I uploaded some of my original music to the downloads section of my Been There game web site. I’m providing this sample music, so that you that can get an idea of the styles that I’ll be using in my game. The music will also give you an idea of the excellent sound quality that I can achieve from my studio. I really want to have good audio in the game, I think it’s important.

I’ve also been making a lot of progress with the game client code. I have the dead-reckoning algorithm working now. All of the movements are a lot smoother. The new camera collision routines are also working great. Next, I’m going to incorporate gravity, to smooth out the height transitions. This should give the game a really polished feel.

The guy in Dayton that did the warranty repair on my Roland Fantom G6 did a poor job, in my humble opinion. The heads of the screws were torn up, some screws were cross-threaded and didn’t fit flush with the case; and even worse, some screws were left entirely loose! This caused the case to be noisy, and was really starting to get on my nerves. So, I decided last night that I was going to disassemble the unit and put it back together — the right way.

One thing that really bothered me was the fact that the replacement display was not installed straight. My main goal was to find out why it was not lined up right anymore. As it turns out, one of the screws that holds the display in place was only finger tight, thus causing one of the corners to drop down a bit, making it appear to be skewed when looking at it from directly above. I also discovered that the clip that holds the display’s ribbon cable in place on the main board was broken. It’s just like a laptop computer ribbon cable, where you have to raise the retaining clip on both sides before yanking on the cable, which is what appeared to have happened. Fortunately, it can still be used to hold the cable in place firmly. The portion that was broken off was used primarily to keep the clip from separating from the socket itself, while the cable is being removed. Anyway, the synthesizer is back together again. I feel much better now.

After over 9 weeks waiting for warranty repair, a ridiculously long time, I finally got my Roland Fantom G6 back! I sure hope I don’t ever have to return it for repair any time soon.

Let me tell you, it’s a good thing it was finally fixed. I was starting to get very pissed off over the whole matter. After all the times I bugged Roland on the phone, I never got one straight answer. It was always, “let me check on that and call you back”. But in reality, that translated into “we will probably be too busy to call you back, but let me tell you that we will call anyway”. It appears they were hoping that it would buy them another week or two. I was about to contact the Attorney General in California where Roland is located. Maybe the Better Business Bureau could have helped. There is no reason why any warranty repair should take this long. People shouldn’t have to put up with this crap when something is so new. I don’t care if the part is coming from Japan.  I’ve shipped things there, and it sure didn’t take anywhere near that long. But what I’m being told is that most companies are too big anymore to take care of their customers. It’s simply not physically possible anymore, I guess. Companies should not be allowed to grow this large. This is simply absurd. If they are that busy, then they should have plenty of money to treat a customer right. It’s not like they couldn’t afford to repair my unit. They could have exchanged it for a whole new synthesizer. They have been in stock nationwide this whole time, I’ve been checking. Also, they could have paid for shipping the replacement part by air, instead of a slow boat from Japan. Heck, they could have even offered to extend my warranty for the length of time it was in repair. My warranty shouldn’t slowly tick away while I’m not able to use it. Instead, they chose to not offer me anything; not even a courtesy call to ease my mind.

My loyalty to Roland keyboards since the early 80’s is starting to quickly fade. In fact, my next keyboard probably won’t even be a Roland at all; I’ll probably look at the new Korg workstations instead. I took a huge risk buying my new Roland the day it was released, without even reading any reviews first. That is how much I used to trust them.

It’s been over 7 weeks since I took my brand spankin’ new Roland Fantom G6 in for repair. I talked to someone about this at Roland once again on Friday. The guy seemed somewhat more helpful than the first guy I spoke with a while back. He promised to have a supervisor call me back on Monday. Well it’s Tuesday now, and I’ve not heard back from Roland yet. I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve felt more comfortable dealing with total strangers on eBay!

According to the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act of 1975, the company “must, as a minimum, remedy the consumer product within a reasonable time”. I don’t think I would have a hard time proving in court that this has not been a reasonable amount of time. If Roland can’t get a replacement part for my defective keyboard, then it’s time to step up to the plate and send me a new keyboard, immediately!

The service center working on my Roland Fantom G6 display problem called the other day. After nearly a month already, Roland is telling them it’s still going to be another 3-4 weeks to get my replacement part. This is extremely irritating. The keyboard was just released a few months ago. Everyone nationwide still has the keyboard in stock. Take the part out of one! No, they have to order a part from Japan. What happened to the days when you could walk into a store and exchange a busted item for another one that actually works? Bottom line, this sucks. It was hard to get the money to buy the thing. Now my money is tight, yet I have no keyboard to get enjoyment from! I called Roland’s customer service. They were of no help. At least the guy could have offered to check with the parts department on the status of my order and then call me back! This is very frustrating, to say the least.

I’m still waiting to get my new Roland Fantom G6 back from repair. The service center is still waiting for Roland to ship them the replacement part. That sucks, because I want to play my keyboard pretty bad.

I wrote a fair, unbiased, review on the keyboard for the Guitar Center web site. They said it may take up to 5 days before it appears, but I’ve been waiting for a while. It sounds like they don’t want to post it because it actually contains pros and cons. The con being that I feel the new display technology is fragile. I also feel that a 90 day labor warranty is too short for such an expensive piece. The review that they have on their web site right now is useless. The reviewer said “havent had a chance to play”, that is so funny. It was probably written by someone who works there. I should have known an honest review wouldn’t get posted.

The display on my brand spankin’ new Roland Fantom G6 synthesizer just quit working the other day. When I first bought the keyboard, the display had one stuck pixel. Before the warranty ran out, I had planned on getting it serviced. I’ve just been too busy enjoying it in my studio and doing other things. Now, when you turn the ‘board on, the display just comes up all white. This really stinks. It still plays, but you can’t do much of anything without the display. So I had to drop it off at an authorized service center the other day. They said it could take three weeks to get it back. Ouch! By the time I finally get it back, the labor warranty will be up. I’m worried that it will go out again! Can’t these big companies give us a better warranty on something so expensive? I own a lot of Roland stuff, and it has all stood the test of time well, but this new keyboard has me fairly worried that the display is extremely fragile. Maybe I should break out my Roland Super Jupiter MKS-80 and write a song with some phat synth leads in it to cheer me up.