Was messing around with various Pianos tonight and at first I thought one had a badly sampled note, then I went through loads and they all did the same.
I did this with velocity curve set to 9. However, I've set the velocity curve to 1 on the following 2 recordings as it makes it easier to see.
G4 is playing at a much greater velocity than the other notes, even if I play hard on velocity 9, G4 still sounds completely different.
Just uploaded a couple of audio samples just going up and down one octave.
EDIT: Sample 2 shows the problem better than sample 1
EDIT2: Changed my soundcard profile to have my proper name and my forum name and links no longer worked, so here are new links
Finally I got a playstation 3 case that stretched across one octave of the keyboard and recorded some midi. You can easily see G4 is much louder than the rest.
Looks like I'll be contacting Korg about fixing my new Kronos for the second time in 5 weeks.
Not bad for a machine that cost me £2700
Joe
Last edited by Ojustaboo on Thu Dec 06, 2012 11:24 am, edited 4 times in total.
This is something I reported here in this forums myself, too.
I returned the second Kronos 73 unit my Korg distrubutor gave me, serial nº 2.973 because of this problem.
The support service center changed the pink contacts in every key for the blue ones to fix the cut off issue in this unit, and the cut off note desapeared, but then resulted that the whole keybed suffered from different velocity levels ....in every key.
This was more obvious when using combinations which rely on different velocity layers, (i.e. Woodwind & Strings, and others) where some keys, like the 2nd octave Do# triggered *all* the samples layered within a single, gentle touch, while you have to push real hard to get the full layering in other keys.
This of course resulted in an (another one) impossible to play unit that I had to return again, even when the Korg distrubutor had repaired it once.
So, If it helps in some way, I let you know that I currently am in this same situation myself.
And just for the records: Till today, and after *four* unit exchanges since my initial purchase six months ago, my distributor is not yet able to give me a 73 unit working properly.
Nice.
Last edited by Davidb on Mon Nov 19, 2012 8:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Sounds like these keybed needed to be calibrated - as would any keybed after such a change. Confirm that they will do so. Who's your distributor, Davidb?
- Dan
Dan Phillips
Manager of Product Development, Korg R&D
Personal website: www.danphillips.com
For technical support, please contact your Korg Distributor: http://www.korg.co.jp/English/Distributors/ Regretfully, I cannot offer technical support directly.
If you need to contact me for purposes other than technical support, please do not send PMs; instead, send email to dan@korgrd.com
Ojustaboo, it seems that you are having an inordinate number of problems with your Kronos. And you don't seem to be alone. Maybe Korg is doing this already, but if I had anything to say about it as a Korg official, I would drop everything, put a team on it, and tell them , don't look up until all the (glaring) problems with the Kronos are resolved, even to the noisy fan.
I would have done this before developing the Kronos X.
The only thing I can figure is that there are facts that we just don't know that are dictating their actions. Maybe there are fewer complaints than we can garner from posts here.(but I see complaints about kronos in various sites) All of these returns and repairs have got to be affecting their cash flow. Their reputation is suffering. They need to stop the bleeding.
There is no way you can be satisfied with the problem that your board is showing, though it is small. A small problem on a keyboard is big. Especially at these prices. But no one wants foul keys, though one or two, at any price.
I've emailed korg UK and will wait to see what they suggest.
I personally haven't had loads of problems, just annoyed after all this time that keybed problems are still out there.
I had a new Kronos, keyboard was faulty, they had it replaced within a week, now my new one has a problem with one note. Looking at it like that, I haven't had loads of problems, however, that's not the whole issue.
It's the fact that when I ordered my original Kronos 5 weeks ago and paid for the upgrade, I contacted korg and asked them to check and upgrade the contacts if they were the old ones and was assured that my keybed had new contacts.
Turned out it had the old ones. Only took a week to sort out but that was a week without my brand new synth that after me contacting them in advance and with the assurances I was given, it simply shouldn't have happened.
Was pleasantly surprised that my replacement had a completely different keybed, different feel/action, keys different textures, but this raises more questions.
Twice in the past week I've mentioned this to two people in forum threads who tried the Kronos in shops but didn't like the action, as my two had such different keyboards, blind folded you wouldn't think you were playing the same instrument.
What are korg doing?, a few people on here that have had more than one Kronos have mentioned the difference in the keybeds as did some of the people who had their entire keybeds replaced before they started just replacing the pads.
So it seems like its pot luck as to which type of keyboard you get, that is madness.
Both of my keybeds have pink contacts. Kork staff in the USA are saying to customers that if the contacts are pink, they are the old sort.
Korg in the UK say the colour is irrelevant (even says on my replacements receipt from korg uk something like "replacement Kronos 88 with new style contacts"
And this just leads to rumours. I appreciate korg staff visit this forum voluntarily and are going to be told what they can and can't talk about by their bosses, but either korg UK is telling the truth to me or korg USA are telling the truth to their customers. This has been mentioned a few times on threads on this forum, and if I'm honest, the lack of a korg member of staff being able to confirm on this forum one way or another about the pink contacts just ends up making me worried and suspicious that I might still have the old contacts, as logically if the new contacts can be any colour, there's no logical reason why a korg member of staff visiting this forum, couldn't post this as fact.
It's this lack of customer information that makes me worried. Why are they being so quiet, what else are they hiding? It's Korgs behaviour that's making this sort of conspiracy line of thought happen.
And now I have one key that doesn't work properly, ok new things fail, but when I read threads about other people having the same problem and the poster a few above whose had FOUR Kronos, all with this velocity, that is what is getting me worried.
I think the Kronos is a superb instrument but the reason I want 88 weighted notes is for piano playing. When I'm learning to play and one note sounds funny, I think I'm playing it wrong somehow, me playing one note too loud when in fact it's not me at all.
I'm happy for Korg UK to arrange to collect my Kronos and calibrate/replace the contact so that it plays fine. But this will be the second time in 5 weeks I will have been without my Kronos for about a week.
If I find it happening for a third time, although I love this board, I haven't paid £2700 for this to keep happening. I think at that point I will call it quits and get a refund.
Sure korg might be willing to repair/recalibrate it every time this happens, but I expect a reliable instrument when I've paid about £1000 more for it than any other instrument I've owned over the last 31 years and so far the exact opposite has been true.
As it is neither my wife, son or daughter can understand why I'm not already doing this now, and my wife having bought it for me, well to say she is unimpressed is an understatement.
And by the looks of various posts over the past couple of months, others are still having problems with their Kronos keybeds after all this time.
I also have health issues and the reason I got back in to music and my wife bought me this is because its good relaxing therapy for me. Wondering whether its going to have another keybed problem in 3, 6 or 18 months sort of wrecks my enjoyment and doesn't help me relax.
So I'm giving them one more chance, it will be the last. Then I'm getting something more reliable from a competitor. It won't be as good sound wise, but what good is the best sound if the tool I use to play that sound is faulty.
And the weirdest thing is, in a few hours the usual people will be along sticking up for korg as if they can do no wrong.
People have suggested it plays differently (new keybed)...and I say "well, if it plays more like an sv1, I want the new keybed". I personally think its weird that two boards with supposedly the same RH3 keybed play so differently--yet, I've played several sv1s and they are a dream. I like my Kronos's action, but not as much as I like the sv1. I didn't play a lot of attention because it was supposed to be "the same" keybed Id happily used On several occassions. Later, when I got a chance to sit with them both, they're obviously different beds. Making "rh3" relatively meaningless.
Hi.
I have pink contacts on my Kronos. It has serialnumber 4400. I have now used it for about 4 months and it works great. Should i expect trouble with the keybed in the future?
Gettin' nervous when I see all the complaints. I' m using it a lot live and need it to be reliable!
Korg Kronos 73, Korg PA3X Pro, Alesis Vortex,Roland AX7 and a Nord Electro 6 HP.
sl72 wrote:Hi.
I have pink contacts on my Kronos. It has serialnumber 4400. I have now used it for about 4 months and it works great. Should i expect trouble with the keybed in the future?
Gettin' nervous when I see all the complaints. I' m using it a lot live and need it to be reliable!
If you just use the synth sounds MS-20, PolySix, AL-1 and Organs you will not feel and hear any problem. The problem did not happen to me with those engines.
But if you play the German Grand or E-Pianos you will definitely experience problems if your keybed is a bad one.
Use the German Grand with velocity curve 9 and play triads soft/slow and hard/fast with your left hand. I got many noted missing using this rock style.
If you don´t find anything just enjoy and be happy!
sl72 wrote:Hi.
I have pink contacts on my Kronos. It has serialnumber 4400. I have now used it for about 4 months and it works great. Should i expect trouble with the keybed in the future?
Gettin' nervous when I see all the complaints. I' m using it a lot live and need it to be reliable!
Hi sl72
Well, this is what I can confirm:
The official Korg distributor and service center I work with clearly says that "the units that will not fail for sure are the ones who already have the blue contacts", and from my personal experience, I can tell that those who had the pink ones that I tested, four of them, all them suffered from the cut off issue.
I had recived one with the blue contacts that indeed had not the issue, but this one suffered from different velocity levels in all keys.
The firs one with pink contacts that was sold to me, began to fail and exhibit the cut off issue after more or less two months, so in some cases its not somethig you just find it from the beginning, I´m afraid.
And yes, most of us plan to use it live and need it to be reliable.
