More On Digitals

[Sy Zabrocki]

List, from Sy Zabrocki

Digital pianos are apparently quite trouble free. From 1986 to 1991 we sold
Roland and since then have sold Kawai and a few Samicks. In these 12 years
we have had trouble on only two units. Once we uncrated a Roland HP-3000
shortly after being delivered off a freight truck in 10 below zero weather.
Big mistake. Condensation collected on a circuit board and damaged the
board--so we were told. (My camcorder manual calls this the dew factor.)
One customer jammed one against the wall and damaged the area where the
power cord plugged in.

Now other digital technicians might have made service calls on these units
and we did not hear of it. 

Here's what puzzles us. Some digital units are very complicated. On
delivery we go over all the features and you can see the people's eyes
glaze over half way through the demo. So now we expect them to call every
day for help. For some reason this does not happen. One fellow came in
excited because he had learned about MIDI files on the internet. He knew
how to operate the disk feature on the piano but needed to know how to copy
the MIDI files off the internet onto floppy disk. He had a Mac computer and
I don't know exactly how it's done on a Mac.

On this list there is speculation on how long these units will last. I
wonder about the key switches. The switches themselves might last a long
time but they are covered in a rubber boot. How long will the rubber last?
Maybe it just looks like rubber. 

There are many Hammond organs still working fine that over 40 years old. Of
course the Hammond components were very different than the present
digitals. 

Sy Zabrocki