Pitch stick broken?..

[curvebender]

How long have you owned this instrument ?

I got it in july 2007.

[Daz]

How long have you owned this instrument ?

I got it in july 2007.

Not very long ago really, that is a shame. God willing it will live a long life after this. Good luck with it !

[Akos Janca]

1. Three A/D-converters exchanged.
2. Broken conductive pathway on one of the circuit boards fixed.
3. Electrolytes in the PSU exchanged.
4. Three buttons exchanged.
5. General overview, cleaning of all contact surfaces and calibration.
Work hours: eight.
Total final cost: $1100.

Hi, it's nice to see you got your O back. I wish you good luck with it.

Do you have an itemized list of the costs? Or at least: how much for the materials and how much for the work? 8 hours seems to be real anyway. But if the cost of the manwork is 50 US/hour then I still don't understand the price of the material. Are these parts so expensive?

[Daz]

1. Three A/D-converters exchanged.

This kept nagging at me today, because it didn't seem right. Now I remember why. I was under the impression that there was just a single microcontroller with a bunch of built-in A/D conversion ports that are used for handling much of the A/D duties for the instrument's controls. I thought your problem was with the controls, not the audio ?

So 3 A/D convs doesn't seem right to me and might be worth following up on. I could be wrong of course ... I am only a *software* engineer

Daz.

[Daz]

In clearer English :

I thought ONE single chip did all the A/D conversion for the switches, joysticks, ribbon and pedals. So I am surprised to see THREE A/D converters mentioned.

Daz.

[curvebender]

So, I got some more information regarding the cost of the repair.

Labour: $848 ($106 per hour)

Parts and shipping: $257

Total: $1105


(EDIT: I've revised the numbers. I had forgotten VAT.)

[Daz]

Hey Curve,

What was the figure in Krona ? The Dollar is strong against the Krona at the moment and that might look that dollar price look somewhat worse. If you had the work done earlier in the year it would have cost you $100 less. Still seems high.

Daz.

[curvebender]

Hey Curve,

What was the figure in Krona ? The Dollar is strong against the Krona at the moment and that might look that dollar price look somewhat worse. If you had the work done earlier in the year it would have cost you $100 less. Still seems high.

Daz.

The figures in swedish kronor are:

Labour: 6000SKR (750SKR per hour)

Parts and shipping: 1800SKR

Total: 7800SKR

[Akos Janca]

While I find the 1105 USD cost high I have to add that I compared it to the usual prices in Hungary. Labour costs for electronic repair are in the 25-90 USD/hour range here. (Please note I'm *not* talking about Korg service centre, but only generally.) Cost of the parts can also be horrible. Especially when the special parts are shipped individually. So, sadly, the final 1105 USD - in extreme conditions like this when repairing a state-of-the-art and discontinued rare instrument - can be real.

If we compare costs we have to consider our local salaries. *Generally* the average salaries in the richest countries can be 5 or more times higher - I mean for the same job - but the product prices are just 1.5-2 times higher then in Hungary. (I am not an economic specialist but I have been to many countries and seen this.) It means that we have to work here at least 3-4 times more for the same products. For example: in Hungary a new M3-61 costs 2800 USD while the *average* gross salary based on the official statistic records is 860 USD/month, that is 535 USD/month after taxes. That means more than 5 months of full work for an *average* guy to buy this keyboard. OASYS is probably not available here anymore but the last price I've seen here was over 8600 USD...

Please note we can work and we can play music absolutely on the same general level of quality than other people in richer countries. The big difference comes from political reasons that I don't want to discuss here - as off topic.