Triton pro - After touch strip

[Mars Amp Repair]

Hello folks,
I know this is a bit off the beaten path for this forum. I need to know if anyone has found a source for the aftertouch strip that runs the length under the front of the keys on the 76 note keybed & has a red felt pad on it for the Triton Pro.

Korg can't find it separately & only suggest replacing the entire keybed as an assy... for a ridiculous price, of course.

I've been told this keybed is a Fatar #FS-E76, but I can't really say that with much confidence. It is the keybed that has hard mechanical switches that come in racks of 12 or 13 switches each.

This is essentially the same keybed as the old Yamaha DX-7's used, but I'm not sure if the aftertouch strip is the same as I haven't seen one of those in quite some time.

I've contacted ProDigital Audio who are great for Alesis parts, to no avail.

Anyone here have any info or possibly some sources I might contact?

See attached pix of the keybed.

Thanx, glen

[Enzo]

Glen, doesn;t the contacts circuit board say "Yamaha" right on it? Isn;t that a DX7 keybed in fact? Korg uses them in most of their non-weighted synths. Or was the DX7 only 5 octaves? It is definitely a DX7 style bed. In any case, Yamaha would be the place to call first. I'll bet my lunch money it is a Yamaha right off the shelf bed. And I ain't eaten yet today. I'd ask if the aftertouch ribons were available as separate parts.

Looking in DX7, I see "sensor" which is probably it. The DX7 bed is originally from the PF10. I don;t know what they used the 76 key bed in. Just thinking, could you use an 88 strip and curl the excess at the end?

I have old notes that say the strip should show about 6k open and about 10 ohms at max pressure.

I have a Triton Pro X 88 in here now needing a key contact strip. That is wide rubber thing, not metal blades. Korg can no longer supply the contact strip, so I wil have to contact Yamaha for it. Yes it is also a Yamaha keybed. In fact thanks for reminding me to call them while they are still open this afternoon.

[jrfrond]

In a previous life (back in '93-'94), I worked for Fatar here stateside as the factory service "chief, cook and bottlewasher", for the old distributor, which was Music Industries. It is now called StudioLogic, and the distributor is American Music & Sound. Distributors have changed, but Fatar remains the same, to wit, good f***in' luck getting individual keybed parts from Italy. We are lucky enough to get keys, hammers and contact strips, but I have to say, I NEVER have seen them ship aftertouch strips separately, and to the best of my knowledge, Korg never had it.

The GOOD thing is that you can rescue an aftertouch strip from ANY 76 or 88-note Fatar keybed, cutting it to size if necessary. As long as the connector is viable, you can always rig an adaptor cable. The strip is just a piece of FSR film with two terminals, and you will find it in all other Fatar 76 or 88-note keybeds employed in Kurzweil, Alesis, Ensoniq, etc.

Paul at ProDigital has a line mostly on legacy ADAT parts, as we do here in NYC. Alesis never made those contact strips available. However, if you contact Ruth at Advanced Musical Electronics in Los Angeles, you could check to see if she has any leftover Alesis keybeds. AME purchased truckloads of Alesis parts when Alesis folded up their tent in Santa Monica, and they are pretty much the go-to place for Alesis parts. You can also try American Music & Sound, who now handles all of the Fatar parts.

[Enzo]

Cool, better information.



My earlier 6k readings were while in circuit, not sitting free.

[Mars Amp Repair]

Thanx Enzo,
actually the aftertouch sensor is good, the red felt pad is all chopped up in the middle range.

As you mentioned, mo-bettah info for the future. BTW, Yamaha still has a few of these strips & felt pads. strip: #PB000470 $62.00 cost. Felt pad: #CC03057 ~$3.00. Of course there is no way to safely separate the felt pad from the old sensor. g

[Enzo]

Oh good, the 88 length one is PB000800, didn;t check price and availability yet, sounds lile you don;t need me to I am still trying determine which AE88 contact strip the Triton uses. Yamaha can only work from their model numbers. AS they used these same keybeds in tons of models, I'd expect contact strips at least to still be there. I might expect 88 key aftertouch strips to be around longer than 76 length

[jrfrond]

Don't know why I never saw those pics attached to the first post before, but that is NOT a Fatar keybed, it's Panasonic. Fatar has only made coil spring and bubble-contact keybeds, never leaf-spring like these. That's a Panasonic design shared by Yamaha and Korg in many keyboards.

[Enzo]

Well whoever made them, the ones Korg uses say Yamaha on them, SO I order keys and strips from Yamaha when it is more convenient than Korg.

I used to know all these parts by heart, but my keyboard repairs are way off anymore. And I won;t miss the Ensoniq company one little bit.

[jrfrond]

Enzo, that is because Yamaha and Keio Electronics (Korg) still have a partnership. There are a lot of crossover parts.

I actually DO miss Ensoniq! When things were good over there, back in the mid-90's, their warranty and parts programs were the best in the industry, and made their keyboards real easy to service. Alas, no more.

[Enzo]

More power to you then John, I hated Ensoniq. When ANYTHING out of the ordinary happened, they couldn;t handle it. In the some 8 years I was one of their centers at a music store, NOT ONCE was a problem resolved satisfactorily. I sent a detailed letter to Steve Coscia the day I left the music store, explaining all the areas I felt were wanting in the support. He was a nice fellow ro me and I was sincerely trying to level constructive criticism. As I was starting my own shop at the time, and he knew he would have zero experienced support in the area, he talked me into remaining an Ensoniq shop. They were my first affiliation. Must have been a weak moment, nothing changed. They lasted several more years.

I liked the guys well enough, but no one there seemed to be able to overcome the corporate hurdles

Their modular replacement system worked for dummies, a shop joke was always the repair requirements. You will need: allen wrench, phillips screwdriver, 100MHz scope. Never once did the procedures ask for scoping anything. I guess just owning one made you capable of using hand tools.

One of the Curtis chips dies. I need a Curtis 3xxx IC, sorry, swap the board. SO now I have to credit and debit a whole multihundred dollar board, retun shipping involved, and the flat rate to the customer is now $150 or whatever it was for the board. No schematics until years later when they released the obsolete ones, and even then they wanted $100 for the set.

I used to get called into the store manager's office every month. He wanted to know why I was orderin g $4000-5000 a month in parts from ENsoniq when my sales didn't show anywhere hear that much. Of course he'd ignore the $4000-5000 in credits the next month, blinded by the new charges.

I will give them their due on the products, they were VERY user friendly. SOme keyboards have a series of arcane menus to sort through

[jrfrond]

It's true, the swap system really was "Keyboard Repair For Dummies". This is part of what made it cost-effective. You could have a B-tech do the repairs! Plus, the support staff of Steve Coscia, Steve Pretti, Bert and Rob made it really easy to get boards as needed, and ALWAYS UPS Blue. I realized things started to go sour when we would get refurb boards that didn't work, and then their lead tech let and started TheSoniq, now the ONLY place you can get proprietary Ensoniq parts from. Of course, Ensoniq never handed out schematics until they went belly-up, so now we repair to component level, if possible. Ensoniq customers are forewarned thoroughly that their gear might not be serviceable.

And alas, another one bites the dust!

[Enzo]

I do recall a couple times I ordered a new board, the replacement came DOA, and I had to fix the replacement board to get the customer's piece up. I did however submit a claim for the replacement board repair each time.

They many times could not supply a board, and I had to wait in line until more "came in." But they wouldn;t sell us parts. SO they required us to do board swaps, wouldn;t let us do component repair, but when out of stock on boards STILL wouldn;t send parts out even if we knew what we needed. It was not hard to diagnose a bad Curtiss chip for example.

Coscia thought it pretty funny the first time he heard me call the "Polypressure" keyboard the Polyproblem keyboard. UNlike the circuit boards, there was no bounty on dead keybeds. Until they started running out of the PPKs. Then they wanted us to mail them back. At our expense, until we hollered.

Hey Glen, have I sufficiently hijacked your thread yet?

[jrfrond]

Yeah, sorry for the hijacking dude!

If any of you guys attends NAMM, we can keep a spot open at the "service dinner". That's where a whole bunch of service centers and manufacturer's service managers get together to shoot the sh*t and attempt to solve some issues.

[Mars Amp Repair]

Enzo wrote "Hey Glen, have I sufficiently hijacked your thread yet?"

Hey, look at the great dialog it opened up g

[jantoman]

Of course there is no way to safely separate the felt pad from the old sensor. g

Hello from Italy. This is my first post here... I found this webpage through a Google search (of course...) for "Yamaha FS aftertouch".

I'm glad to report that I managed to remove the felt pad from the sensor, and to stick a brand new felt on it. Now my Triton Classic keybed is absolutely perfect: after a thorough cleaning session, it doesn't show its age anymore (almost fifteen years... the felt pad was falling in pieces).

First I removed the strip from the keybed assembly with the help of a putty, trying not to ply it in any way.
Then I laid the strip flat on my work table and I cut away the old felt pad with a very sharp blade, keeping it parallel to the sensor flange: some light scratches were inevitable, but they won't compromise the membrane.
After that, just a thin strip of felt was attached to the sensor with double-adhesive tape: I carefully peeled it off with my thumb... It was actually easier than I expected: the tape came off in a small roll, keeping almost all the glue on.
The most difficult part was to find a suitable felt strip... but at least I've been able to find some, and it was almost easy to cut it to the right size and stick it over the sensor, using a strong double-adhesive tape.

Actually it was my second try... last year I helped a friend to do the same, but we didn't got it working. This time, after each step I re-connected the sensor and checked it out...

I'm quite happy with the results, and I hope it would be useful to every FS owner, since neither Korg nor Yamaha don't sell it anymore (at least in our country).

PS Excuse my somewhat clumsy English, of course it's not my native language.