Korg Forums

My Kronos has never left my home studio. Sitting in the same spot for 6 months. Rarely got much use as I have been waiting for the plugin editor....

Today, it died on me! Won't boot up....flip the power switch..and a blue light flashes underneath the joy stick and nothing.......

I want my money back!

jahrome wrote:Rarely got much use as I have been waiting for the plugin editor....

Maybe it died of a broken heart?..


Seriously though, you're still under warranty, so you won't have to pay extra for service, repair or exchange.

Although it sucks waiting for gear to be fixed..

curvebender wrote:

jahrome wrote:Rarely got much use as I have been waiting for the plugin editor....

Maybe it died of a broken heart?..


Seriously though, you're still under warranty, so you won't have to pay extra for service, repair or exchange.

Although it sucks waiting for gear to be fixed..

It suks having a keyboard that needs to be repaired. I don't want a repaired keyboard. I wont a new, fully functiomal one that she work for 6 months without problems...especially since it wasn't used much.

jahrome wrote: I don't want a repaired keyboard. I wont a new, fully functiomal one that she work for 6 months without problems...especially since it wasn't used much.

Hopefully the Korg service center will check out everything else when they receive your keyboard... so nothing will ever break again.

I was above to buy a 88 Kronos... but what the hell... problems with the keys... units that die... wow... that's not very good to read when you want to spent like 4000 $

jahrome wrote:My Kronos has never left my home studio. Sitting in the same spot for 6 months. Rarely got much use as I have been waiting for the plugin editor....

Today, it died on me! Won't boot up....flip the power switch..and a blue light flashes underneath the joy stick and nothing.......

I want my money back!

sounds like a neglected keyboard.

Likely the fix is simple. Once fixed, you might be happier selling it.

If I look at all the hardware failure messages from users in this forum alone, this is really sounding increasingly threatening: owning a keyboard, which to your big surprise maybe just doesn't start anymore some day. The cases reported here alone are definitely too many for us other users to feel safe any more.

The cause for this repeatedly reported "sudden death" has to be clarified urgently and by all means by Korg. I can live with replacing some potentially unreliable part (SSD, whatever) in time, before running into critical situations, but I can hardly accept a kind of constant insecurity, that this instrument just might not start any more at the beginning of a rehearsal or in a live situation. Completely intolerable.

The Kronos is still the best multipurpose synth I ever had, but of course only as long as it is working without problems and not away in a possibly long lasting repair.

GregC wrote:

jahrome wrote:My Kronos has never left my home studio. Sitting in the same spot for 6 months. Rarely got much use as I have been waiting for the plugin editor....

Today, it died on me! Won't boot up....flip the power switch..and a blue light flashes underneath the joy stick and nothing.......

I want my money back!

sounds like a neglected keyboard.

Likely the fix is simple. Once fixed, you might be happier selling it.

Neglected? As in not used very often..yes. My keyboard is in flawless condition. I didn't even install OS 1.5 yet and had no plans to until the editor is being released.

For a keyboard to just stop working for no good reason is very bad. I have never purchased a workstation (Akai, Yamaha, Roland, Alesis) and have had this happen. I even bought second hand gear that I haven't had issues with. I will call Korg to get a return authorization, get it fixed, and sell it immediately.

c'mon man... we shouldn't post stuff like this on the forums... I mean I understand you being upset about it not working and that is completely understandable... but to title your post as you did "worst keyboard I have ever purchased"...

That's just not fair AT ALL...

it's hard enough to "defend" the Kronos as is on other synth forums, but when guys in our own home stomping ground do stuff like this, it makes the road that much harder...


I hope you get it fixed soon.

My Kronos every day makes me more and more happy. I am completely satisfied with it.

jimknopf wrote:If I look at all the hardware failure messages from users in this forum alone, this is really sounding increasingly threatening: owning a keyboard, which to your big surprise maybe just doesn't start anymore some day. The cases reported here alone are definitely too many for us other users to feel safe any more.

The cause for this repeatedly reported "sudden death" has to be clarified urgently and by all means by Korg. I can live with replacing some potentially unreliable part (SSD, whatever) in time, before running into critical situations, but I can hardly accept a kind of constant insecurity, that this instrument just might not start any more at the beginning of a rehearsal or in a live situation. Completely intolerable.

The Kronos is still the best multipurpose synth I ever had, but of course only as long as it is working without problems and not away in a possibly long lasting repair.

I do understand your concern Jim... but at the same time, we must consider that this is just a small percentage of the actual Kronos boards that have been purchased and are being used. Do you really think every Kronos owner is on this forum? People with no problems never come and say anything... only the people with problems. If everyone that didn't have any issue at all came and posted here saying "my Kronos is perfect" would that make "us all" feel any better about purchasing.

I know it would heavily outweigh the problem boards though...

the 2nd thing is that we can't assume this is a "korg Kronos" error. what about power surges etc... that would stop a keyboard from powering on? is that Korg's fault too?

And even the sun have some spots on it... I never expected that my beloved Kurzweil, Oberheim, Yamaha, Roland, Virus, Moog, RME and Toyota let me down... but....

In all fairness: I have years of experience with dozens of keyboards and user forums. I rarely saw as much user feedback with severe issues concerning a top level keyboard as were reported here over the last months.

To me the Kronos is not the worst keyboard ever, but the best multipurpose synth I ever owned, just as I wrote. But the sheer number of hardware issues reported here are definitely beyond the casual numbers we all know from our Moogs, Viruses, XFs and whatever.

I think the best support for a keyboard is being very sincere and straightforward, facing problems of the kind and degree which is reported meanwhile. By the way, I get a similar degree of problem reports from keyboarders I know here in Germany: this is not just thin air or overblown single cases or just malevolent talk, as I myself thought when I read some of the first debates in here.

"Worst keyboard ever" as header is not ok from my view, and it would be nice, if you, Jahrome, converted that to something like "Very disappointed".
Even frustration about obvious problems cannot turn the best available keyboard into the opposite.

But facing problems and adressing them is the only way to solve them! Ignoring that degree of problems is of no help for anyone, and certainly not for Korg and the Kronos IMHO. I can't imagine Korg hasn't done some research meanhwile, and some reaction from their side, showing that they have adressed the issues and know the main reeasons, and that users can expect reliable solutions, would really be helpful meanwhile.

Without such a reaction I fear the reputation of the Kronos could be damaged more by Korg silence, than by sour user comments, and that's the main reason I write here, hoping Korg finally shows up and shows able to calm the situation.

Why didn't you use your Kronos? It's very usable without an editor.
Actually I never had such a user friendly synth with such a big and nice screen and so many sliders and knobs.

However, it's not good that it suddenly stops working. I never had the problem and switch it on/off almost daily and use it quite a lot during the last 3 or 4 months (I had my Kronos only that long).

Also why didn't you update to OS1.5 ... some bugs might have been solved so it is always good to have the latest version. Especially since the upgrade procedure is so easy.

I'm thinking to make a thread called "Kronos: The Best keyboard I ever purchased" and it's also true (for me at least).

However I suggest you call Korg support and they will help you as good as possible. Writing such a post here does not really help at all except relieving you from stress maybe.

Worst title for a post i've ever seen ! (well you started it )

Sorry to hear that its broken. Get it fixed.

Then it will be the worst keyboard that works that you have ever purchased.