QS6.1 Unwanted pitch change - help???

[mofinco]

Hello – this is my first post here, and it’s not really a recording question, but when I Googled ‘Alesis QS6.1’, this place came up. I’ll try to keep this brief. I probably won’t succeed. If this isn’t the place to turn for the answer, and someone knows where I should turn, please point me in the right direction.

I play in a working rock band in my area. I’m mainly the guitarist and vocalist, though I do occasional backing keys (fill-in strings) on some songs without much guitar). I use a Proteus 1 with a small 49-key controller. On the other side of the stage, our ‘regular’ keyboard guy has been using an Alesis QS6.1 for quite a while. He wasn’t unhappy with it until he heard the piano sound in my Proteus, and then he decided he didn’t like the Alesis as much. We found a Proteus for him, and planned to use the QS6.1 as a controller. (I should mention that he’s great with his hands, but has no head for technical issues.) This is where the problem arises that I need help with.

Whenever we connect the QS6.1 up to his Proteus, it transposes the pitch up 3 semitones. Everything else seems to work fine – it just changes the key. I thought it was something funky with his Proteus until I plugged my controller into it. My controller doesn’t change keys. Then we plugged my 61 key controller into it. No key change. Finally, we dug out his old student-grade Yamaha keyboard which has a MIDI-out, and thought, ‘What the heck’, and plugged THAT into the Proteus, and again, all was well. So… the natural conclusion is that the QS6.1 is sending some MIDI change signal that we don’t want it to. The only thing we haven’t tried is plugging the QS6.1 into my Proteus. I’m sure it would do the same thing.

So, for the last year, he’s been using two things on stage – the Yamaha controlling the Proteus for piano sounds, and the Alesis for other stuff, even though he likes a lot of what’s in the Proteus.

We want to eliminate the Yamaha, and just use the QS6.1 as a controller. NOW COMES MY QUESTION: I have no interest in digging through the damn manual that comes with the QS6.1 to try and figure out what to reset or what menu or parameter to reset to get this thing to stop transposing anything being slaved to it. Can anyone tell me anything like: “Oh! Simple! Just do this, then that, and reset this and everything will be fine”?

Or is there a better place to take this question?

Help!

[Nils K]

Is the QS 6.1 set to transpose anywhere away from middle C? This is easily checked by looking at the LCD display - if it shows a small arrow right next to the patch name it is transposing. Hold down the "Transpose" key (far right on the QS 6.1) and play middle C (C3) once. The arrow should then disappear. - This is the only reason I can think of apart from the QS 6.1 being screwed up in some weird way...

regards, Nils

[mofinco]

Thanks, Nils - I'll try this at our next rehearsal!