I have emailed Ketron about the new samples and styles due July, asking when in July, what do you think, no reply, yes no reply, don't your ring us we will ring you!!! What else would you expect.Mind you there are still 30 days left in July.

Tony,Tony...
what do you expect...?????

What I got nothing!

not sure how many times i need to tell you people: KETRON ITALY JUST FORWARD EMAILS TO THE LOCAL DISTRIBUTOR

if you don't get a reply its down to your distributor...and i know for a fact that ketron uk posted the information on their forum as it was me that posted it!

[This message has been edited by Tonewheeldude (edited 07-02-2010).]

Not true TWD - Marcello will email anyone, the reason he is not replying to emails is :
1) He’s is on holiday
2) He’s off ill or Morto
3) He has been sworn to secrecy
4) He knows nothing
5) Been made redundant
6) Working for Dom on the MS
7) Retired
8) Sick to the back teeth of people emailing him and he can't give them the answers.
9) Plain embarrassed about the whole thing
10) Knows that the software will be out any day

I'll be back with some more shortly!

[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 07-03-2010).]

[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 07-03-2010).]

He might email if he has time, however you can't just take it for granted he will reply, or start complaining Ketron are not bothering to reply, its hardly fair to expect the guy to answer emails from all over the world. The UK distributor is resposible for questions you may ask.

from you original message it appeared Ketron do not bother answering their customers which is not true. They forward all emails recieved from the UK to our office and we reply from there.

TWD,

I have come to the conclusion that all Ketron dealers accept that this is the way Ketron behave. And how they behave is not just perceive by me but many others, as on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 for communication, Marecello is a victim of is circumstances. According the Skude I would think he would give a 0 for service and spares, but according to you that is down to the dealer and in his case Frank Audioworks, Ketron are not to blame for Skude’s dilemma in any way shape or form. I might agree with you on that one. Frank might come back and say he did all he could for Skude and its Ketron fault, but Ketron could take the bull by the horns and bypass Frank to have a happy customer, do Ketron have the stomach for that because it didn’t happen and Skude has still got a Friday made Audya. You must admit the Ketron have surpassed themselves on the Audya I know of no other parallel bit of equipment that I have ever purchased that has been such a disappointment, mine work OK now but I think I am lucky like DonM, mind you it’s not always been like that, this is my second KB. I don’t have an answer for anyone on this one and neither have you, the live drums may sound good but even they are wearing a bit thin now. You must be at least a little embarrassed about the whole thing, if you are not I am lost for words. Even excuses are in short supply now! Anyway you said you don't look at Ketron SZ anymore and hear you are guns blazing and back in the thick of it, you are concerned that why your back, peeping!
Tony


[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 07-03-2010).]

TWD,

in this case I would expect from Ketron at least something like:

Dear Customer, thank you very much for your request. Your request has been forwarded to your local distributor......will contact you on short notice.

With such a simple mail, Ketron could at least kill two birds with one stone:

- improvement of customers satisfaction
- frustration level will decrease, as customers are able to contact the local distributor with a reference, in case that the distributor will not contact the customer.

Is this too much to ask for?

Joe



[This message has been edited by Joe0710 (edited 07-04-2010).]

Joe through all the red mist we all missed this one 10 out of 10 you must be in sales, you are 100% right and to answer you they never do what you said why. Marcello must be bombarded by emails with problems, Europe is awash with Audya, UK and USA are playing at it, anyway we don't speak the language that perhaps the problem. I have searched for all kind of excuse for them but run out of ideas.


[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 07-03-2010).]

Hi guys
Just to balance this a little. First, Marcello always reponds to my e-mails, he has not been able to solve my Audya problem, but at least he tried to.
Second, during the last year I have e-mailed Ketron It, and I have been told, like TWD says, to contact the US distributor. I have done that through Frank, and I know he has tried to get the distributor to get things going, it's been very difficult. When Ketron Italy got to know about my Audya problems,( from the UK distributor) to be fair, they did respond to me pretty quick and sent me parts. We all thought that this could solve the problems. It didn't, but I don't think Ketron will just ignore working on a solution. As you all understand I'm not happy about the way things are right now, but I'm still not ready to blame all that's been going on the last year, on Ketron Italy. Everything from now on will be another story, now I expect things to be done differently, yet to see.
skude

Skude,

good for you, that you have got answers. I'm not sure how much emails I wrote during the last 12 months to Ketron, maybe about five, not more. I've got not one single response. The only thing I'm asking for is a professional support as the costs for an Audya are also a kind of "professional".
Meanwhile I have a way to get my answers but nevertheless it is frustrating.

Joe

Skude,

I think reading your mail I know what you are saying and were the blame lies in your case. Yours is a little odd because you bought you KB from the states and took it home to Norway. That does not mean you should be abandoned, this narrow minded attitude if you bought it in this county we will look after you in his country, if you take it to another one hard luck. Most manufactures will see straight through this and help you directly, Dom would, cutting across all the dealers, but they need to know you are having problems, in your case something went sadly wrong and some should take the rap. It’s taken in excess of a year to get you to this stage and you are still no nearer to a KB that works with any certainty. With regard to Marcello I will tell you something now all of you. I spoke to someone in the UK about my Audya problems a year back and they had already had problems with Ketron on SD1, they said if you email Ketron you will never get a reply. So when I first emailed, my emailed contained this statement, saying that I was emailing but I did not expect a reply because I had been informed that the way they worked. They did reply and it was Marcello, he is not technical and perhaps goes and checks with some else anything technical. But in all the many emails I have sent him he has always replied to me, but not lately on question surrounding the upgrades, I know why and I am sure you all know why, they still don’t know themselves. I have worked for manufacturing companies in past and I can tell you if they had treated their client like this they would be out of business, there is no excuse, it is blatant and downright inexcusable. If you want to survive and prosper you need to adapt, are we all completely stupid I guess the answer is Yes, with a capital Y. Skude, I wish you all the best with your Friday made Audya, but I have seen and heard nothing on SZ or anywhere else that will convince me that one year from now you will not be in the same situation. A parrot can only be taught about 4 phrases and then it’s memory is full, this is like a fairy tale “Grim”.

Best of luck with it, don’t hold your breath. Neck hugging and abuse still haven’t worked and the law court you’re out of time!

Hi Tony. only the marketing department at Ketron Italy know the release date of the new sounds and styles. It is their policy not to release information about dates until it has been posted on the official www.ketron.it website. Even other departments within the factory and us at Ketron UK only have a rough estimate.

The problem is, if they tell you in a private email, you may well post the information here and bang goes their official release.

The answer, as near as you will get was posted on the official UK forum some time ago - For whatever reason I am afraid for now that is the only answer you will get out of any of us.

Well, if you have read my posts, you know that Ketron Italy has not helped me with my SD3 problem in over two years. Ted and AJ couldn't help me, so much for the distributor end of things, but at least they tried. Ketron Italy has answered me twice in 2 years and over 35 seperate communications (between myself and the distributor and Ketron Italy) each time asking me to restate the problem (which further makes me believe they never really took it seriously) and never getting back an answer. While I love the sounds of the SD3, I stand by my experiences with Ketron, and my own opinions, and state that as far as I am concerned, Ketron Italy customer service is terrible, products seem to be released before thoroughly alpha and beta tested (see Audya problems). It's really too bad because their sounds are, in my opinion, the best. Too bad they are killing whatever good will they had.

Jim,

I take it from that you will not be trading your SD3 in for a new Audya, or have you been seduced by those live drums and you will fall for it. Another Ketron customer with no repeat business. Eventually they run out of customers! TWD it's not just me that has the gripes. There is a common denominator here.
KxxxxxN BTW those are not kisses.

I am glad we don't have the same issues in the UK. The only problem from my point of view is that we have lost a couple of sales because of Synthzone.

I stand by what I have said though. Ketron Italy have worked closely with us. Sometimes they do not understand due to language difficulties so we have to persevere. However much of the problems experienced by owners here could be avoided by the distributor stocking parts (as ketron UK do).

One thing I have learned is not to rely on emails completely as its not unusual for them to get lost in the system (I have about 6000 emails per week go into my junk box - I still have to scan through them as customers messages sometimes end up in there). Often its simpler just telephone the factory directly.

TWD,

You haven't lost sales through SZ. You need to look a lot deeper. It's in there somewhere. If Ketron get their house in order things will happen for you both, if they don't it won't. As anyone actually said to you that the problems people are having which are voiced on SZ have deterred them from buying an Audya, if the answer is yes, then they have been saved from a baptism of fire and SZ is worth its weight in Gold. In the UK car industry it’s called “THE WHICH CAR MAGZINE” it tells you which is best and reveals warts and all! You will not lose sales if your service is good, if you service is crap you don’t desire to be in business. This is 2010 not 1850!


[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 07-04-2010).]

I knew that Marcello from Ketron would email back about the date for the new Audya sounds he just said in his email " We hope within shortly" you make of that what you want. This must be good news whatever it means!!!


[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 07-05-2010).]

No, Tony, I won't be trading in my SD3 for an Audya, or any other Ketron product unless and until I become convinced that their units are THOROUGHLY tested and work without having to go to x number of updates to achieve that and that if I do have a problem, I can actually get it fixed. Many years ago I opted out of a computer company I worked for because I was in final acceptance and testing and after relating a real bug we found in the software, we were told by VP manufacturing to send out units anyway. It has to do with cash flow. I could not in good conscience send out units that I knew had problems, which is why I left. Two years after I left the company went belly up. Hmmmm... I wonder why. I hope this is not happening with Ketron.

Jim,

I am convinced that’s exactly what is happen with Ketron, bad PCB manufacturing, poor software, loose screws, no proper support, no technical manuals, all a recipe for the end.

Tony

If parts are going to be a problem - should it not be a precondition that anyone taking up a dealership should stock parts. If the profit margins are so low has is suggested selling Ketron then I can well see that a dealer might not want to do this. There are also the low volume sales of Ketron Audya which will dictate the stocking of spares. Certainly it isn’t working, the USA hasn’t got any Audya parts that’s for sure. With regard to the language misunderstanding, since 83 countries in the World speak English you would think there would be someone in a company selling worldwide that had a good understand of English. When you are trying to explain to someone something technical and it is misinterpreted it can be risky, this can be seen in manuals that have been translate badly because thinks are back to front, look at the T2 in the song book “My Way” “The Way That I Do It” I think it was - there are many other parallels in the T2. One press of a button because of ambiguity and bang goes you files or a reload process, and don’t turn off whilst the KB is uploading the wrong way round and no sound from the left speaker is the order of the day. When I get email back from the factory I need to read between the lines and it’s still doesn’t make any sense. I don’t know why someone in the UK can’t take this kind of business on. In 10 years time there won’t be KBs like this, things will all be PC driven, much simpler or thy will be like MS.

maybe Ketron should insist the distributors stock parts, thats not my call.

I don't see why they should insist though, its common sense to me, if your going to sell any product line you have to be able to offer some kind of support.

Otherwise you get frustration which leads to anger and in the end affects business. What annoys me is that what happens here looks bad for all of us, and very quickly months of hard work trying to build a reputation is blown away over a couple of bad experiences and a host of grumpy old farts making it 10 times worse. From my experience in the last two years with Ketron Italy, they seem to be a good and honourable company. They have been a great deal of help in supplying technical answers and parts - even for very old Solton instruments. I love their products, which have a quirkyness about them that gives the instruments personality. And I respect that they are pushing forward with the Audya wheras everyone else continues to play it safe with leftover 80s technolgy.

My advice for anyone who has a fault with a brand new instrument is give the dealer a reasonable time to get it repaired or if that fails get it exchanged. Its not the job of the end user to chase distributors or manufacturers.

If someone was to have a genuine fault with a new ketron in the UK, I can guarantee we will offer to repair it first and if that is not acceptable we will swap it for them within days. Fortunately this has only happened once in two years though.

TWD,

My brain has been working with this Skude thing and I have just released that you think I am a grumpy old fart, that’s OK but that might be so I don’t have a problem being marginalized in this way. I take it that a grumpy old fart is someone who doesn’t agree with your way of thinking, now I have a problem with that TWD because you have a vested interest in selling a product that we are discussing, so I can’t accept any judgment you have about anyone in this area. I will say it again and again TWD, had Skude bought his KB from you I would have no doubt whatsoever it would be working now, the high seas would not stop you from doing your duty. Can we get that clear, I have never questioned you business ethics, I just think you defend Ketron above and beyond that call of duty. If Ketron did go under and I hope they don’t, how would you feel when you have supported them in this way? TWD, companies go to the wall in an instance and people on the shop floor don’t have a clue what is going on. You’re will not immune to this if it happens.

Grumpy old fart (GOF)

i didn't mean you Tony! (although, like all of us you have had your fair share of grumpy/fartiness. lol)

I was talking about those narrow minded, self oppinionated people in this group that do not own, have no intention of owning or have never tried a particular instrument, and yet make sweeping statements of fact about a product and or company.....The type of people that jump on the bandwagon and flame posts with tosh.

If Ketron (or Korg, Yamaha Roland etc) were to go under it would not be because of the odd problem like Skude is experiencing. They would simply be another casualty of this the very hard financial climate we are experiencing.

I would be upset though - not because I have defended them, but because in my oppion the Audya is the finest and most groundbreaking arranger on the market.

TWD,

We both know that Audya is the best sound around, I have never question that at all and it's even 100% better with the new sounds on it, we both agree with that. I think I have poked enough people now with a burnt stick about Skude’s Audya, if there is no reaction now from the USA you can see where this is heading, people need to put the action to their words. If they don’t, then Skude will know where he stands finally. I still think he will end up with my KB and I will fix his. There will be a big sigh of relief from one or two and they will have slip the net and off the hook, but what a way to get from under. I write Building Management Software, if someone came into my university and said your software is crap, we will get someone else in to put it right, but we will still pay you, I would hang my head in shame. I will write no more about this, but I will be sleeping with one eye open. Actions speak much louder than words!
Tony
PS TWD 100% better sounding Audya ????