Korg FISA SUPREMA

[debra]

...
here in the USA the power grid is quite reliable.. so reliable
in daily use that we the People not only have a Fridge or 2
in every home, but 33% of the households in the USA also
own a separate Freezer.. ...

When I lived in Belgium and started using computers I know from that time the power reliability was 100%.
I moved to New Jersey for about two years and the power reliability was 100%.
Back in Belgium in a different region again the reliability was 100%.
Since I moved to the Netherlands (Eindhoven) we had several power outages and I have to come to rely on a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) for over 15 years already to keep my server running. I have another small server running at work, in a room with UPS... That is not a luxury around here but a necessity, and still the reliability expressed in numbers is 99.99% (no more than one hour of downtime a year on average).
99.99% is more than enough to use things like a fridge or freezer. 99.99% is not something that makes me happy for the power, or also for my car (which has not let me down even once in 15 years).
It's so easy to get used to 100% reliability that when you only have 99.99% and there is a problem it can make you quite upset!
It's similar to when I use a computer. I grew up with Unix (and much later Linux) systems that have very very high reliability. When my Unix system panics I get very upset because this essentially never ever happens. Later I experienced Windows and my feeling is it crashes all the time. (That isn't true, it worked more than 99% of the time). When Windows crashed I just shrugged and started over again. Then I started using Macs and experienced good reliability again, making me upset when it crashed. Reliability has gone down quite a bit, but luckily when my MacOS crashes it is always in a suspend/resume cycle so I have come to expect it. That doesn't mean it's a good thing!
In all the years of my using Microsoft software Microsoft has never managed to get me to trust the software again... Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback...
It is really sad what happened with the Korg Fisa Supreme. The horse has left very rapidly, and it will take effort, openness and evidence to get people to start trusting it again.

 

[JerryPH]

Interesting how distorted people's impressions are. If you had 90% reliability of mains power it would mean that on an average year you have no power for about 36 days, that's 36 days of 0 hours of power. I find that hard to believe. 99,99% means less than one hour without power in a year and 99,9% means less than 10 yours without power in a year.

No distortion there... and it sounds about right, at 36 days... it might be a bit more or less. In the winter we can easily get 10-12 complete nights per month. It's not uncommon to wake up in the morning with every digital clock in the house flashing!

Love my gas generator. Many of the neighbors use the plumbed propane lines but it is a lot less effecient and more expensive.
Heck, where I live, they still have the power lines and transformers above ground.

 

[JerryPH]

I think that accordion playing here in the US, statistically, is more common in places where everyone has to have a generator.

lol... that or a population increase 9 months after a power loss.

Trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback...
It is really sad what happened with the Korg Fisa Supreme. The horse has left very rapidly, and it will take effort, openness and evidence to get people to start trusting it again.

I like that saying, never heard it before.
Sure its not good that this happened, but if all done right, the majority of the trust will come back via the same people that had this experience happen to them and what they share publically.

 

[dak]

lol... that or a population increase 9 months after a power loss.

First time I have heard the accordion proposed as a contraceptive, but it does fit its reputation.

 

[debra]

...

I like that saying, never heard it before.
...

I translated a Dutch saying quite literally. But the message is clear. It's a hard and lengthy process to gain someone's trust, but that trust is very quickly lost when it is betrayed.

 

[John M]

I wanted to touch on the reliability topic.
People want absolute 100% reliability, but:
- no one mentions for how long… 1-2 years? 10? 20? Lifetime?
- we sadly live in a “short life, dispose of and replace” world today
- Shit happens (pardon my French… lol)

Sure, no question that we all would love to demand for and get 100% reliability. If you pay your hard earned cash, you expect it to work as advertised. We also would like it to last for as long as we own it.

Sadly, nothing lasts forever and we don’t live in a perfect world, things happen, humans make errors as we are not perfect, but we tend to stand up, brush off the dirt and put a bandage on the odd bruised knee and move on. In the process, hopefully learn something new and fix/improve on something so that it doesn’t happen again.

Generally, we get pretty close to that too. The power board on my 8X died, factory error, cost me nothing to get it replaced even if I was the 2nd owner and out of warranty, but I did have to drive over 1200km and take a day off work to get it fixed. I was also fortunate that they had the parts in stock. I’ve had my 8X now an incredible 8+ years (thats pretty amazing, as 9 years ago, at that point in my life, I had not played for DECADES and lost my father). It works well, and the 2nd factory battery is already showing signs of shorter durations. Life is good.

Some things last a long time, but people replace them often… we have no issues paying $2000 or more dollars a year FOR A CELLPHONE, only to replace it when the next model comes out (meh, my S21 Ultra has served me well for the last 4 years and is going strong, so I am good there).

The point is, reality dictates that sometimes we get that reliability but it’s never a100% certainty. In life it’s not always going to follow wants, promises or expectations, because shit happens, so we deal with it and move on. Crying about it or shaking your fist won’t change anything.

What does make a difference is calm understanding that things happen and opening a dialogue to address the issue starts asap. Sometimes that solution is done fast, sometimes that is done slow… but it should happen. If not, the fastest way to permanently resolve things is to vote with your wallets.

Would I be mad if I owned a broken FISA? Yes. Would I be disappointed? Most definitely. I would also be seeing if the company is moving as fast as it can to address it (which they are), and deal with it as needed.

Not a pro gigging musician? Play your other box for now., enjoy life. Oh, you are a paid gigging professional? What are you doing NOT having a backup plan? Maybe a great time to get a Plan-B in to place before this happens, and it’s always a a when, not an if. Expect the best, but plan for the worst, that’s the motto of a professional.

Just my 2 cents. Calm discussion with the right people is preferable over burning people at the stake… lol

Good post Jerry!!!

 

[Pipemajor]

No distortion there... and it sounds about right, at 36 days... it might be a bit more or less. In the winter we can easily get 10-12 complete nights per month. It's not uncommon to wake up in the morning with every digital clock in the house flashing!

Love my gas generator. Many of the neighbors use the plumbed propane lines but it is a lot less effecient and more expensive.
Heck, where I live, they still have the power lines and transformers above ground.

I'm only about 20 miles from London (England), and we also have above ground power lines!!

 

[Dingo40]

we also have above ground power lines!!

We've got them all over the country and one of the most common causes of power failure is trees or branches falling onto the power lines.
Another common cause is power poles being knocked down by vehicles.
This, and an ever increasing number of vehicles running into buildings, was a rarity in the days of my boyhood.
I guess there were far fewer drivers (and vehicles( then!

 

[Tom]

We've got them all over the country and one of the most common causes of power failure is trees or branches falling onto the power lines.
Another common cause is power poles being knocked down by vehicles.
This, and an ever increasing number of vehicles running into buildings, was a rarity in the days of my boyhood.
I guess there were far fewer drivers (and vehicles( then!

That reminds me of walking in the woods yesterday and coming across a couple of trees that have literally exploded, either from lightning or heavy wind shear. I’m going with lightning because the pieces were thrown everywhere, literally thrown 30 feet away, with big slabs ticking out of the ground like Stonehenge. Very bizarre. Anyway, yeah, leading cause of power outages when the exploding trees meet the overhead lines.

 

[John M]

I've had storm damage like this in the past. Fortunately, the last storm didn't do as much destruction.

 

[debra]

We've got them all over the country and one of the most common causes of power failure is trees or branches falling onto the power lines.
Another common cause is power poles being knocked down by vehicles.
This, and an ever increasing number of vehicles running into buildings, was a rarity in the days of my boyhood.
I guess there were far fewer drivers (and vehicles( then!

The house in Belgium where I lived for 5 years was on a street with above-ground power lines (and the whole neighborhood had them). Despite this we had zero downtime in these 5 years. But we have no big snow storms and tornados are also extremely rare. (The last big one I remember was in 1967. Our roof was partly gone, but we still had power.)

 

[JerryPH]

The house in Belgium where I lived for 5 years was on a street with above-ground power lines (and the whole neighborhood had them). Despite this we had zero downtime in these 5 years. But we have no big snow storms and tornados are also extremely rare. (The last big one I remember was in 1967. Our roof was partly gone, but we still had power.)

Number of people on a grid (density), design, "above or below" and weather all make a difference. We just recently went from 17C to -10C to a nice 5cm of snow and another 12 hour outage to 2C and it all menting slowly again and thats in the last 4 days and my car still is wearing winter tires! I am done with this winter, I want my spring.

Yeah, in conditions where the weather is so bad that we get pot holes large enough to swallow the average Prius (I'm kidding!), you can bet that weather is going to be the #1 factor, and our winters are BRUTAL. It is more normal for us to not have many outages in the spring or summer, but they happen now and then (perhaps 6 or so throughout that time).

 

[Alan Sharkis]

New York City has some overhead lines, especially in the outer boroughs. The rest, particularly in Manhattan, are underground.
Where I live, in an unincorporated village in suburban Nassau County, most locations have overhead wires.

But putting cables underground doesn’t make them trouble-free. Electrical fires do occur in manholes and cable vaults. The New York City fire department responds to those fires but cannot extinguish them or suppress them with water unless given permission by the power company.

While waiting for a power crew to show up, the hose is made ready and the engine company stands by, while other firefighters secure the area and check the basements of the surrounding buildings for carbon monoxide.

Many of these underground electrical fires are caused by road salt dissolving in rainwater which then flows into underground electrical facilities through gratings or the holes in manhole covers. The fires can be spectacular: they create heavy black smoke, rumble or hum loudly, and can send bursts of various-colored flame up to ten feet high. Occasionally, pressure caused by these fires can build up to the point of launching a manhole cover.

But because New York City has a grid distribution system, unlike the radial systems used in the overhead wires like where I live, such fires may affect one or two buildings and not a whole neighborhood.

Where I live, restoring power from an outage, even one of a minute’s duration or less, can create surges that can damage appliances.

 

[debra]

Number of people on a grid (density), design, "above or below" and weather all make a difference. We just recently went from 17C to -10C to a nice 5cm of snow and another 12 hour outage to 2C and it all menting slowly again and thats in the last 4 days and my car still is wearing winter tires! I am done with this winter, I want my spring.

Yeah, in conditions where the weather is so bad that we get pot holes large enough to swallow the average Prius (I'm kidding!), you can bet that weather is going to be the #1 factor, and our winters are BRUTAL. It is more normal for us to not have many outages in the spring or summer, but they happen now and then (perhaps 6 or so throughout that time).

Wow, such conditions must be brutal for accordions too. I guess that keeping the heating going when there is no power is mega-important.
A digital accordion should suffer less of course.
I'm glad I live in a milder climate (less difference between winter and summer). I spent over a year in New Jersey where I got to experience actual winter and summer (and more winter in upstate New York near Lake Placid for just a few weekends). No accordion there. And no power outages, (at home in New Jersey) except one time when a tornado hit nearby and large trees came crashing down...

 

[Pipemajor]

That reminds me of walking in the woods yesterday and coming across a couple of trees that have literally exploded, either from lightning or heavy wind shear. I’m going with lightning because the pieces were thrown everywhere, literally thrown 30 feet away, with big slabs ticking out of the ground like Stonehenge. Very bizarre. Anyway, yeah, leading cause of power outages when the exploding trees meet the overhead lines.

That's next winters fuel sorted!!

 

[Tom]

Power just went out again here. Guess I’ll have to play an acoustic since I don’t keep batteries in…..

 

[JerryPH]

Power just went out again here. Guess I’ll have to play an acoustic since I don’t keep batteries in…..

Sucks... I just guess it was your turn.

 

[craigd]

Well, I just perused a lot of this thread and read about everything from the korg to Jerry's potential retirement/pregnancy (congrats either way) to the frequency of power outages in various parts of the world. And I watched a few videos of people playing the new suprema along the way. All very entertaining, and I'm sure playing that instrument if you have the talent and the bandwidth to deal with all its options must be a lot of fun.

But I think it's kind of a musical dead end. All the live music of any quality I've seen that's involved synthesizers has them playing piano or organ sounds to replace the instruments that the band couldn't haul around to their gigs. And sometimes really far out synthesizer sounds that suited the music. I've never seen talented musicians trying to sound like whole orchestras or various instruments that were not the one they were actually playing. I remember years ago seeing one good guitar player who had various options play a pretty good imitation of Thelonious Monk on piano, but that was kind of a gimmick he used on one tune and then went back to being a guitar player. That is really the only recollection I have of that sort of thing, and as nifty and surprising as it was, that was enough for me. I think that's true for most people who want to see live music, so is it an expensive and intriguing toy for people to amuse themselves with, or maybe it would be useful in the recording studio?

 

[kep]

But I think it's kind of a musical dead end.

If you wish, it always had. Since the time some genius invented a box with bellows imitating some other instruments (look at the registers' names).

Seriously, how many instruments were at starters just an imitation - Hammond electric organs, anybody? Question is, would we use them to imitate or to play some new and original ways.
Just a thought.

 

[Ventura]

Well,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I've never seen talented musicians trying to sound like whole orchestra

depends on the use and need

for the last 35 years or so i have used complex portable
setups, with MIDI backgrounds running through top quality
soundbanks, the purpose being to give the audience in ANY setting
and i mean anywhere from private home, to a garden party to an
amphitheatre to a Church Auditorium to a Vineyard to a Stadium
a live Professional quality rendering of the music they love.
When i first started moving away from the Quartet format,
i did duets with MIDI (Vocalists, Trumpet, Drummer) but gradually
it ended up just me, solo..

in other words the MIDI parts are playing in real time, i do the rest..
the Vocals the lead lines the bass the hooks, and with authentic
sounds (when accordion reeds are not appropriate) hence using
a MIDI accordion or a Digital accordion

this has been a very rewarding and fulfilling way to give the gift of
Music to many people.. sometimes i am just adding to the ambiance,
sometimes as the main event, always stirring memories by being
true to the songs. That means playing the songs the way they live
in the memories of the people, using whenever possible sounds that
also reflect the original and much loved hit version..

sure, in the privacy of my studio i do some accordion only
arrangements, but i seldom play for accordionists,, on occasion i have
done some deeply accordion takes on songs like Angel Eyes,
'Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, and other songs that I love because of
Sinatra or Torme of Mathis or Ella

my way has always been driven by the simple fact that i am a
fan too, a fan of the music, of the hits, of the creators and
performers.. and so the way i have done it all is to be as true
to that as possible.. i am lucky that i have been able to
use all these great musical tools, a mix of traditional and
high tech instruments and gear, and put my systems together,
and believe me i am also very thankful this kind of equipment
came to fruition in my lifetime

the trip i have been on is FAR from being a dead end