help, please...

[wreckx]

i was wondering if any of you would mind sharing/describing your experiences with components wearing out on your microkorg's, not necessarily physical things like keys and knobs, buttons, connectors, etc., but internal things that might cause sound anomalies

for instance, lately my microkorg seems to need to warm up 5 or 10 minutes before working consistently

during that initial 5 or 10 minutes the sound starts out fine, but will muffle down almost imperceptibly all on it's own after a couple of minutes

i can initialize the program utilizing the shift function and initially get a cheap casio sounding organ and then switch out and back into the program but it might take a couple of times

then after 5 or 10 minutes the problem seems to resolve itself

i guess i should consider myself lucky that it ends up working at all, but i'm worried that maybe some internal component in this solidstate device is slowly wearing out and might mean the beginning of the end of my beloved microkorg

as well, i'd like to hear your thoughts on their service and support

i wouldn't mind this experience so much if i felt confident that i could be adequately supported by korg, but i don't feel like i would

you have to go through third parties to procure parts and they don't respond to e-mails, they don't seem to be too customer service orientated

which is why i'm attempting to enlist some assistance in possibly pinpointing the problem before refering it to korg

too much uncertainty at this point

i guess what i'm getting at is, should i just count my losses and move on before incuring a possible major headache or take a chance with korg?

thanks

[Dj Pound]

What you described happened to me once.
Cant remember if i shared this with you already?!?! But yeah a couple times back around winter time, December or so when it was really cold around here...The filter started doing sweeps while i was playing, all by itself!
Couldnt figure it out, still havent

It hasnt done that since though, so who knows what it could of been!?!?

[wreckx]

thanks dj pound

yea, you did respond to me during the winter when i first experienced this problem

had a bunch of hot days around here recently and then it got cold and wet and whala, same problem... this is arizona after all, with it's extremes of arid and humid and that's with the windows open. in the winter it's the extremes of hot and cold with the heater on indoors during the day and off at night

go figure, i took this thing completely apart a while back to look for any possible anomalies and found none, it's all solidstate

i think i noticed that the original value light wasn't lit when i was experiencing these problems, so i'm going to start watching that, though i still don't know how the values change all by themselves

i'm also going to keep the other five (5) edit select knobs out of global and midi when powering on, just on a hunch

i'm starting to wonder if there are default positions for the the other edit select knobs and the modulation wheel? the things that affect performance

so, i'm going to keep the modulation wheel at the completely down position and the other five (5) edit select knobs at 12:00 high and see how that goes, otherwise i might put them all in the extreme left position on start up

this doesn't explain anything, but it does give me hope that my synth might still be viable

that's what i'm hoping for, i really do dig this little thing

and it's a place to start the potential troubleshooting process if these ideas don't pan out

[X-Trade]

from what you describe it sounds like it must be the weather affecting the conductivity in the rotary encoders (pots, potentiometers, variable resistors) and wheels, as that is the only bit that is analogue. temperature and humidity don't affect digital circuits because they are based on large (relative) changes in voltage - on and off, not a continuous range. but the user controls often have to be read in by analogue means.

Can't really point you in a direction to fix it though. Generally if you have a hardware problem you need a tech to look at it.

the original value light won't be lit if there are any changes occuring, which again suggests that it is the machine changing parameters because it thinks the knob values are changing. This would espcially make sense if the changes are related to the performance controls (mod, pitch, filter cut, res, attack, release, tempo - I think), because they are on by default and don't operate in a 'catch' mode like the edit parameters do.

and naturally the device will warm up a bit on startup, but its not *supposed* to affect operation at all - its almost unheard of on digital synths.

[Dueloverheadcam]

This sounds exactly like what happens to me. After playing for a 30 seconds to a few minutes the volume cuts down to almost nothing, and the sound loses a lot of frequency range, resulting in a puny, thin, quiet sound. This is really bothering me...did you ever find a fix?

[tweedle]

This is most likely the potentiometers that control the analog portion of the MK. You can disassemble the korg yourself and try spraying contact cleaner through the knobs. Moisture can build up and cause corrosion which may very well cause it to think a knob has been turned. You could also replace the knobs. They are readily available at Radio Shack or online. (Mouser, Jameco, etc) Digital electronics are not easily affected by normal weather changing patterns. Mechanical contacts are an entirely different matter. Hope that helps.

[ChrisLody]

My microkorg also starts to act up after 10-15 mins, its goes totally mental. See my thread here:

http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/ ... hp?t=48072

This fault doesn't seem to be affected by any of the pots and controls though. I never would have expected this from a piece of digital hardware! From what I can tell so far though these sort of faults seem to be rare, right?