My Mojo (classic model) died.

[pinkfloydcramer]

2017 model won't power up. I tried it also with a power supply with specs of the original, upon which all the LEDS lit up and stayed on with all buttons unresponsive. Crumar support lists 2 US repair centers but they stipulate that they are for authorized warrantee repairs only. I emailed them, waiting to hear back.

 

I bought the Mojo used last fall on Ebay, in pristine condition (supposedly from estate sale, owner died before he ever played it blah blah). I seldom played it (got the real deal at home now) and never gigged it. It's a great instrument when it is working, my favorite clone action by far, and a joy to play. But I suspect reliability is the reason you see more Nord and Hammond clones on big stages. Maybe that will change with the XT models.

 

If all else fails I will check with Keyboard partners RE the possibility of installing an HX3 board into it, as is often done with dead Hammond XB2's- that for me would be the best sound/action combination. But I know the Mojo and the XB2 are 2 vastly different instruments so not getting my hopes up.

[Morizzle]

Huh, damn. Have you had a look inside? I had a problem about a year ago when the screws that held the motherboard came loose. Sometimes that led to the organ not powering up. I managed to fix it myself by finding the right kind of screws, it was kind of a simple fix.

[Outkaster]

happened 2 times to me. Good thing I sold it.

[kenheeter]

Feel free to contact me and I'll help if I can. halelect1@gmail.com I'm in Canada so sending it to me isn't really an option. Have you tried contacting Crumar at info@crumar.it ? They are usually very helpful. It can likely be solved one way or another. Cheers, Ken

[pinkfloydcramer]

Huh, damn. Have you had a look inside? I had a problem about a year ago when the screws that held the motherboard came loose. Sometimes that led to the organ not powering up. I managed to fix it myself by finding the right kind of screws, it was kind of a simple fix.

 

Thanks and sorry it took so long to respond, I just now had time to take the top off and look. Everything seems snug, no loose or backed-out screws.

 

@kenheeter, thanks for your kind offer. I'm not the tech type, haven't done anything more advanced than replacing DP broken keys. So this is about as far as I can get.

 

I received a response from Crumar support, asking for serial # and the original invoice (which I don't have) to determine if it is under warrantee. Not that I think there's a chance of that with a 3 year old instrument.

[kenheeter]

I'm guessing they'll help anyway. Let me know if there's anything I can do.

[confidence]

happened 2 times to me. Good thing I sold it.

 

Let me guess: You sold it to some schmuck on Ebay last fall, saying it was from an estate sale and had never been played blah blah . . . . . ?

[pinkfloydcramer]

lol

 

There's one born every minute.

[jeffincltnc]

I"m reluctant to buy Crumar/DSI stuff. I know people like them but it"s a one man operation by Guido. (oK, I think it"s 2 people), but it"s not like there is a department responsible to resolve your issue.

 

I"m not saying the Big 3, plus Nord and Kurzweil are perfect, but there is at least a company to try and direct you to their network, supply chain of parts within reason, etc.

 

Even Key-B sold to Viscount and although not a huge company, has a network of service and support.

[confidence]

I"m reluctant to buy Crumar/DSI stuff. I know people like them but it"s a one man operation by Guido. (oK, I think it"s 2 people), but it"s not like there is a department responsible to resolve your issue.

 

I"m not saying the Big 3, plus Nord and Kurzweil are perfect, but there is at least a company to try and direct you to their network, supply chain of parts within reason, etc.

 

Even Key-B sold to Viscount and although not a huge company, has a network of service and support.

 

I agree. I'm in the market for a clonewheel right now and love the sound and feel of Mojo, but this is staying my hand.

 

It's sad because in principle I'm really impressed by the idea of someone being able to set up an operation like that as a single person having developed a great product. But I have to be realistic. If it were something costing a couple of hundred pounds I'd probably not worry and just accept the risk, but the cost of these instruments is something I need to take seriously and save and budget for, on a musician's income. I don't begrudge that, but it's not something I can afford to just say "oh well" if it bites the dust just after the warranty has expired.

[pinkfloydcramer]

I have seen instances where people had issues with their Mojo, but can't say I have seen anyone left out in the cold- at least no one on this forum, several of whom gig with their Mojo regularly and are satisfied with it's reliability. My circumstances are different- but it does seem a bit much if a well thought of, 3 year old instrument were to be deemed unrepairable. Just hoping I can recoup some of my $1200 investment (doesn't seem like such a good "deal" now, go figure) and I'll be out of the Mojo business.

[Joe Muscara]

It's funny, I wonder how many guitar amp companies and guitar builders are one-man or small operations. I know of a few.

[ZioGuido]

it"s a one man operation by Guido

 

[font:Arial Black]WRONG[/font]!

 

1) Guido IS NOT CRUMAR. Guido is GSi. GSi makes software for GSi, for Crumar and for other entities, even non-music software. GSi is a one man operation with occasional collaborators.

 

2) CRUMAR is not a one man operation. There are owners, workers, consultants and collaborators, it's a small-medium sized company exactly like at least other 100 in the same field, including some of those you've mentioned.

 

3) Please stop calling my name for everything related to Crumar. I AM NOT CRUMAR!!!

 

4) It's false that Italy is closed for one or two monts during summer "even during a pandemic"! Please stop this bull****!!! Workers who have right to a vacation do their 7 or 14 days like every other workers in the world, but nothing is closed here!

[Kurt W]

Seems like Crumar should hire a public relation officer

[kenheeter]

You guys need to lighten up. I've been playing Crumar products since the first Mojo was introduced ( I currently have a Mojo61 and a Gemini module as well as a Seven ). The instruments are wonderful, the support is second to none. I've owned many keyboards from many companies and the Crumar stuff is excellent.

[ABECK]

Worth a shot to reach out to Crumar support. Even if it's out of warranty, I assume there are repair or component replacement options.

[Delaware Dave]

"... the support is second to none..."

 

Owning a Kurzweil product and having pinged Jean Bellefeuille (Tech/Dev Mgr.) dozens of times over the 7 years I've owned the PC3 I can tell you that Kurzweil's support is "second to none". Never been left hanging, not even one time. I had (and have) a continuing issue with my Gemini module regarding the Gemini resetting both DSP engines simultaneously to preset 0 during a performance. I'll be playing upper and lower manual organ and bam, both DSP's suddenly reset themselves to preset 0. I contacted Crumar about this through their support email system. The response I received was "I need to ask Andrea or Guido about this... sorry they are all outside the facility in this moment..". That was 5-3-17 (three years ago). Still waiting to hear from them. When the Venice Grand came out I had issues with 4 keys (D6#, E6, F6 and F6#) producing unusually high "thunk" loudness and the true note volume was pretty low. I wanted to understand what was wrong with these notes, it does it on all controllers I use. I sent audio of the issue. Never heard from them; when I wrote to get an update the answer I received was ".. like I told you, your email is now in the development team desk. thanks. Crumar/GSi Customer Support.". Dated 2/21/19. I have never back heard from them and I still have the issue. Fortunately the Venice Grand Open came out and I moved away from the original Venice Grand sample. I can assure you I would not receive responses like that from Kurzweil.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the Crumar products; they sound fantastic. But I would not agree that their support is "second to none"; that has not been my experience. Two issues and I'm 0 for 2.

 

Also, Hammond is not much better either. Note this: From Losendoskeys in another thread: "..Can't get hold on anyone at Hammond Support - ignoring my emails.."

Response from CEB: " ..That"s been my experience also. Support at Addison has gone to hell. My last questions were parts related and Bill Brown at BB organ helped me. Hammond company was useless..".

[Dave Bryce]

Owning a Kurzweil product and having pinged Jean Bellefeuille (Tech/Dev Mgr.) dozens of times over the 7 years I've owned the PC3 I can tell you that Kurzweil's support is "second to none".

There is no doubt this is true. Deepest props to brother JB - he is the gold standard.

 

dB

[Doerfler]

4) It's false that Italy is closed for one or two monts during summer "even during a pandemic"! Please stop this bull****!!! Workers who have right to a vacation do their 7 or 14 days like every other workers in the world, but nothing is closed here!

 

What about the unicorns?

[drawback]

Also, Hammond is not much better either. Note this: From Losendoskeys in another thread: "..Can't get hold on anyone at Hammond Support - ignoring my emails.."

Response from CEB: " ..That"s been my experience also. Support at Addison has gone to hell. My last questions were parts related and Bill Brown at BB organ helped me. Hammond company was useless..".

 

As long as we're taking this post sideways, give me a small word about contacting an actual person at Korg Support: "Sandbags."

 

Now, back to our original programming

[Kurt W]

You guys need to lighten up. I've been playing Crumar products since the first Mojo was introduced ( I currently have a Mojo61 and a Gemini module as well as a Seven ). The instruments are wonderful, the support is second to none. I've owned many keyboards from many companies and the Crumar stuff is excellent.

It is not a question about lighten up. Personally I prefer to buy in a local shop which will handle the repair/sending within warranty period free of charge. With no local representation I ended by buying my Mojo 61 from Thomann in Germany, after just a couple of months experienced intermittant problems with audio output and contacted Crumar for support. Got a response for checking things I already had checked and described in my first mail and dropped the case using instead using the working output channel to a Leslie. After about 15 months checked both outputs and found the intermittant output constantly dead. After more discussions with Crumar which first proposed tosend the whole unit to Thomann they accepted that I instead demounted the tiny audio output card and sent it to Crumar support. After a couple of months I finally got the card back and found it to have exactly the same problem, one of the output channels intermittently falling out. Contacting Crumar again and was told «it worked perfectly when we tested before sending back after repair». Found my old soldering iron and worked over the audio chip myself and got it to work. This tiny card had no other support than via the audio outputs fixed to the back panel, all the stress directly to soldering connections on the pcb. This is my single experience, others have reported similar problems. I have no statistical details about the fault rate of Crumar products. Problem is that without local representation you are in deep shit when such failures occurs. These people are definetely clever and make new, great products at a quite high tempo. But I think definitely also they have a similar high QA risk in their production with relatively low volumes and many projects going on.

 

Even if your experience is excellent Ken, there are others definitely not having had the same luck.

[bill bosco]

i have an early mojo , was definitely built on the cheap , i agree their support is not second to none . i would check the connections though , it could be the problem .

i couldn't sell mine in good faith ( couldn't use it on stage cause of the frequent crashing ) , so after a few years of being packed away , i'm converting it over to an hx3 , i'm using the fatar

keybeds and the shell ( with some modifications ) . something i've been wanting to do for a while now .

[dfcas]

It seems the bottom line is that there is no out of warranty service in the US. I'm taking the Mojo61 off my list.

[pinkfloydcramer]

i have an early mojo , was definitely built on the cheap , i agree their support is not second to none . i would check the connections though , it could be the problem .

i couldn't sell mine in good faith ( couldn't use it on stage cause of the frequent crashing ) , so after a few years of being packed away , i'm converting it over to an hx3 , i'm using the fatar

keybeds and the shell ( with some modifications ) . something i've been wanting to do for a while now .

 

I'm keenly interested in your success with this, sir, if you don't mind keeping me (us) updated. I take it that you're doing the work yourself?

 

I checked the connections again per your suggestion, still didn't fix the problem so I put it back together for now. Good luck with your project!

[BigJPatton]

I doubt it's all that complicated to fix, there's not much to break! you'd be shocked how little there is inside a modern keyboard.

 

And I agree the lack of "authorized" service shouldn't be alarming, there's tons of repair shops that will at least take a look and probably find the issue, they want money just like everyone else and you'll probably get some guidance from Crumar.

 

Please don't listen to guys that imply there's some inferiority because of this, Nord, Hammond, etc have piles of issues out there, probably much more than Crumar given the numbers. I've been a Mojo owner since 2016, tons of gigs, zero issues.

[pinkfloydcramer]

And I agree the lack of "authorized" service shouldn't be alarming, there's tons of repair shops that will at least take a look and probably find the issue, they want money just like everyone else and you'll probably get some guidance from Crumar..

 

So far no response, other than the initial perfunctory one, from Crumar support. Maybe it would be different if I were a repair tech.

 

edited, scratch that, got a reply today asking to recheck the external PSU. I had already substituted another one that I thought had the right specs, it made the the unit power up but appeared to be frozen- all leds stayed on and all buttons unresponsive. The one that came with it was a cellavia, made in PRC. Is that what you Mojo enthusiasts use?

 

Also, does the Mojo seem to be more sensitive than other keyboards to dodgy electricity? I have an older house. I usually use a Furman power conditioner but did not the last time I had played the Mojo. Yamaha, Korg, Kawai and Roland do fine here.