KVR Audio

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Thu Nov 09, 2006 9:23 pm

Bill wrote: Just to finish the story, I also emailed them, very politely, and the result is that they have replaced my 3 year old PCR-30 with a brand spanking new PCR-M30. In my eyes that is going way above and beyond the call of duty and I will love Edirol/Roland forever!

Wow! That's really cool indeed!
I should try to mail them as well then.

Barbed Wire Kiss · Post by **Barbed Wire Kiss** » Fri Nov 10, 2006 3:25 pm

Bill wrote:
Barbed Wire Kiss wrote:
Bill wrote:
Barbed Wire Kiss wrote:I received an email from Edirol this morning. And they're gonna replace my PCR-30 with a fresh PCR-M30. So I'm rapt!

So my advise is send Edirol a very nice email outlining the problem, along with the Serial Number.
Could you tell me which email address you used for them? I wrote them a polite email regarding dead keys on my PCR-30 and it has been totally ignored.
Well looking at the emails I kept from then I used support@edirol.co.uk.

But looking at that CME-UF5, my PCR-M30 may just turning up on ebay as well.
Just to finish the story, I also emailed them, very politely, and the result is that they have replaced my 3 year old PCR-30 with a brand spanking new PCR-M30. In my eyes that is going way above and beyond the call of duty and I will love Edirol/Roland forever!

Sweet.

aldred · Post by **aldred** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 6:01 pm

I have a PCR-80 that I used once and stuck in the cupboard three years ago. I pulled it out today, hooked it up and I'm getting the drop out problem plus the full velocity problem on some keys. This is rubber that degrades that far after a couple of years sitting by itself in a box? Christ. Anyway, I'm in Japan, so it's time to test the support here. Wonder if it's as good as the UK. I doubt it.

Mark

Barbed Wire Kiss · Post by **Barbed Wire Kiss** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 8:57 am

I always thought Japanese service was one of the best - well it is with airlines - but I was most surprised with the response from the British arm, we never get that level of service.

Good luck.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 9:34 am

Just for the record, I've had a PCR-80 for a little over 2 years, and its still working flawlessly. It's my master keyboard, and I use it all the time. Hopefully it'll keep working this well...

moss · Post by **moss** » Thu Dec 14, 2006 12:49 pm

Also for the record: On my PCR-M80 4 keys broke down from one day to another (during garantee time) and I got a full replacement from Edirol. So crappy keys but brilliant support!

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Mon May 28, 2007 2:52 pm

Sorry to bump this thread but I'm really pissed off.
I just connected my PCR-M1 for the first time in a while (due to rebuilding some stuff I can't use the SY85 right now) and had to find out that around half of the keys aren't velocity responsive anymore, they're throwing out value 127 only.
So I took the godamn thing apart, trying to find the reason - but apart from being faced with the worst build quality I've ever seen inside an electronic device, I couldn't find anything and I didn't have the guts to actually detach the glued in rubber-ish velocity map.
I suspect some corrosion under those rubber things to be going on, otherwise I couldn't explain why there's 50% of the keys failing when the last time I used it it's only been 2 keys.

However, this is rendering the thing absolutely useless. I mean, I can as well just use the capslock keyboard of the Macbook if there's no velocity response.
Guess I should just shove that piece of utter garbage into some fat Edirol quality insurance managers ass.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest, having spent almost 2 hours to meticulously clean even the smallest parts inside the damn piece of junk.

deastman · Post by **deastman** » Tue May 29, 2007 5:58 am

That sucks...

Mine is still working fine, but all these reports of failing keyboards makes me very nervous. I take it the newer generation of PCR'S is working out better for everyone?

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Tue May 29, 2007 9:09 am

deastman wrote: I take it the newer generation of PCR'S is working out better for everyone?

Well, mine is just 1.5 years old.
Having seen the lousy materials they're using inside the box (like machine screws going directly into some rather soft plastic to fix the key position) I for one am not gonna buy any Edirol hardware with regularly moving parts again.
Thing is, I really need such a small keyboard for being mobile and I really don't want to fork out 150 bucks once a year. Guess I'm gonna have a look at those ultra slim M-Audio ones (too bad they have no MIDI in, which was the reason I went for the Edirol in the first place).

Markleford · Post by **Markleford** » Tue May 29, 2007 5:18 pm

Not sure what generation mine is. It's a PCR-30 (*not* M-series), but at least it wasn't one of the first production runs that needed to be returned to the factory to fix the slider granularity issue.

Mine still works fine, but I tend not to bang on it: it require more impact than I'd like to achieve top velocity (always has), but I tend to compensate for this in software instead.

Still, I use it for my work pretty much every day. Might be going on three years now? I hope it continues to hold up.

- m

familychoice · Post by **familychoice** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:03 am

Has anyone had any problems with the new range - PCR 300, 500 etc?

Sascha Franck · Post by **Sascha Franck** » Thu Sep 27, 2007 11:08 am

In the meantime, I got an M-Audio Axiom 49. Almost perfectly happy with it so far.
Should've gotten the 61 key model perhaps, but I can at least sort of take the 49 key model with me when touring for longer.

Seidhepriest · Post by **Seidhepriest** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 12:35 pm

Well, the one here also had its keys die. Some died off when the keyboard was sitting idle, so it's obviously not a mechanical issue.

The problem is the kind of magnets used for the keys' rubber contact strip. The magnets' fields degrade over time.

Here's what a friend wrote about them:

Ah, those would be injection-molded button magnets. Very weak and cheap to make! The only problem with magnetization using another permanent magnet would be that the act of approaching and withdrawing a constant field would cause a fair amount of disorder in the resulting domain alignments. A small coil could easily wrap around those pegs and remagnetize them with a coherent burst from a cap discharge.

Recharging with capacitors/wire coil is one possible fix, another is painting magnets with graphite powder, as described here: http://www.fixya.com/support/t451937-re ... y_contacts

Markleford · Post by **Markleford** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:54 pm

4 years after I first replied to this thread, I have a few PCR-30 keys that are a bit "slow to wake up": they'll start working again after being exercised a bit, but it will "miss" notes when you first start using it.

We'll see how this continues to degrade...

- m

Seidhepriest · Post by **Seidhepriest** » Fri Nov 21, 2008 2:59 pm

A fix is a fix, but it really begs the question whether Roland have replaced the magnets in new models. All it takes is neodymium or rare earth magnets instead of the cheap injection-moulded...

Some of the keys on my Edirol PCR-50 are dying!