New to the forum, look forward to getting to know you lot.
I have picked up a very dusty i3 for free from a company that were having a clear out, they had no idea what it was and I'm at a loss how it ever ended up in that particularly place.
I play guitar rather than keyboard and have a few MIDI guitars I like to mess around with, and to this end I have a few MIDI tone generators (SC-55 and a MU-128). I was hoping I might be able to play around with the i3 in the same way. I recognise that this is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, but hey, the sledgehammer was free so might as well use it
I've turned the unit it on, and it appears to start up fine. It reads "ARR 11: BigCountry" at the top of its LCD display. I can't get a note out of it, though - no sound from the headphones. I assume that even though it is in some kind of arrangement mode, I should still be able to play and hear notes on the keyboard?
I've yet to really dive into information online but did read something that indicates that it needs a floppy drive in order to function, which stopped me in my tracks. Is this correct? [Edit: got far enough into the manual to figure out the answer is "no"). It came with no floppy disks and there's no chance that they'll be found at this point, and it sounds like the Gotek-style floppy emulators don't work with this unit.
Any advice for good sources to learn the basics about this unit would also be welcome.
Later edit: After messing with it some more it is clear that it does play tones, but it's just insanely quiet - not really audible on headphones and only detectable on an amp turned up way, way higher than anything I've ever set it to. The background noise makes using it in this way a no-go. Is this a common problem? I'm moderately handy with a soldering iron and can replace caps and so on but SMD stuff is my limit.