I'm looking for a Vector Joystick Knob Replacement

Rich Z · Post by **Rich Z** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:35 am

Seems to me that if that knob just presses onto the shaft, you could easily just make a suitable replacement yourself if you have any decent skills and basic hand tools. A drill press with a good selection of bits would make short work of that job. A mini lathe would be ideal.

If mine broke or got lost, I would likely make one out of wood to match the end panels.

StephenKay · Post by **StephenKay** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:08 am

Rich Z wrote:If mine broke or got lost, I would likely make one out of wood to match the end panels.

Yeah, a polished wood-grain one would be nice.

It's basically just a cylindrical piece of machined metal with a hole in one end, that the shaft fits into and slides down into a certain distance.

DJ Kronos · Post by **DJ Kronos** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 2:10 am

Again, thanks for the tips. Wood grain won't fit the X with all black metal and plastic.

I'll figure out a temporary replacement until Korg releases the parts for the K2.
Meanwhile, I'm praying that the glitch doesn't come back.

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 5:39 am

If I were Dan I would have some serious questions for this service center. The SSD "going bad" is hardly something you could say over the phone, although it's possible that some sectors got corrupted. Also, Korg has definitely NOT dropped support for the Kronos X. They have a problem in the sense that Intel simply quit the motherboard market despite their contract with Korg. So the new Kronos uses an ASROCK board. But most other replaceable parts are the same and I'm pretty sure if your motherboard fried and you brought it to a service center they could fit in the new model.

The thing I personally find most disturbing is the official service centers sending out such an awful message about Korg.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 8:08 am

SanderXpander wrote:If I were Dan I would have some serious questions for this service center. The SSD "going bad" is hardly something you could say over the phone, although it's possible that some sectors got corrupted. Also, Korg has definitely NOT dropped support for the Kronos X. They have a problem in the sense that Intel simply quit the motherboard market despite their contract with Korg. So the new Kronos uses an ASROCK board. But most other replaceable parts are the same and I'm pretty sure if your motherboard fried and you brought it to a service center they could fit in the new model.

The thing I personally find most disturbing is the official service centers sending out such an awful message about Korg.

Yeah, this has also happened before. A service center giving out bad info to a korg customer. some of these service centers are small independent business types- korg is a small part of what they do. Thus they are not focused or up to date on the kronos because they are out setting up PA sound systems for large events every weekend for example.

Sometimes Dan jumps in , asks to know which service center is being talked to

Davd C. Polich · Post by **Davd C. Polich** » Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:39 pm

When a Service Center tells me that a manufacturer has ceased support for a product, that usually tells me that they simply don't want to bother
with fixing your item or they don't know how.

I recently took my years-old Alesis Ion in to Advanced Musical Electronics here in L.A. It needed a new master encoder knob and the pitch bend wheel had to be realigned. They found a replacement part for the encoder and fixed the PB wheel. The Kronos X is certainly a far more recent product than the long-gone Ion.

If a shop tells you they can't fix your gear, go find another shop.

DJ Kronos · Post by **DJ Kronos** » Sat Apr 11, 2015 5:21 am

You may all be right, but I sent them a detailed email of the problem I experienced and the original person that I spoke with forwarded it to their keyboard man who called me back.

He told me that he had recently had a GC Kx in his shop, that Korg refused to sell him any parts for it and GC didn't want to pay what it would have cost to get it fixed otherwise, so he returned it to them unrepaired.

He said that he can still get parts for 20 year old Yamaha equipment but that Korg just doesn't support its older products.

As I have a fair knowledge of computers, he was candid about the simplicity of swapping out the SSD, should it turn out to be the problem, admitted to the online locations that he would go (no surprises there) to buy a replacement if Korg refused to supply one and agreed that IF it wasn't covered I'd be better off doing it myself rather than pay him his hourly rate to do it. We also discussed the possibility of the RAM needing reseating or replacing, or even that the power supply could be the issue.

I've dealt with repairing computers myself and those would be the same places I'd start (memory and then PS) if I were troubleshooting the thing.

He also told me that the first thing Korg would require him to do would be to reproduce the error without using my corrupted saved file and would then tell him to reinitialize the unit and try to reproduce it again before looking for hardware issues.

That's something I can do on my own and save the hassle of transporting a 50lb keyboard that doesn't fit in my car to and from the service center.

If I call him back, he will look up the init proc for me.

So he may just be trying to weasel out of doing the repair, but the length of our conversation and his demeanor have me thinking not-- and I'm also taking into account the issues that I've read in previous threads on the board

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Sat Apr 11, 2015 6:31 am

I think you got good advice from him on how to proceed. I just don't believe for a second that Korg does not support the Kronos and X model anymore because they are still mostly the same machine as the Kronos 2. There could be a number of reasons for him not being able to or wanting to procure parts from Korg. E.g. he could have the wrong part numbers (as has happened here twice before) or he could have unsettled bills with Korg, or be in the process of losing service center status, or he maybe spoke to someone at Korg who was new or had an off day.

geoelectro · Post by **geoelectro** » Sat Apr 11, 2015 1:24 pm

DJ Kronos wrote:
He said that he can still get parts for 20 year old Yamaha equipment but that Korg just doesn't support its older products.

I cringe when I read something like this. I am a Yamaha Service Center and yes, certain parts that are as much as 30 years old are still available BUT, that's because they still used those parts until recently. Yamaha makes a lot of products and a lot of parts are interchangeable. Take the keys on a DX-7. That keybed was still being used up to the Motif ES 6/7. So naturally we can still get those parts. If that keybed had been discontinued after the DX-7 then no, they wouldn't have them.

I used to be a Korg service center back in the 90's. I let it lapse because we just didn't get enough Korg products in to justify maintaining the relationship. One of the hardest things for a service center is to keep the relationship with the factory in tact and well connected. It helps when you do a lot of business with them as we do with Yamaha. Companies that you only seldom deal with tend to be harder to deal with. Policies change and parts availability changes. Reading new manuals and service change orders on products you seldom see is next to impossible. Perhaps it's like being very good on a few things, or just OK on many.

I suspect there are service centers that specialize on Korg and have most if not all the answers. Korg usually knows who they are and direct customers to them. We get that all the time with Yamaha.

Geo

DJ Kronos · Post by **DJ Kronos** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:07 am

SanderX and geoelectro, thanks again for your advice and perspectives. It seems that it would be prudent to call more "authorized" service centers, even if they aren't in my immediate neighborhood, if only to see what they have to say.

Geoelectro, your comments bring an obvious question to mind: Why did you receive so few Korgs for repair and so many Yamahas? Purchase ratio in your area? Quality control differences between the companies? etc.?

The sequencer crash has happened only once more since the original two crashes (plus as many reproductions as I wish via the saved snd file) so I'm going to ride on a wing and a prayer for a while, I think...

...bringing up my last question. No one has spoken as to whether or not he's right that having purchased a demo model means that I have no warranty coverage.

GregC · Post by **GregC** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:11 am

DJ Kronos wrote:SanderX and geoelectro, thanks again for your advice and perspectives. It seems that it would be prudent to call more "authorized" service centers, even if they aren't in my immediate neighborhood, if only to see what they have to say.

Geoelectro, your comments bring an obvious question to mind: Why did you receive so few Korgs for repair and so many Yamahas? Purchase ratio in your area? Quality control differences between the companies? etc.?

The sequencer crash has happened only once more since the original two crashes (plus as many reproductions as I wish via the saved snd file) so I'm going to ride on a wing and a prayer for a while, I think...

...bringing up my last question. No one has spoken as to whether or not he's right that having purchased a demo model means that I have no warranty coverage.

First step is to register your kronos with korg, new or demo .

DJ Kronos · Post by **DJ Kronos** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:25 am

GregC wrote: First step is to register your kronos with korg, new or demo .

Done, a "long" time ago. lol. Within a week of receiving the board and within two weeks of the date of purchase.

geoelectro · Post by **geoelectro** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 3:34 am

In the 80's we were closely attached to a large Yamaha dealer. We serviced Organs at the time and just getting into keyboards. Korgs were sold by a smaller dealer and I suppose a lot more Yamahas were sold by comparison. We also had a large Roland dealer in town and eventually got involved with them. We were also the only Ensoniq servicer back then. We serviced Korg back when the M1, T-series and Wavestations were around. Eventually in the 90's we let Korg and Ensoniq go (as well as others) to focus on our main dealers with Yamaha and Roland. These days we service more Hammond organs than anything else. Yamaha comes in a distant second.

Geo

Windsofsoul · Post by **Windsofsoul** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 4:57 am

geoelectro wrote:In the 80's we were closely attached to a large Yamaha dealer. We serviced Organs at the time and just getting into keyboards. Korgs were sold by a smaller dealer and I suppose a lot more Yamahas were sold by comparison. We also had a large Roland dealer in town and eventually got involved with them. We were also the only Ensoniq servicer back then. We serviced Korg back when the M1, T-series and Wavestations were around. Eventually in the 90's we let Korg and Ensoniq go (as well as others) to focus on our main dealers with Yamaha and Roland. These days we service more Hammond organs than anything else. Yamaha comes in a distant second.

Geo

I'd love to interest you in a Vintage Hammond Aurora!

geoelectro · Post by **geoelectro** » Tue Apr 14, 2015 12:48 pm

Windsofsoul wrote:
geoelectro wrote:In the 80's we were closely attached to a large Yamaha dealer. We serviced Organs at the time and just getting into keyboards. Korgs were sold by a smaller dealer and I suppose a lot more Yamahas were sold by comparison. We also had a large Roland dealer in town and eventually got involved with them. We were also the only Ensoniq servicer back then. We serviced Korg back when the M1, T-series and Wavestations were around. Eventually in the 90's we let Korg and Ensoniq go (as well as others) to focus on our main dealers with Yamaha and Roland. These days we service more Hammond organs than anything else. Yamaha comes in a distant second.

Geo
I'd love to interest you in a Vintage Hammond Aurora!

Hee hee... I buy and sell Classic Hammomds so I've owned all the vintage models like B-3's etc. Currently have a couple of A-100's with Leslies. Funny thing is, I don't have one at home any more. I do have a Yamaha FX-1.

http://bentonelectronics.com/my-yamaha- ... quisition/

Geo