I've read this thread a couple times now and keep coming to the same conclusion about the Audya.

First and foremost, I don't believe price has a lot to do with the number of Audya keyboards that have been sold. Keep in mind there are members of this forum that spend more on their flat-screen TV and entertainment centers.

Second, there are very few locations in the world where you can actually see, touch or play an Audya. So, MOST performers and home players will not purchase something they cannot test drive.

Third, if you do have problems, where do you go to get them solved? The only person in this part of the world is AJ, and he's so overwhelmed he cannot possibly keep up with the demand for his time and expertise. AJ is a nice guy, I've met him several times, he has always been very courteous and he's quite knowledgeable, but there's only one of him--he is the entire, U.S. service department.

Lastly, the number of Audya problems reported on this forum alone would be enough to scare any potential buyers away from making Audya their next purchase. From a performers standpoint, I surely do not wish to purchase a keyboard that has this many problems, little or no local service, and requires repeated OS upgrades to make it somewhat functional--regardless of the price.

Hopefully, I'll get to play DomM's Audya next month so I can make a more educated judgment of the keyboard's features. Until then, I'll stick with my trusty, old PSR-3000s, which just keep on ticking.

Cheers,

Gary

Can't knock any of that.

Perhaps this is a dig, perhaps not, but I've got one thing to say about this issue...

This would indeed be a fine attitude for anyone who's arranger (or any software, for that matter) normally works fine. BUT.... once you KNOW that it IS going to crash, once you trumpet on a forum just how constantly it crashes, once you have made it your mission in life to lambaste the poor thing on every single thread, whether it has anything to do with Ketron or not, then it is the fool who does not pay special attention to WHAT HE WAS DOING just before it crashes (in other words, AT ALL TIMES). Let's face it... you KNEW it was going to happen. It didn't happen unexpectedly

I haven't heard word one that this is occurring to you on a gig, so you can't say that you are under any particular pressure to rush through things and play the next song, the dancefloor isn't clearing out as you struggle to hit the buttons as fast as you can, the owner isn't glaring at you because of dead air... No, sorry, but I can't help thinking that, if one KNOWS something is going to crash and has all the time in the world, only a fool would NOT try to remember what they were doing to precipitate a crash.

Sorry to come back in on this note, but I have been lurking during my ban, and have been reinstated for nearly two weeks now but found little worth commenting on. But this interminable tirade against Ketron, whilst at the same time not apparently deeming it worth lifting a finger to try to help or troubleshoot is getting tiresome. For one thing, we have at least one member on this forum with an Audya that claims that his unit is pretty bombproof. But do I see any meaningful dialog between the two of you to try and track down what is different about HIS unit from yours? No... instead we get incessant whining and sniping and backbiting.

This is nonconstructive, my friend. If this were me, before we even get to the issue of remembering one's actions before a crash, I would be hounding DonM about what his serial number is, what type and serial numbers of the internal boards were, what type of hard drive it has, how he installed his new OS and many things like that to try and find out WHY his works and yours is a lemon. You know, Troubleshooting 101... (I might, for instance, try asking Don for a 'disk image' of his HD, and try overwriting that to a clean HD in your Audya, once you have ruled out any internal hardware differences).

And, sorry to repeat it, but you were the one to bring up the 'fool' moniker, if you KNOW your machine is going to crash, NOT trying to remember each and every one of your actions (especially as you have all the time in the world) is the foolish path. Surely you can at least narrow it down to whether they occur only on certain operations, certain touchscreen pages, certain conditions, and once you have this, you can then start to investigate further..?

If you had spent a tenth of the time you have spent flaming Ketron on this forum over the last few months on actually knuckling down and trying to discover why Don's works and yours doesn't, I would be very surprised if you hadn't discovered the answer by now... But perhaps it is easier and more fun to whinge and whine about it that actually TRY something yourself..?

Starting with making an effort, now you are aware it IS going to crash, to remember what you are doing while operating it... You really got something BETTER to do?

There is another old English saying... 'You don't get aught for naught'. If playing the Audya is something you would like to enjoy doing, perhaps just a LITTLE effort at this stage will pay off in the future? If not, just sell it, take it back to the dealers, get your money back, donate it to me (I guarantee I'd have the issue tracked down lickety split!), put it in a landfill, blow it up with dynamite, we really don't care...

Just give it a rest if you can't be bothered to even TRY yourself

An OS upgrade probably isn't going to solve your problems, if Don's is working, and yours isn't. This sounds MUCH more like a hardware issue, different HD type, different HD controller, corrupted OS or an OS written for perhaps newer components. But you'll never know if you simply wait for Ketron to fix it... Unless you try to get your money back IN FULL from the dealer claiming a warranty issue (they might sit up and take notice of that!). But instead, you hang on to it anyway, don't even TRY to troubleshoot yourself AND whine about it perpetually. Sorry, but that combination sounds pretty 'foolish' in my book.

You've got time to look me up on Facebook and plant my info here, but you DON'T have time to try and see what is the matter with your Audya?? Ship it to me, then. I'd be only too happy to track down the issues... (You might not get it back, though, but it doesn't sound as if you care, anyway!)

Hallelujah!

chas

That's a very nice song by Leonard Cohen, and the version at the "Live in London" concert done in July 2008
was/is just great. Well, so are the rest of the show.

Diki,

You have read much during your absence and learned little, I made it quite clear that this was not my Audya that is locking up, mine is stood on its end doing nothing until OS4. You are perhaps a very good KB player but I have my reservation about your software writing capabilities. I write man machine interface software a bit like a KB for a job, presently working for British Aerospace, and lecture on the subject at a large University. Let me tell you, you will never know what you did to make the Audya lock up, not even I am that fast. One thing I can tell is this, if you just use Registrations and don't start changing voices on the fly as you play it doesn't appear to lock up, now since there are 16 set of voices and then around 20 voices per set you can see the permutations are wild. You may only need one set of button pushes to trigger the lock up.
Code writers put watchdog timers in some software, if the software gets stuck in a loop, the watchdog will start the program back to the start and the lock up will be cured, this happens in Nanoseconds, the operator may not even notice this has happened, the software can also kick out an error informing the user where a crash occurred.
Look Diki it must be obvious if OS3 is still locking up, Ketron have not found the problem or problems, there may be more than one code error, perhaps OS4 might just do the trick.
Why does my Korg PA2x not lock up!
I bought an Audya in good faith and if SZ is not the site to let everybody know about and according to the Gurus Ketron read this site and take notice, what more can I do, I must now just wait until Ketron get it right. And the new guy who got the problem.
I know that Dons KB has not locked up "YET".
Diki, I hope this answers the technical questions. I am but the messenger and just stating facts.

Tony


[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 12-27-2009).]

I've taken a couple of days to respond to this to get my thoughts in order, and not knee-jerk respond to your veiled comment at the start of your last post. Perhaps I may or may not be a better player, but that has zero to do with the issue, but, in all fairness, the idea of concentrating on what you are doing once you KNOW something is going to crash is part of basic troubleshooting... at least, in my experience as an end user of computer based products, and from ALL my conversations with tech support lines for different software and products.

I can only imagine the result were I to voice your attitude to a guy on a support hotline for a major piece of software when he asks me (as they ALWAYS do ) "what were you doing prior to the crash?' 'Only a fool would ask such a question' would probably get me hung up on...

But something that concerns me a LOT more, on the whole, is the thought that, even though you KNOW that, if you stick to making registrations and playing it from them you will get as few crashes as Don gets, rather than do things the way they DO work and enjoy your purchase to at least a degree, it sits, unplayed while you wait for it to be PERFECT (in your estimation). You neither get your money back and WAIT for it to be perfect in some alternative future dimension (unpopulated by any other arranger... they ALL got something wrong with them! ) when you could buy it again, nor do you accept it for what it DOES do well, play it within the limitations of how it does operate at the moment, which apparently is just FINE for some people, and at the very least, be making some awesome music (which I would HOPE is why you bought it in the first place, rather than an exercise in finding out - or rather, NOT finding out - how easily you could make it crash if you jackhammer away at the buttons) within the parameters that it DOES operate acceptably on...

Now, of course, it is entirely your choice how to go about your business, don't get me wrong, but I am convinced that, if I were faced with the same situation, I would be either getting my money back IN FULL with a warranty claim, or I would be playing it and enjoying it for what it DOES do well, while waiting for an OS update that may or may not fix the problem. But your path of NONE of those, just let it sit while you post incessantly about the problem (but try nothing to fix it) is, IMO, simply designed to give you that high blood pressure you talked about!

Perhaps every tech support guy and computer technician I have ever talked to is wrong, and you are the ONLY person right, but apparently, the computer world is populated by fools that think that knowing what you did prior to a crash is valuable information...

And perhaps, if you looked at this problem from a different direction (as a USER, rather than as a designer or lecturer), you might understand that, if a product works well enough to be used on a gig, even if it does impose limitations on what you can or cannot do, NOW is the time to decide whether you want to continue playing it, or whether you should move on completely. Sitting in limbo, doing nothing but gripe just seems so pointless...

I can see we are very different people. I have been a pro player all my life, and you have been a computer interface designer and lecturer. But perhaps my approach is what is needed here. We are talking about a MUSICAL INSTRUMENT, not an exercise in man-machine interface. ALL musical instruments have SOME kind of flaw... guitar strings break, pianos go out of tune, brass valves stick, sax reeds crack, and arrangers sometimes crash. Each musician deals with the problem, but with the goal of 'playing music', NOT perfecting the un-crackable reed or the unbreakable guitar string. Waiting until the Audya NEVER crashes before you use it at all seems to me, at least, the response of a man-machine designer, rather than a MUSICIAN.

Musicians make do, not make excuses...

Well said Diki,

I mean I,m sure that the Audya, will have the fixes and to believe anything else its a quandry to understand why you would hold on to the instument.

Diki your right when you say all arrangers have faults, including the others that I have recently owned including the PA2X and the Tyros 3, yes right now they are probably more playable, but are limited in thier development, as apposed to Audya which will have a long way to go, i did say it was a work in progress, and I do understand the frustrations that you all feel, but remember there are users that are not having the lockups that you describe, so its either a user fault, or a hardware fault at play here, get the keyboard back to the reseller, and get action to find out why, OS4 may not fix your probs if its a hardware fault, so dont wait.
I commend the play and enjoy philoshopy, if you are not doing that, then there is more than the keyboard at fault here, and before you say this guy hasn't bought the Audya, thats right, but i had probs with the PA2X sold it, now have the Tyros 3, Love it, Korg stopped developing the OS on Oasys sold it, as i felt I was led up the peverbial garden path, the more i look at new products they will have to really be on the mark for me to purchase from now on, can i suggest that's what some of you should have done, my biggest beef with the Audya is still the price $10k australian dollars is way over the mark, needs to be $6k to get me, and i guess many others into the pot!! lets hope so

Diki, Robbo,

I do understand where you are both coming from and as a realist I also know to try and return the KB back to Ketron via a dealer and get a full refund would be difficult. I can sit it out wait and see what this OS4 blow your socks off firmware will do and thats what I am going to do. The other problem I have is, I bought the Audya being told by the dealer that this was the best KB ever and to firm this up, some of you and me have confirmed this in "COMPARE DONM KB" thread, you all say that No2 Audya is better than at least No1. So perhaps I do have the best KB ever in my Audya and even better with OS4. I agree with you Robbo that the KB is far too expensive, but even more interesting Audyas are now finding there way in the UK on Ebay only 6 months after purchase that is rather concerning, why are they getting rid! One sold last week for £2600.00 they took a hit of £1600.00! I have taken the top of the Audya and worked out a cost to build and it's around £750.00 in bulk.

Regards and Happy New Year

Can't add much more to this, except, I am constantly calling up voices and styles on the fly. I have made maybe 100 registrations, most of them while playing on the job.
I will get a request, or select a song, find a style, pick a lead instrument, set the tempo and play it. Usually during the song, I will change lead instruments at least once. If it works out well, I save it to registration, so next time I want to do that song it is one second away.
I also will call up text files and the occasional midi file. Everything works flawlessly. I have only tested most of the other features, including the MP3 player, wav player, Keynote feature, etc.
BTW, I know of at least half a dozen PSR910s that have failed almost immediately and have had to be sent back. I suspect there are many more than those I've heard about.
I had a bad PSR900 that had to be exchanged when they came out. I had a Roland G800 on which the joystick spring broke after one week.
I also know there are lots of Audya users in Europe who are using their keyboards every day without crashes.
Tony, if I were you, I would have demanded my money back long ago. I think they would have done it instantly. After all this time, I'm not so sure.
DonM