voices?? The last thing I remember noticing just prior to the 'blue screen' problem was that the blue screen contrast and brightness has abruptly changed to full on, making it unreadable until I re adjusted it using the rear panel little knobs. Soon afterwards, feeling that I wasn't getting anywhere in my attempts at making the two machines talk to each other, I switched everything off and went to bed. I'm afraid I cant remember whether I first noticed the plain blank blue screen at the time I adjusted the sudden contrast change or during next startup the follwing day.

What do you think has gone wrong with my poor ol' K2661?

Bursts Of Noise

Now that I've got most of my setup er....set up, I'm bothered by sudden loud bursts lasting a second or more of what sounds like white or pink noise; usually if I'm tinkering with any soft synth eg NI absynth or B4 in standalone mode. its quite loud, and I'm worried that something is maybe charging up for a while then discharging with that burst of noise(I know next to nothing about electronics so am a bit at sea with this.)
any ideas folks?

Trs Plug Has End Bitten Off!! Shock Horror.

Hi.I 've been off the radar for a bit immersed in manuals and trying to get to grips with all my new kit. I did something yesterday which I managed to avoid in many years of gigging and drunkenly loading/chucking stuff into the back of bedford vans with ne-er a care for its well being.
YesterdayI pulled out a TRS 1/4" balanced eurojack plug from the rear of my Keyboard, it felt a bit stiff so I pulled a bit more firmly, but using gentle normal force, I didn't *yank* it out by the lead or anything. Anyway, when it emerged it had the final metal 'tip' missing, revealing the inner part and a little tuft of worrying wire where the tip should have been; the keyboard wasn't plugged into the mains at the time.

As the tip metal bit is still in there I haven't dared to start it up since this incident for fear of damaging the keyboard by shorting something internally.
Had ayone else had a similar calamity with sockets unwilling or reluctant to release male TRS jackplugs?

Is there any way, of extracting this tip without opening the whole synth ...'fraid I cant even mernd a fuse or wire a plug without risking electrocution, so anything requiring electrical knowhow is a nono
!or is there a special tool to get through the hole to make it surrender its captured 'tip', which must lie beyond the powerful spring designed to ( too powerful in my opinion)part of th socket in question. All my stuff is pretty new so It might slacken ts grip in time. I'm unable to travel out of town to a music store or service center as I'm stuck in a wheelchair. theres now't in Blakpool sadly.
cheers, J.