Korg fails to support its product

kshacklett · Post by **kshacklett** » Wed May 29, 2024 4:10 pm

Once again Korg has failed to support its product. The Kronos is still unsurpassed as a workstation and performance instrument. It has been my main performance ax for at least 13 years. IT SHOULD BE SUPPORTED. Several years ago a replacement touch screen was not available from Korg, which was unforgiveable, and now there is no motherboard available to repair my Kronos X. In my opinion this should be illegal, but any way you look at it, I now have a useless $2,000 piece of junk on my hands. Shameful.

P.S. This complaint should be forwarded to Korg Japan. Maybe the Japanese have more pride than their US counterparts.

Falcon2e · Post by **Falcon2e** » Wed May 29, 2024 5:30 pm

This is very disturbing and I’m so sorry. This post caught my attention because at this very moment my 9 year old Kronos is in the shop for failing to boot. I hope I’m not facing the same situation with mine.

pete.m · Post by **pete.m** » Thu May 30, 2024 1:07 pm

Really sorry to read of your hassles.

Fortunately, I've had no problems so far, but you got me looking online and there are certainly instances where people have replaced their motherboards with generic motherboards - not always because of faults, but just to improve performance.

Here's one video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKCTpfgH3dA - in which the guy has installed an Asus board that I could pick up here in the UK for about £60 (about $70). He doesn't detail the installation procedure, although I imagine any good technician could do it. It's effectively just a computer repair, after all.

Read the comments below the video to find out more. You'll notice some stuff about the kernel (that I've never had need to understand) and also that the guy who did the video was able to upgrade his RAM to 16gb.

Anyone know what a 'precompiled kernel' is, by the way? Can I do anything with my Kronos now, just in case I have a board problem later on?

kshacklett · Post by **kshacklett** » Thu May 30, 2024 4:39 pm

Yeah, Pete. I've read that the Kronos is basically a PC running Linux. Maybe I'll look into the possibility of installing a "generic" motherboard. Thanks for the link.

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Thu May 30, 2024 6:26 pm

It is worrying that Korg considered it unrepairable, but then when I look at my X61 it is ten years old - but pretty essential to me.

Probably in this case if it happened to me and Korg UK would not repair, I would be seeking another working version and keeping my current one for spares.

Long term, I am hoping that Korg add Kronos to their soft synth range.

Xenophile · Post by **Xenophile** » Thu May 30, 2024 6:48 pm

This is kind of old, so the board this guy used might be out of production as well, but the concept is the same. Not for the faint of heart.

https://marcan.st/2016/06/hacking-and-u ... rg-kronos/

Gargamel314 · Post by **Gargamel314** » Thu May 30, 2024 7:28 pm

I have a Kronos 2, and I just went through something. My motherboard went bad. Basically I would repeatedly get the dreaded "An error has been detected" line, often followed by power cycling. I went through all the troubleshooting steps, and I was fairly certain it was the motherboard when I had replaced the RAM, the SSD, and was in the middle of reinstalling the OS from the factory DVDs when it crashed yet again.

Anywho, I called up 3 different "Korg Authorized Service Center" technicians. The first two WOULD NOT take my Kronos. They told me that Korg Kronos motherboards were impossible to replace. The 3rd person I called said he was willing to try. It took 10 weeks for it to come and get replaced. He had to get it from Korg in Japan. He told me that I was lucky it was a Korg Kronos 2, because the OG Kronos (and Kronos X) Motherboard was impossible to get.

If our community can figure out how to to replace with generic motherboards, that would be a huge blessing. I would gladly replace mine with a newer CPU. All 3 technicians strongly advised me to buy a Nautilus instead of replacing with a used Kronos (the third only did if he couldn't fix mine) because they all said they were not seeing any of these motherboard failures in the new Nautilus workstations. Of course, this is probably because the Kronos is anywhere between 9 and 13 years old and we didn't see these hardware failures in the beginning, either, did we? Also, the Korg Nautilus uses THE EXACT SAME CPU THAT ALL THE KRONOS MODELS USE - Intel Atom from 2011. (WTF?) Logic would suggest that Nautilus owners will be in the same boat in a few years, I'm sure.

kronoSphere · Post by **kronoSphere** » Fri May 31, 2024 4:30 pm

The worst part of all this, is that Korg doesn't even dare to courageously admit to us that they will never make workstations again.

But let them say once and for all which direction Korg is going to take !!!!
Bad bad bad

pete.m · Post by **pete.m** » Fri May 31, 2024 5:38 pm

Like Gargamel314 said, if our community can figure out how to replace burned-out motherboards with generic motherboards, that would be a huge blessing.

There is a lot of expertise on the forum, and it has obviously already been successfully done by some users, so perhaps it would make sense to start a new thread dedicated to pooling knowledge so that it can be easily found by anyone on the forum encountering the problems over the next few years.

What do you think?

pollytronman · Post by **pollytronman** » Fri May 31, 2024 7:27 pm

Attempting to repair your own Kronos as described in the two posts requires advanced knowledge in electronics, hardware, and software. While it's possible, as shown in the posts, the process is far from straightforward and acquiring the necessary skills would be very time-consuming. Its not like like replacing a BIOS battery.

The reality is that Kronos is no longer supported, and finding replacement parts will be increasingly difficult.

Derek Cook · Post by **Derek Cook** » Sat Jun 01, 2024 7:10 am

Gargamel314 wrote:I have a Kronos 2, and I just went through something. My motherboard went bad. Basically I would repeatedly get the dreaded "An error has been detected" line, often followed by power cycling. I went through all the troubleshooting steps, and I was fairly certain it was the motherboard when I had replaced the RAM, the SSD, and was in the middle of reinstalling the OS from the factory DVDs when it crashed yet again.

Anywho, I called up 3 different "Korg Authorized Service Center" technicians. The first two WOULD NOT take my Kronos. They told me that Korg Kronos motherboards were impossible to replace. The 3rd person I called said he was willing to try. It took 10 weeks for it to come and get replaced. He had to get it from Korg in Japan. He told me that I was lucky it was a Korg Kronos 2, because the OG Kronos (and Kronos X) Motherboard was impossible to get.

If our community can figure out how to to replace with generic motherboards, that would be a huge blessing. I would gladly replace mine with a newer CPU. All 3 technicians strongly advised me to buy a Nautilus instead of replacing with a used Kronos (the third only did if he couldn't fix mine) because they all said they were not seeing any of these motherboard failures in the new Nautilus workstations. Of course, this is probably because the Kronos is anywhere between 9 and 13 years old and we didn't see these hardware failures in the beginning, either, did we? Also, the Korg Nautilus uses THE EXACT SAME CPU THAT ALL THE KRONOS MODELS USE - Intel Atom from 2011. (WTF?) Logic would suggest that Nautilus owners will be in the same boat in a few years, I'm sure.

The problem is the Nautilus is not a Kronos replacement. E.g. KARMA is quite important to me.

I am fairly technically minded, so if a small technical community wanted to get together to look at this, count me in.

Gargamel314 · Post by **Gargamel314** » Sat Jun 01, 2024 3:48 pm

Agreed. The Nautilus is not a worthy replacement. I never really got used to KARMA since I do most of my sequencing on DAWs, which doesn't really play nice with KARMA. Same with Arpeggiators. Still, I find all the physical controls of the Kronos i find irreplaceable, and i just CAN'T get over not being able to plug a Korg NanoPad2 into it and getting programmable pads. I did end up ordering a Nautilus for this summer just so I do have a back up, and also, it's time my employer provided me with an instrument instead of me using my own. The Non-AT version of the Nauitilus was at a good price point. The Kronos is still my true love.

I would absolutely contribute if I was savvy enough. I've built several Windows PCs and am pretty good with Windows and DOS. I cannot wrap my head around Linux, whenever I [rarely] need to use it i pretty much blindly copy SUDO commands and then happily go back to my windows PC.

pete.m · Post by **pete.m** » Sun Jun 02, 2024 9:24 am

I've just started a new thread specifically for people to share any technical info or practical tips they have for future reference. I hope it helps to pool the information that some of us will unfortunately need some day.

average_male · Post by **average_male** » Sun Jun 02, 2024 3:22 pm

Am I hearing that Korg no longer support the Kronos line? If so, are sites like "marcan.st" free to publish certain modifications?

HardSync · Post by **HardSync** » Mon Jun 03, 2024 12:22 am

I still haven't got over Korg ending support for their hardware M1 workstation. Literally the best-selling hardware workstation of all time, too. Then they released a software version of it 18 years later with ALL of the optional ROM card data (do you know how much money I spent on those cards?) and 256 note polyphony just to rub salt into my wounds?!!! The nerve! Don't even get me started on what happened with the Wavestations.... ;)

I tease of course. Mostly... Gigged with my two M1s for well over a decade. Quite possibly the most reliable workstation/synth I've ever owned. Never once failed at a gig, though sometimes struggled with the cards slots. Even after one of them got a bit smashed in a car accident on the way to a gig, I could still play it that night, minus a few keys that didn't survive the wreck. Yes, I know this isn't helpful.

In all seriousness, it sucks when our gear is no longer officially supported and parts become scarce. I hope everyone is able to get spare parts from somewhere, somehow, and find techs who can do the repairs.