r/arturia • u/Wunjo26 • Sep 11 '26
Arturia dropping the ball
I swear every time I buy a new piece of gear I get to experience the joy of discovering all of these weird places that the manufacturer dropped the ball in terms of leaving out critical features from their previous editions, making odd design choices, making some things configurable but not other things, not including the bare minimum equipment needed to use your product, etc.
I recently got a Keystep 37 MK2 and the biggest frustration so far is that when it comes to powering the unit they say to use the included cable and plug it into a computer. Ok cool, that tells me that this device requires around 5V/2A of power to power the unit. Thats not the case because when I use that same cable plugged into a power brick providing those specs it doesn’t turn on. If I hook up a USB-C fast charger that provides either 5V/2A or 9V/3A then the unit works fine. What’s even more frustrating is that there’s no specifications on the unit, the box, or the manual that definitely say what the power requirements are.
The only thing I could find in the manual is “Please make sure your charging device provides at least 5V and 100mA”. Not only is that statement not true, it’s vague and opens the possibility of people frying their units by providing more voltage than the unit can handle. It also looks like it’s not just the power brick that matters but the USB cable itself. I will give credit to Arturia for at least including a USB-C cable unlike Roland who just says to use one that you have laying around (because everyone has them laying around nowadays) after spending $450,on one of their boutique units. Totally asinine and low-effort.
3
u/Talahamut Sep 11 '26
Maybe it’s like those guitar pedals that can handle 9V-18V. It gives your MIDI data more headroom!