Troubleshooting
Quick fixes for the surprises new owners hit most often, plus a careful walkthrough of the destructive reset ladder.
"I expected X but got Y"
The matrix is half-dark — only the top or bottom half lights up.
You have one LED board, but the firmware is set to two-board geometry (or vice-versa). Open ETC → ADV → LEDS and try 1, 1B, 2, 2B in turn — one will match your hardware. The "B" variants flip the image for boards mounted upside down.
No sound on headphones.
Check three places in order: VOL → MAIN (level above 0), VOL → GAIN (1.0x is the old mix staging; 0.0x mutes a bus), VOL → SPKR (sometimes the speaker is overriding routing), and the headphone jack is fully seated. If line-out works but phones don't, you have a hardware fault — open the unit to inspect the TRS jack.
Samples don't show up in the browser.
The firmware caches the browse list. Run ETC → RSET → SD: it rescans the card without touching your patterns. If they still don't appear, confirm the files are 16-bit mono WAV at 44.1 kHz and that the card was prepared with the layout from SD card setup.
SD tool cannot connect / no serial port.
Use desktop Chrome or Edge at sdtool.tyng.app — Android / Pixel usually cannot see the Teensy USB serial port. On the unit, stay on ETC → SD (WAIT → OK). Opening the port can reboot the Teensy; if the screen leaves that page, open ETC → SD again after Connect. See Hardware → SD tool.
External MIDI is in sync but kicks click off by a few ms.
Use MIDI → SYNC. SNC1 delays your outgoing path; SNC2 delays your incoming path. Loopback a metronome and adjust in ±2 ms steps until both kicks land as one. Save by leaving the page — settings persist.
BPM number is red and won't settle.
You are on EXT clock and the incoming MIDI clock is unstable or absent. Either fix the master (cable, source clock setting) or flip BPM → encoder 3 back to INT to use TŒRN's own clock.
I switched packs and now my pattern sounds wrong.
Packs change what each voice row plays. The pattern still references the same rows, but they now contain different samples. Either reload the previous pack (encoder 1 short on the KIT screen with the right number), or — for next time — save a PATT pattern per pack and record the matching kit number alongside it.
I cleared the wrong page.
There is no undo in RAM. If you previously saved to PATT, reload that slot. Otherwise, it's gone. The handbook's golden rule: save to PATT when an idea matters.
Battery percentage seems to lie.
The reading is a fuel-gauge estimate from the charger IC. It is good faith but not lab-grade. Charge for at least one full cycle (USB until full, run until shutdown) before trusting the curve.
Touch pads trigger by themselves.
Capacitive pads detect skin contact. If your palms rest on the chassis while turning encoders, you may register phantom touches. Lift your grip; if it persists in dry conditions, a power cycle re-calibrates the pad baseline.
Encoder feels jumpy — values fly when I turn slowly.
The hardware encoders are I²C and can occasionally desync. Power-cycle the unit; on rare occasions, also re-seat the SD card. Persistent issues are a hardware fault.
Long-press encoder 4 on a note doesn't open the editor.
You are in paint mode (SETT → DRAW = L+R) and encoder 4 long is reserved differently. Switch DRAW to the default or use a single tap on encoder 1 to enter single mode first.
I see a moving dot when I'm not playing — what is it?
If you see a bright dot with a short trail bouncing around your pattern in draw mode while MODE → PONG is ON, that is PONG: the ball only hits and fires notes on muted voices (unmuted play stays clean). Turn PONG off from the same menu page, or open it to change speed (encoder 2, 1–99). If you see a pair of cartoon eyes after long inactivity when not playing, that is the separate idle matrix animation, not PONG.
Sample browser won't open — the touch combo seems to do nothing.
The sample browser only opens on sample voices 1–8, with the left pad pressed first. If your cursor is on a synth row, the combo opens the filter editor instead. Move encoder 1 to a sample row and retry.
Note-shift exited without saving my moves.
Note-shift saves continuously — once you exit with a short press on encoder 4, the new positions are committed. If a particular nudge looked unsaved, you may have moved a note off the visible page range; check adjacent pages.
Auto-preview is too loud.
Drop VOL → PREV, or switch VOL → PREV from ON to PRSS (press encoder 1 to audition) or SYNC (hear the file on the voice's pattern hits).
The reset ladder (ETC → RSET)
Six rungs live behind one encoder dial. Encoder 3 rotates the mode; encoder 4 confirms. Read each row before confirming.
| Mode | What runs | What survives |
|---|
| SD | Walks the whole card, writes samples/toern_wavs.txt (used by mute-mode random preview ?>), invalidates the sample browser cache, flashes SCAN then a green checkmark, returns to draw. | Everything except the stale browse/random index. Use after a card-reader swap or transfers via the SD tool. |
| EFX | Resets every tone control — filters, envelopes, synth parameters, octave helpers, audio effects — back to factory values across all voices. | Patterns and sample assignments survive. Every tone control snaps back to factory. |
| FULL | Wipes the entire session: clears all notes, velocities, probabilities, sets BPM to 100, resets volumes and filter data, deletes then rewrites autosaved.txt, and rescans the SD card. | ETC → ADV → LEDS (panel 1 / 1B / 2 / 2B). PATT-saved patterns. Almost nothing else in RAM. |
| PATT | Deletes pattern files 1–999.txt. | autosaved.txt and the current RAM session. |
| KIT | Deletes sample-pack folders except pack 1. | Patterns. Pack 1. |
| ASAV | Deletes autosaved.txt and its .tmp / .bak recovery files and clears the grid. | Settings, PATT slots, packs. Next boot is blank if you don't pause-autosave first — use FULL if the session itself is garbage. |
There is no undo beyond reloading saved pattern files. If you choose FULL with unsaved work in RAM, that work is gone.
Last-resort recovery
- Soft restart — slide the power switch off, wait five seconds, slide on. Most freezes resolve here.
- SD re-seat — power off, push to eject, reinsert firmly, power on. Fixes most "samples missing" cases that SD rescan didn't.
- Re-flash the firmware — over USB C, using the Teensy 4.1 boot procedure. Pattern files on the card are not affected by a firmware reflash unless you also reformat the card.
- If touch pads stay stuck — make sure the chassis is clean and dry; cap-touch baselines re-calibrate on boot.
For deeper hardware issues (encoder gone, LED out, jack scratchy), inspect the unit; the schematic and KiCad sources are in PCB/toern_revG/.
You finished the handbook.
That's everything. From here on you are the most experienced TŒRN owner you know. If a feature still surprises you, jump back to the Screen index — recognising a display is the fastest way to find the chapter that explains it. And always: save to PATT before powering off.