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Korg FISA SUPREMA

The injection molding companies need a quality process to make a good quality part. Even with a good mixture, the machine has to time the hot injection, pressure and cooling process accurately. Could have been a faulty process. I am sure it is resolved quickly.
Even a good quality plastic part needs to be dimensioned properly to be strong enough. In the case of the Peter Pan a single bracket held in place with two nuts and washers puts too much strain on the plastic to survive repeatedly lifting the accordion by the shoulder straps. I know, you should not carry an accordion by its straps, but that is usually said because the straps may fail, not the treble case or the bracket.
 
Even a good quality plastic part needs to be dimensioned properly to be strong enough. In the case of the Peter Pan a single bracket held in place with two nuts and washers puts too much strain on the plastic to survive repeatedly lifting the accordion by the shoulder straps. I know, you should not carry an accordion by its straps, but that is usually said because the straps may fail, not the treble case or the bracket.
The manufacturer usually designs the molds. They are quite expensive and heavy. I was in the industry for a while. This is nothing, just think of the liability involved in making football helmets!
 
well what cracks me up is the post from Jim D.

" The first Korg we recieved at Falcetti Music had the treble section break off
the accordion body after a few hours of use"

i mean DUde, did they even DO any serious testing beforehand
or did they just take Mr. B's word for it ?

and if there was ONE PERSON you wanted to seriously impress
in the USA it would be Sam Falcetti.. i kid you not his goodwill
can still make or break a new product..

sheesh !@#$%^&* as Ralph used to say
 
i mean DUde, did they even DO any serious testing beforehand
or did they just take Mr. B's word for it ?
The obvious answer is yes, there was testing. Also, no one from the first batch had this issue, it was the 2nd batch that suddenly showed issues. It was what it was, somewhere in production something happened.

Nothing to do about it now, other than address it, which is what we are seeing that they are doing. :)
 
well what cracks me up is the post from Jim D.

" The first Korg we recieved at Falcetti Music had the treble section break off
the accordion body after a few hours of use"

i mean DUde, did they even DO any serious testing beforehand
or did they just take Mr. B's word for it ?

and if there was ONE PERSON you wanted to seriously impress
in the USA it would be Sam Falcetti.. i kid you not his goodwill
can still make or break a new product..

sheesh !@#$%^&* as Ralph used to say
With so many components that are sources from different places this can happen and no testing process is going to exhaustive though to catch everything.

As long as they learn from this failure and address it, it's not a problem.
 
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FYI …I had all my pushbuttons replaced on my Korg PA5x. Exit button broke and the other ones, there was a discoloration in the colored plastic area. Problem solved…they replaced all the buttons. There were many…
 
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All right, all right, we've all had our say and people are in danger of getting heated.
Can we just say sh*t happens even to the best product.
Let's not become petty over it.
I just want to say, Cory is a great accordionist whom I greatly admire!👏
He's also a great ambassador for the Korg Fisa Suprema, a great product of a great company!👏
OK, there's been a glitch but that's the price of doing something as opposed to doing nothing: look at the car industry, the mobile phone industry, the aircraft industry, at NASA if you want glitches!
There's no need to turn on each other over things that won't matter in a hundred years.
Press "reset" and let's start over!🙂
I sincerely hope Cory, an ornament to our hobby, will stay on as the valued and appreciated member of our forum which he is!🙂
 
All right, all right, we've all had our say and people are in danger of getting heated.
Can we just say sh*t happens even to the best product.
Let's not become petty over it.
I just want to say, Cory is a great accordionist whom I greatly admire!👏
He's also a great ambassador for the Korg Fisa Suprema, a great product of a great company!👏
OK, there's been a glitch but that's the price of doing something as opposed to doing nothing: look at the car industry, the mobile phone industry, the aircraft industry, at NASA if you want glitches!
There's no need to turn on each other over things that won't matter in a hundred years.
Press "reset" and let's start over!🙂
I sincerely hope Cory, an ornament to our hobby, will stay on as the valued and appreciated member of our forum which he is!🙂
very well said dingo ........It's how the problem is quickly resolved that matters NOW
for all concerned to protect the Good name of KORG and their latest new Accordion product .
Good luck to all the team involved !!
 
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i have no doubt Korg will take care of the customers

on my original DW8000 (i own the first unit released into the USA)
they called me several years down the road.. caught up to me in
Baltimore.. told me the keyboard/leys were re-called because the
first-gen velocity switching system components were failing and
they had intended them to last more or less forever.. gave me the info
on a local authorized repair guy, sent him the new keyboard components
(the slab) and paid him to R&R it for me

but i also know from History that when something is engineered
with a near fatal flaw, sometimes that is enough to kill it

what brought ELKA and Kimball Organs down, bankrupt, cease
operations, close the doors, hide from your creditors, go out
of business fast and final, was just such an issue.. ELKA was the contractor
for a new line of Kimball Organs.. they built and delivered an
entire line and full inventory to all Kimball dealers in the USA
which were rolled out suddenly one bright and sunny day

they sold well.. then every unit EVERY UNIT sold suddenly needed repair,
which evolved into a total recall because the problems could NOT
be repaired because the engineering fell short.. the huge inventory
held by Kimball had to be written off because ELKA beat them into
bankruptcy by a whisker

this was of course on a huge scale compared to the Fisa, so the
losses were immediate and staggering

i am just saying sometimes these problems cannot be repaired,
but need to be re-engineered

and sometimes Life and Business do not allow that luxury
 
but i also know from History that when something is engineered
with a near fatal flaw, sometimes that is enough to kill it
the keyboard/leys were re-called because the
first-gen velocity switching system components were failing and
they had intended them to last more or less forever.
The same thing happened with the ARP piano from the early 1980s. I had one, and it was a really nice sounding electronic piano for it's time. It used a real wood piano action together with an analog tone generator that actually sounded quite piano like. The problem was they used membrane switches for the key contacts. When a key was at rest, a small rubber roller rested on the upper contact, keeping it closed. When you pressed a key, the roller moved down to the lower contact. The time interval between the opening of the upper contact and the closing of the lower contact controlled the volume of the note.

I presume the ARP engineers thought the membrane switches would be very reliable, compared to other types of key contacts. However, it seems they did not test their protypes enough. Eventually, the upper membrane contacts would begin to stick, especially in warm weather, and not open right away when the roller moved. This would randomly cause very loud notes to sound while you were playing.

ARP tried to address the problem and offered to fix any malfunctioning units for free. I had mine fixed once, but their first solution
continued to use membrane switches and did not solve the problem. They came up with a second fix, which was to abandon the membrane switches for leaf spring contacts. However, the company went bankrupt before I got around to having my unit repaired a second time. ARP was having other problems, but I think the piano fiasco was a major contributor to their bankruptcy.

You run a risk like this whenever you buy complex technology from a small company. A few bad design mistakes, and the company is gone.
 
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i have no doubt Korg will take care of the customers

on my original DW8000 (i own the first unit released into the USA)
they called me several years down the road.. caught up to me in
Baltimore.. told me the keyboard/leys were re-called because the
first-gen velocity switching system components were failing and
they had intended them to last more or less forever.. gave me the info
on a local authorized repair guy, sent him the new keyboard components
(the slab) and paid him to R&R it for me

but i also know from History that when something is engineered
with a near fatal flaw, sometimes that is enough to kill it

what brought ELKA and Kimball Organs down, bankrupt, cease
operations, close the doors, hide from your creditors, go out
of business fast and final, was just such an issue.. ELKA was the contractor
for a new line of Kimball Organs.. they built and delivered an
entire line and full inventory to all Kimball dealers in the USA
which were rolled out suddenly one bright and sunny day

they sold well.. then every unit EVERY UNIT sold suddenly needed repair,
which evolved into a total recall because the problems could NOT
be repaired because the engineering fell short.. the huge inventory
held by Kimball had to be written off because ELKA beat them into
bankruptcy by a whisker

this was of course on a huge scale compared to the Fisa, so the
losses were immediate and staggering

i am just saying sometimes these problems cannot be repaired,
but need to be re-engineered

and sometimes Life and Business do not allow that luxury
In this case, the obscurity of the accordion might be a blessing in disguise. I'll be surprised if the FISA makes up even 0.1% of Korg's revenue. Even if they have to redesign this and send every affected customer a newer replacement, it won't make a noticeable dent in Korg's margin.

I'm guessing that about 20 units are affected. They have an annual revenue of over $100M. This is too early to have any impact in the long term.
 
You run a risk like this whenever you buy complex technology from a small company. A few bad design mistakes, and the company is gone.
Lucky that Korg is not that a small fish in a big pond... lol
Also, I think that this is a much different relationship than, for example, what EVO had with Bugari. First KORG has more "play money", second, it looks as if they are making the FISA an integral part of the company as opposed to the EVO that was a "subsidiary"... always separate, never quite in the same list of company assets.

Had this happened to EVO/Bugari, I am guessing that it would have closed down by this point and disappeared. As it is KORG (not FISA from "wherever") is handling and resolving the issue.
 
In this case, the obscurity of the accordion might be a blessing in disguise. I'll be surprised if the FISA makes up even 0.1% of Korg's revenue. Even if they have to redesign this and send every affected customer a newer replacement, it won't make a noticeable dent in Korg's margin.

I'm guessing that about 20 units are affected. They have an annual revenue of over $100M. This is too early to have any impact in the long term.
… and what per cent of Roland’s sales are V-Accordions?
 
… and what per cent of Roland’s sales are V-Accordions?
I don't know. I looked at ebay for used Roland accordions and used Roland synthesizers. There are 20 accordions and over 7000 synthesizers and drums. That should be an indicator (ignoring other factors) of the ratio of Roland accordions and keyboards out there.
 
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On the question of the bellows straps on the Korg - they are really not necessary as when the unit is shut off
the bellows lock electronically. The problem with the treble section separating from the bellows is the plastic pins
that lock the treble section are weak and snap off.
 
thanks for the info Mr. D

it sounds like those pins have 2 jobs to do..
in the power off position, they hold the bellows closed/latched..
but when they are NOT holding the bellows closed, they are
still important because they then are holding the two sections
of the accordion together

i am mentally comparing a memory of the Scandalli latch,
which holds the bellows closed, but which have no other purpose

interesting..
 
I don't know. I looked at ebay for used Roland accordions and used Roland synthesizers. There are 20 accordions and over 7000 synthesizers and drums. That should be an indicator (ignoring other factors) of the ratio of Roland accordions and keyboards out there.
That nobody uses anymore. Roland has the FR-1 to FR-7 regarding the outdated generations (and there really is no substitute for the speaker-less and consequently lighter instruments), and one could consider the FR-4x as a successor to some of the x series. So the number of "clearly outdated" or "held onto by some old player for 20 years who is now no longer around to play" accordions vs synthesizers might be a bit of a misrepresentation. But the V-accordions were always more of a hobby-horse of the late Roland CEO/owner (?) I think and divesting themselves of that branch entirely would not likely harm Roland.
 
they "divested" themselves of it about 15 years or so ago when they
simply closed the Europe facility in Italy and the corp offices in Germany

remember they contracted FATAR to build the V-Accordion bodies
and handle assembly ? they still had to pay the Royalties to Bruti, but
Dexibell basically began when Roland Italy ended, with some of the
resources and workforce, but no Roland connection or leftovers whatsoever

there has been no core Roland division crafting improved or future
V-Accordions since, and the only activity anyone could find is the
'vague moving of the last vestiges of Euro involvement to Asia
assembly of the FR1x certainly and the FR4x probably and no-one
knows for certain anything actually about the 8x except they somehow
got back into production (for awhile)

and in the divisions, Roland eliminated USA involvement with V-Accordions
after the 7x, sending all spare parts to Roland Canada, and quietly
re-routing USA warranty work to them for service, The Cowboy was the
first V-Accordion Roland Artist and i believe still is, but there is
no-one left here heading up a Promotional or advertising department
dedicated to the V-Accordion line
 
On the question of the bellows straps on the Korg - they are really not necessary as when the unit is shut off
the bellows lock electronically. The problem with the treble section separating from the bellows is the plastic pins
that lock the treble section are weak and snap off.
Thanks for the info on bellow straps. One owner mention they do open a bit when powered off. I would say you need a perfect seal on the bellows.
About the screws. If you had to remove them for some reason, will it lose its strength if you tighten them too tight, when replacing them?
 
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