Erik,
I can empathize with your concerns. I previously brought up the topic of the MTBF on the OASYS' components, trying to see if Korg had an estimate of the average lifetime to expect from the device. Many people criticized my question as irrelevant. When I did some research, I found that the AOpen motherboard's MTBF is only 40,000 hours. This might seem like alot , but the average harddrive (which is notorious for failure) is rated at 300,000 to 1,200,000 hours. Also there are many other motherboards out there with MTBF ratings of 100,000 of more which could have been used.
I'm concerned that the OASYS won't last 10+ years, and when it fails, parts will either be unavailable or very expensive (heck, Korg already charges $475 for replacement motherboards when they sold for $75 new... I can understand a marketup, but 633%?!).
Mark
Oasys replacements - cheap insurance?
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Kevin Nolan
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Hi Mark -
Those statistics are very interesting. This issue is not one specific to Korg of course, and while I have been part of the echoing of concern here; I feel it's worth also saying that, certainly from my perspective, I am not wishing to single out either Korg or the OASYS. Potential concerns abot motherboards aside, I find the OASYS to be genuinely of fabulous construction and quality, and have never, ever has an issue with it.
Rather, this issue is important, IMO, for two reasons. Firstly, as an industry sector, I feel that music technology manufacturers, probably due to low profit margins and all of that, do not provide 'professional' support in the same way as other industires do - and I mean paid support. By and large it does not exist. Hence whether its the latest OASYS or Mackie digital console, all are unfortunately vunlerable in the long term. And in this it's the 'middle' tear of users like many of us who suffer the most. Many of us stretch to afford an OASYS or the like, and indeed we are often the sector use such equipment the most. Top end facilities don't care as much because its seen as an expendable item which will be written off against in any case, and who will more easily afford the next big thing.
As a private project studio used for all sorts of projects but where budgets are always tigh, I worry more and more about all sorts of longevity music technology issues today - from projects done on one version of Logic today that may be utterly inaccessable a decade, to the thoughts of an OASYS with a black screen sometime in the future. Look at the 90s workstations today - many of them with poorly backlit LCD screens - to say nothing of the lengths one has to go to to maintain classic analog synthesizers from 20 - 30 years ago.
Again all the blame can't fall on the manufacturers - they by nature need to be experimental to survive - much of the state of affairs is down to a lack of coordinated voice on the part of user groups and forums on all such longevity issues.
And so the second reason why its important to address all of this here is so that we can become aware and approprately gauge the real issues potentially at stake, pool our knowledge and go buy a personal stock of spares for the future. I'm personally considering two strategies - to purchase a list of spares as graciously provided by Martin above, and to purchase a 2nd OASYS that will sit in its box, unused, until the day that my current one goes belly up. I am that confident about the OASYS in particular, as part of my setup for decades to come. As unlikely (or paranoid) as it may seem, I'd hate to put years of effort into integraing the OASYS into my composing setup only for it to suddenly be unavailable; and the more and more compotitions done on it means that, for me, one will need to be available in the long term when returning to pieces for redevelopment, for remixing or whatever the scenario.
I don't believe there is any need to worry for years to come, but I do believe that about now is a reasonable time to consider the long term sustaibability of an instrument so significant, yet which may be a little more vulnerable than traditional workstations to date.
Kevin.
Those statistics are very interesting. This issue is not one specific to Korg of course, and while I have been part of the echoing of concern here; I feel it's worth also saying that, certainly from my perspective, I am not wishing to single out either Korg or the OASYS. Potential concerns abot motherboards aside, I find the OASYS to be genuinely of fabulous construction and quality, and have never, ever has an issue with it.
Rather, this issue is important, IMO, for two reasons. Firstly, as an industry sector, I feel that music technology manufacturers, probably due to low profit margins and all of that, do not provide 'professional' support in the same way as other industires do - and I mean paid support. By and large it does not exist. Hence whether its the latest OASYS or Mackie digital console, all are unfortunately vunlerable in the long term. And in this it's the 'middle' tear of users like many of us who suffer the most. Many of us stretch to afford an OASYS or the like, and indeed we are often the sector use such equipment the most. Top end facilities don't care as much because its seen as an expendable item which will be written off against in any case, and who will more easily afford the next big thing.
As a private project studio used for all sorts of projects but where budgets are always tigh, I worry more and more about all sorts of longevity music technology issues today - from projects done on one version of Logic today that may be utterly inaccessable a decade, to the thoughts of an OASYS with a black screen sometime in the future. Look at the 90s workstations today - many of them with poorly backlit LCD screens - to say nothing of the lengths one has to go to to maintain classic analog synthesizers from 20 - 30 years ago.
Again all the blame can't fall on the manufacturers - they by nature need to be experimental to survive - much of the state of affairs is down to a lack of coordinated voice on the part of user groups and forums on all such longevity issues.
And so the second reason why its important to address all of this here is so that we can become aware and approprately gauge the real issues potentially at stake, pool our knowledge and go buy a personal stock of spares for the future. I'm personally considering two strategies - to purchase a list of spares as graciously provided by Martin above, and to purchase a 2nd OASYS that will sit in its box, unused, until the day that my current one goes belly up. I am that confident about the OASYS in particular, as part of my setup for decades to come. As unlikely (or paranoid) as it may seem, I'd hate to put years of effort into integraing the OASYS into my composing setup only for it to suddenly be unavailable; and the more and more compotitions done on it means that, for me, one will need to be available in the long term when returning to pieces for redevelopment, for remixing or whatever the scenario.
I don't believe there is any need to worry for years to come, but I do believe that about now is a reasonable time to consider the long term sustaibability of an instrument so significant, yet which may be a little more vulnerable than traditional workstations to date.
Kevin.
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Carbon111
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As a hardware I.T. guy with experience with their products, I can say Aopen makes very high-quality, robust components...they don't have the name-recognition of Asus but they're still very good. A number of hardware review sites on the web will bear this out.erikv wrote:I find it rather strange that Korg used a Motherboard from Aopen...
Still, its nice to have spares
Best Regards, James
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Here's what I figure. If my Oasys fails in the next 5-7 yrs, I'm assuming Korg will still be able to fix it for me. I might end up having to pay $500 for a motherboard that might be available for $50 now, but they'll be able to do it.
If it fails after that, I'll probably be thinking about getting an Oasys 2 or 3 at that point anyway. I'm thinking they've invested so much in developing a platform that works on PC components, that it's a no brainer that they would continue to carry that into the future for some time to come... i.e. I'm betting that the Oasys operating system (on whatever platform it ends up running on) is going to have more longevity to it than we've seen in the past (like from the Triton operating system, or whatever), so hopefully that will mitigate some of the usual hassle/lack of data portability associated with moving from one generation of synth to the next.
If it fails after that, I'll probably be thinking about getting an Oasys 2 or 3 at that point anyway. I'm thinking they've invested so much in developing a platform that works on PC components, that it's a no brainer that they would continue to carry that into the future for some time to come... i.e. I'm betting that the Oasys operating system (on whatever platform it ends up running on) is going to have more longevity to it than we've seen in the past (like from the Triton operating system, or whatever), so hopefully that will mitigate some of the usual hassle/lack of data portability associated with moving from one generation of synth to the next.