Casio repair centers-only for certain models

[Jokeyman123]

I just stumbled on this website, I am not sure some of these are authorized for Casios even though this website makes it seem like these are, might help some of you that can't get repairs anywhere else. I would always try to go to an official Casio repair center-directly to Casio if you can. And I always look for reviews about a particular business before i decide, not all repair techs or businesses can handle anything other than a specific brand of instrument unfortunately, and not all are created equal. I had dismal results with one repair service in NJ, who actually made my one keyboard worse, and literally never returned one to me at all. Short of a lawsuit, there was nothing i could do.  I won't publicly disparage any business, but if you are concerned and in NJ, PM me and I will tell you who they were. I'd never use them again.

 

https://casiosupport.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/6650397830041-Keyboard-and-Piano-Music-Repair-Service-Centers-Models-GP-AP-PX-WK-CGP-CDP-only-

[hant7]

Спасибо, Джокеймен123!

[Jokeyman123]

You are most welcome, hope all is well with you and yours.

Добро пожаловать, надеюсь, что все хорошо с вами и вашими.

[pianokeyjoe]

Ohhh! This no good my friend! I just tried to check for PA based repair shops and seems only one has a website and the link is dead lol! I am personally in the process of starting my own Keyboard repair shop here in South Western PA but I am not an "authorized" Casio dealer or repair shop. So.. there is that. I love my keyboards and have circuit bent and repair, modded and collected Casio and Yamaha home keyboards since my first ever keyboards when I was a kid: Casio PT1/MT11/MT52/CT310/MT205/MT46/PT50/VL1/HT700/SK1/SK5/MT210/MT520/SA1/SA21/SA39 and Yamaha PSS270/PSS470/PSS480/PSR12/PSS130/PSS30/YPR7/YPR9. Quite the collection of boards throughout my teen years for sure! As an adult, the list is too long, but needless to say, I have dealt heavily with all manner of CASIO and YAMAHA branded keyboards with a few other brands thrown in for good measure! As such, it makes sense to finally open a shop to fix, mod, and sell/buy/trade such things as I love so much! I will let you know when my shop is up and running and my website(I am NOT a web designer soo.. there is that issue now lol)is err, up? I used to have a shop and site in Jacksonville FL years ago in 2010-11 but I moved and thus have had to deal with life changes that prevented me from starting up again anew. Now is time.  Sadly NO.. There are no VINTAGE CASIO repair shops anywhere in the USA because in the USA, the business model is to sell and service only the newest and latest of products with a very wasteful attitude towards reuse and recycle/upcycle of older vintage gear. Oh yes, now vintage is paired with $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ but in actually tangible brick and mortar businesses? NOPE! Alot of shops are actually closing down now...I am basing this on my LOCAL observations of course.. I could be wrong. I pray I am wrong please..

[Jokeyman123]

You're not wrong. Why I posted this knowing most repair facilities are almost non-existant or not capable of doing more than telling you to put new batteries in your propeller hat 😛 why I've had to do alot of my repairs, mods and maintenance myself. And having much equipment that uses dedicated IC chips, firmware etc. it is difficult to impossible to find anyone who has any idea how to troubleshoot and repair mainboards and other "proprietary" circuitry and even if one can, most manufacturers keycode lock their firmware and operating systems so even an advanced engineer cannot reverse-engineer code to restore it.  Quite different from when I made my first analog oscillators and simple synths.

 

For example-one of the premier tech companies on the East coast USA that was capable of repairing at the component level and specialized in musical equipment, went out of business during the pandemic. I am now trying to find someone through Youtube posts and user groups that are capable of for example-repairing an otherwise perfectly good Alesis QS8 with a defective mainboard, and 2 other partially working music workstation mainboards that are now impossible to replace as the manufacturers continue to hope you throw out your 3-4000 dollar dead music workstation/digital piano or RFI-resistant metal collander hat (🙃)  and have to buy a new one, I am seeing more and more-individuals who are capable of flow-soldering/desoldering LSI chips, fabricating their own complex IC boards in their home workshops, something even a few years ago impossible for the layperson without advanced heat-controlled equipment.

 

Another example of instrument sudden death syndrome. The "Beat Thang"-still in the wild, can be purchased dead or working-I have one of each out of morbid curiosity i couldn't resist the frustrating certainty that i would not be able to restore a dead one-and I haven't but here's why.

 

1) the developers completely abandoned the product, after huge hype  that's bad enough but....

 

2) I completely dis-assembled the dead one-researched the chips inside (samsung memory chips and an ARM CPU among other things) and discovered-there is a plug-in board, with the OS burned into it, which can probably be re-installed, i even found the Linux code for this-probably similar process to making a custom ROM for a smartphone but much to my surprise....

 

3) Looks like there is a "Beat Thang" specific 14-pin male connector adjacent to the SD card slot-a working one can upgrade the OS with an SD card-if the Beat Thang boots up in the first place, which many of these don't.  I suspect the original firmware and OS was installed using this connector-but like a dead smartphone, if you can't even boot it, how can you re-install the code????? And what was used originally to install the OS in this glorified bang-box-only her hairdresser knows for sure (old Clairol commercial, sorry I got distracted)

 

4) There isn't a single support person anywhere who has a clue as to how to restore these machines-i have probably taken it further than most-I have posts all over requesting info, how I managed to find someone who has the entire Linux OS set of commands, apparently the only other poor soul on the Internet who even bothered to keep his working and sells compatible samples for it- not one of the developers, who must all be hiding in a shoebox somewhere.

 

Considering how many are out there completely dead, completely useless-and these were built very solidly, the working one is actually pretty good-sort of similar to the old Ensoniq ASR-X drum machine samplers. same heavy metal box construction too.

 

So here i have found the ultimate definition of stupidity/incompetence in manufacturing, and that's the nicest way to put it. Why post all this here? Because I am fortunate in that Casio's Dover, NJ the US repair facility is 30 miles from my house. And as long as I still own a Casio, I am not moving!

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

I guess of Alesis is only the brand name left, bought for cheap by a random Chinese company.

 

My only Alesis product (beside the reverb chip in some early 1990th Farfisa and Orla stuff) is the toy-like "Alesis Melody 32" (aka "Harmony 32"), which looks like made by Medeli (may be even Yongmei) and contains a sample based Holtek chip with 300 grainy 8-bit(?) preset sounds and USB midi. Although playable, it is a really faithless products that feels like quickly botched together to make some bucks. E.g. the tiny drumpad buttons have latency and make glitches when held down during play (by lack of matrix diodes), the demo songs suck and rhythms are boring. They did not put much effort into its software to make it a pleasant experience. Unlike modern Yamaha PortaSound or a Casio VL-1 it not even has an octave switch for its 32 midsize keys. So I would not expect anything great of nowadays Alesis, not to say to keep the experts to service their old stuff.

 

 

Edited September 28, 2023 by CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler

[Jokeyman123]

There are no experts to fix the old Alesis stuff-at least not working for Alesis anymore-the genius developers who created the Andromeda, Fusion, Ion and Micron have moved on to other technological adventures and achievements.  Here is the "Easter Egg" displayed in my Fusions-the development team-see attachment below. I checked, the Mike Martin on this list is not Casio's Mike Martin, unless I am mistaken. Interesting coincidence though, there is genius in this Alesis Fusion board.

 

The other genius not mentioned since he almost completely created the Micron, is here, Bret Victor. still has his own website, but not with Alesis anymore.....

https://gearspace.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/1258218-honoring-alesis-micron-its-designer.html

 

Unfortunately, through many hours of research on my own I have had to learn to be my own (very flawed and incomplete) expert with those monsters-I own 2 Fusions I've restored, a dilapidated Micron looks like it was thrown down the stairs but I restored it mechanically and electronically-and now have an "Akai" Miniak. I have just sent a defective Fusion mainboard for possible repair to a company that took me months to find in the US at least. Plus I now own a Poly D from Rudi Behringer, a different animal altogether, i was attracted to its solid design, and that I had started sound programming and synth composing in the 1980's with my old sequential Circuits Pro-One, a truly not impressive machine, a poor man's Minimoog, with a horrible set of keys that constantly mis-triggered. the internal tines-yes it had tines-looke like straightened paper clips, and worked pretty much the same way!!!! so I sold it and now it's worth 4 times what I paid which was 500.00 US in 1980s dollars was alot of money for me at least. Who knew? Now musicians are paying dearly for the "luxury" of having a machine with the same oscillator chips in that thing-I think Curtis 3340 are the chips everyone thinks are so wonderful. I built oscillators 40 years go, its not rocket science!!!!

 

Also-look up Steve Howell, sadly passed away way too young, another brilliant sound designer who did work for many including half the sounds I have in my Fusions. and Klaus P. Rausch (KPR on the web) still with us. Like Steve, a brilliant sound designer who did alot of sound design for the Fusion but also still very active on his own.

 

So even though a company may not always stand behind its brilliant workers, nice to know these people go on. I know someone else here who has a rather distinguished resume with other very prominent music companies and we are so very fortunate that he is now with Casio-and apparently brought his experience and expertise (flattery intended) to Casio, and directly to us here. they'd be quite foolish to not keep him, no matter what the price!!!! 

 

Keeping all these musicians/developers in my "mind's eye-and people like you Cyberyogi-even though I'll never be able to meet any of these people-and despite the sometimes discouraging aspects to the business and pleasure of music and technology (I still have my cassettes and recorder, 3 VHS tape player/recorders and recently spent a small fortune sending my old TEAC 3340 reel-to-reel I still use, to a repair team for restoration-one of the first off the assembly line, filled with transistors that go "ker-plunk" every once in awhile and did again), keeps me going here in my own way.

Designers.pdf

Edited September 28, 2023 by Jokeyman123

[Brad Saucier]

13 hours ago, CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler said:

guess of Alesis is only the brand name left, bought for cheap by a random Chinese company.

 

Look up "inMusic Brands" and check out their history and every brand they own now.  I would probably start with the Wikipedia article.  

[Jokeyman123]

Brad, my Alesis Fusion mainboards are from InMusic which was originally called "Instrumental Music". I had communicated extensively with a particular tech there the past 2 years who had managed to find almost impossible to find Fusion mainboards I still own as spares. I keep my eye on their inventory which gets rarer as we speak. I had to work at getting these boards. He had to search through a warehouse to find these. I still have the address of headquarters based in Rhode Island and I think listed as "Numark". 

[CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler]

11 hours ago, Brad Saucier said:

 

Look up "inMusic Brands" and check out their history and every brand they own now.  I would probably start with the Wikipedia article.  

 

They really own Moog? Their Alesis budget keyboards seem to be near-toy-grade trash like nowadays Bontempi.

Edited September 29, 2023 by CYBERYOGI =CO=Windler

[Joe Muscara]

They bought Moog fairly recently and just last week apparently laid off a number of employees at Moog's Asheville NC headquarters. It's not looking too good.