OASYS WARRANTY and REPAIR

[billysynth1]

Whats the story here? Some of these Oasys stories are really depressing or just over exaderated?? What do you mean by ' a long backorder' of parts?? Sounds like every god damn O on the planet is terminally ill. Are distributors making these comments?

Billy

[MyMusic]

the ebay link should be working now...i think the auction had not started yet. please confirm you can get to it.

and i sent you a PM detailing the whole issue. thanks.

[Synthia]

I just read the ebay ad with your OASYS motherboard.You mention that a lightning storm damaged your OASYS.
Did the lightning actually kill your OASYS?
As a OASYS owner that would interest me.

[MyMusic]

FIRST LET ME SAY THAT I AM NOT BADMOUTHING THE OASYS OR KORG IN ANY WAY! I'M JUST RELAYING MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE WITH ONE SPECIFIC UNIT!

To answer your question, I don't know what killed my Oasys. The repair person definitely saw some physical electrical damage on the inside of the Oasys when he opened it up.
The night it died I was playing it and the screen went black and i saw a little picture/icon with a computer and a lightning bolt (i think--it's been several months!). Then it wouldn't power on again.

I did have other things plugged into the surge protector which were not affected. I'm really not sure what happened. I think there was a lightning storm that night, but once again, i really don't remember for sure.

I've never had a problem with power surges before, nor since.

At this point, I have not repurchased an OASYS. Though I did sit down in the store a few weeks ago to hear the MOD-7...and i was VERY tempted!!!

[MyMusic]

from what i understand the parts for the OASYS are specific to the OASYS and only come from one place--Korg in Japan. When I was trying to get mine repaired earlier in the year, I was told by the repair company that there was a several month waiting period to get certain OASYS parts.

[steve m]

Down here is Australia we get some crazy electrical storms. I am an engineer at a radio station and regularly get equipment damaged by lightening strikes, even though we have surge protection and UPS systems.

Almost all equipment that gets damaged is repairable, and usually has a fault in the power supply area of the circuit/s. The damage rarely goes any further and can usually be repaired.

In some cases I have to send equipment back to suppliers or their service centres because of warranty or service contracts, and often get told that the equipment is beyond repair. I always request that the damaged equipment is returned to me ( after all it's no good to them is it, it's beyond repair ! ) and 99% of the time I can repair it myself with a bit of careful fault finding. I could write a list of equipment that has been repaired from written off stock, but it would take a few pages of this forum to publish!

The trouble is I think, that many service/repair centres are only authorised to swap boards and not hav ethe resources to carry out component level repairs. If the technician can't get the replacement boards, the whole unit gets put into the 'too hard basket'. Now I am not saying that this is what happened to yours, and i can't comment on the repair policy that korg distributors have, but if i were you I would be getting the Oasys back and having someone who knows about PSU's have a go. What have you got to lose ?

I hope you get a good outcome what ever happens.

[MartinHines]

from what i understand the parts for the OASYS are specific to the OASYS and only come from one place--Korg in Japan. When I was trying to get mine repaired earlier in the year, I was told by the repair company that there was a several month waiting period to get certain OASYS parts.

My Music,

You might want to hold off selling your OASYS motherboard until you have a chance to exchange information with Dan P..

The solution may be as "simple" as sending the keyboard to a specific repair shop that has more experience with the OASYS. At the very least, assuming you have some type of home insurance, you will probably be better off financially getting the unit repaired then sold rather than "eating" the entire cost of the OASYS (I assume your insurance company probably does not provide replacement value coverage).

[Kerzwhile]

MyMusic, if you dont mind me asking, where are you located? The store I work in has a Korg Guru level tech. Component level repair type stuff! Really sorry to hear of your misfortune but something just does not sound right here!!!

[Kevin Nolan]

MyMusic -

I'm very sorry for your trouble.

This sounds extremely worrying, and I suggest has a broad relevance. In the absence of a definitive answer as to the cause, I suggest tha all OASYS users should be concerned.

As a model for cutting-edge synthesizers, the OASYS should be built robustly, but cuttin-edge comes with risks too. Hence, give that all of our OASYSs are getting a little older and are so dependent on computer technology not known for its longevity, I suggest that this issue opens up questions as to the long term future of each of our instruments.

While I own many synthesizers over 20 years old that have never needed any service, I wonder can we expect this from the OASYS? I for one do not want to take the philosophical view that all instruments have a limited life-span if that life-span is to be far shorter than the average synthesizer, let alone acoustic instrument. I have invested too much money and time into the OASYS and it is increasingly important to me. While I'm not saying that MyMusic's misfortune is cause for alarm for all of us, it does prompt the question as to the expected longevity of such an important instrument.

Wnd while I do not want to tell Korg how to do their business, I would suggest that if there is validity in the OASYS paradigm of exceptional capability and quality, I would ask that they take a formal interest in MyMusic's particular case to see if there is a general concern regarding the life expectancy of the instrument and its most vulnerable parts.

I would also be very interested in Korg putting together something akin to WineCountrySequential's Prophet 5 and Prophet T8 'Survival Kits' - providing in one convenient package numerous parts for those instruments. For the OASYS this might include:

- Spare Motherboard
- Spare Screen
- Spare octave of keys
- LEDs
- Other Korg recommended parts.

It would also be very useful for Korg to provide a succint description on how to fully calibrate an OASYS, given its dependancy on a HD installed OS.

Overall, I find it absolutely incredibel that MyMusic has been told that his OASYS is unrepairable. Either a serious gaff happend at your facility in particular, or there is a serious degign flaw witht he electrics of the OASYS, but we do not know which is the case. Could Korg investigate?

Kevin.

[jerrythek]

I'm truly sorry to read about this issue. I spoke to the proper people here to better understand how this could have happened.

The crux of this is that the judgements of what to do and how to handle this were not made by Korg USA. By choosing to go with the external company that handles GC's Extended Warranty program we were no longer "in the driver's seat". They might use our Service Centers and buy parts from our system, but the policies and judgement calls about what to do were made without our knowledge.

Issues like this ARE difficult to ensure that everything is repaired/replaced properly, and we think since it is not a simple "this part need replacing" type of trouble-shooting they decided to take the simplest path of certainty, which was not to try.

Unfortunately everything has already transpired now, so what to do?

A lesson learned is to ALWAYS speak to the Distributor directly and try to work out the issues so they/we can help to make the value judgements needed.

Sorry again to hear of this - don't give up on us in the future, please!

Regards,

Jerry

[Carbon111]

I would also be very interested in Korg putting together something akin to WineCountrySequential's Prophet 5 and Prophet T8 'Survival Kits' - providing in one convenient package numerous parts for those instruments. For the OASYS this might include:

- Spare Motherboard
- Spare Screen
- Spare octave of keys
- LEDs
- Other Korg recommended parts.

I would love that!

I'm actually looking for a spare motherboard and CPU but there's no way I'm paying as much as that auction. If its the motherboard I think it is, I can still get those for under $50...at least for now. If someone knows the model number, please let me know.

I started another thread regarding spare parts BTW.

[baboon]

Worries,worries,the oasys is a computer,my mac G3 also for 10 years(i think),and i play whole day on internet with it,and not a trouble.Ok some luck is a part of life.