I'm having issues with a MIDI keyboard which is part of a travelling art installation. I'm wondering if it's an issue with the device itself or perhaps the quality of the connection to the computer. There's actually 2 issues which may be completely separate from each other, I'll describe them both. One issue is that when I first boot up the computer, I almost always have a key on/off reversal which means that when we press a key, it sends a note off signal and when we release, it sends a note on. This is remedied by power cycling the keyboard, after that it's usually fixed. The other issue is that the keyboard can stop functioning every 1,5-2 hours which means that the computer stops receiving keystrokes. Again this is remedied by power cycling the piano ("turn it off and on again").
I'm wondering if the keyboard is defective or if it could be the quality of connection to the pc. The keyboard is a Studiologic SL88 Studio, essentially just a MIDI piano. I'm using the USB out port to connect to the pc. We've used both PC and MAC hosts the connection has either been a direct usb cable connection or a usb-over-ethernet extender. In all cases the key reversal rings true. The 'stops functioning' part has only happened using the usb-over-ethernet extender I I'm not mistaken, so that may be an indication that the usb connection is't reliable there.
I'm curious what your insights are regarding these issues. Where should I start looking? Are there ways to probe if a device initializes incorrectly (regarding that the startup issue can be solved by simply power cycling)? Thanks in advance for your wisdom!
How is the keyboard powered? Is it possible that some key is stuck down when the keyboard is being powered on?
It's powered through its 9v power adapter. I don't think that a single key is down when the keyboard is powered. But hypothetically if it were, would a single key being down cause *all* keys to exhibit this reversed behavior?
I'm quite confused why the keyboard needs to be reset after the computer has powered on, even when the piano was already powered by an adapter. Something to do with how the keyboard initializes the usb-midi connection?