Extremely long warranty repair

Elektron Gear Analog Keys/Four
#1

Just wanted to share (and possibly warn people) about my experience with a brand new Analog Keys I sent in for repair.

I bought the Keys from a local shop in Toronto, Canada. It was their last unit - and as we now know the keys have been discontinuued, so there’s no way to swap it out for another unit.

Right from day one, there was a (relatively minor) issue with it, where the leds over 3 of the keys wouldn’t light up. Not a huge deal, but, I decided to take the unit back to the original shop for repair. As the unit is still under warranty, it had to be sent to an official support location, which unfortunately for us Canadians is all the way down to LA in the states.

To Elektron’s credit (or possibly the shop I bought it from) the shipping costs were covered. So that’s good. But, it’s been something like 2.5 months and counting and I still haven’t gotten it back.

I contacted the local shop a few times and they said it usually takes a bit of time, but not usually this long. I’ve also contacted Elektron as well and they have said similar things, and apologized for the delay - but still, this seams like a pretty unreasonable amount of time to get something repaired!

Anyway, I just wanted to post this so that people who rely on their gear for a living might give pause when getting an elektron box, at least in Canada. For me, it’s more of a hobby, so ultimately it’s not a huge deal. But just throwing this out there so people know what they might get into here if they ever run into something requiring a warranty repair.

I guess they give you a 3 year warranty because they know how long the repairs will take? Lol!

#2

I live in Germany and i once had an issue with one LED in my Monomachine. I sent it to the Store, they sent it to Elektron and i Had my repaired Monomachine back within 2 weeks. My guess is that the shipping took so long.

#3

you should b a little more pro active, imo. thats excessive by at least 4 weeks

#4

My digitone went in for DSP boot motherboard exchange, been 5 weeks from when Elektron said they received it. (Apparently it takes 2 weeks to ship from Calgary to LA)

I’ve been trying my best to remain patient, but I did bug them today… sigh what to do…

#5

I’m in Germany, and I’ve had cause to send my OT in for warranty repair twice now. Each time took around 1,5-2 weeks and all costs were covered.

Sorry your repair is taking so long! I guess they’re an authorised third party. Have you managed to contact them directly to ask and to apply a little pressure?

#6

Yeah I’ve talked to my local shop and to elektron support a number of times, but short of flying to LA myself and showing up at the repair center, theres only so much I can do, lol.

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#7

Thats pathetic. They should give up the cash, if theyre not up to the job

#8

I have a RYTM MK2 there for over a month. Shipping to the LA office took 2 days. When I sent a support email in they replied it usually takes 2 weeks from when they receive the unit to repair. I think part of the problem is that the support emails go to sweden, and they forward issues to LA.

To be fair, in the past, Elektron has been super quick and very helpful on support/repair issues with me. I am however getting a little annoyed that a known pad issue with a RYTM MK2 is taking 5 weeks and counting now and I’m literally only a 5 hour drive away from LA… so they cant say its shipping delays.

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#9

I have the same problem w LEDs on my AK. I think a good chunk of people either deal with small things or just make a return. They use to cost 1800 usd lol

#10

Yeah to be honest it’s such a small issue all in all, that I probably wouldn’t have bothered if anyone said it would take this long to repair. Initial estimates were only 2-3 weeks though and I thought that wasn’t too bad. 2.5 months though is really unacceptable. I get that elektron probably isn’t that huge a company, and couldn’t feasibly have repair centers in every country. Of course not. But it would be so much faster if they could open up repairs to other local facilities, or something, more like how appliances might be repaired with the company just reimbursing you if you had to pay out of pocket or something.

The good/bad news is, my local shop had leant me MKII to play with while I wait. BIG shout out to Moog Audio on Queen street here, these guys have been amazing. The bad news is that this MKII died on me completely. I went to turn it on one morning, and the unit is not powering up whatsoever. I assume it’s just the PSU, but I don’t have another to test. I feel terrible for Moog that they leant me this and now it’s also dead.

The whole experience has sort of soured me on Elektron. Well not really, I love their stuff, but I’ve just had a string of bad luck I guess!

#11

Is the delay with the repair shop or with shipping? Sometimes things get stuck in customs and there’s nothing anyone can do but wait.

#12

As far as I’ve been told the delay is due to a backlog of repairs at the repair shop. Unfortunately I’ve been told my Keys is “next in the queue” for quite some time now.

#13

I get that they may be backlogged, but at least they should give us some updates and not have us try and track it down.

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#14

one thing to remember is that customs can hold your stuff for days sometimes. it could have taken well over a week to get from Toronto to LA. on top of that, it seems like there’s a large number of people experiencing issues with the MKII units, so I’m guessing the repair facility has an unusually large backlog at the moment.

still… that sucks. sorry you have to wait so long. hopefully the shop can get you another MKII unit while you continue to wait.

#15

Just heard from support that my repaired Keys is being shipped back now and should arrive early next week. I don’t remember the exact date I took it in for repair, but by the time the Keys is back in my hands it’ll be somewhere around the three month mark!

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#16

Well that is very Long but good to hear that you will have it Back soon.

#17

CS told me this week, that there is a backlog of repairs due to limited supply of pads for the RYTM MK2 line. They say now another 2 weeks to get part and repair. At least now I know what the hold up was, and its reasonable. I must say again though that in the past they have been lightning fast on repair issues with my old OT and OB USB problems. They also went above and beyond following up with me. This was back in 2014/15 and that may have been before their investor influx of cash and ramp up on new machines.