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Author Topic: Trust?  (Read 2007 times)

mortimer

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Trust?
« on: March 12, 2013, 08:30:22 am »
In the days of analog keyboards, you had something to hold: it was solid, perhaps even rugged, and more or less always turned on and worked. The game is different in the age of virtual analog. Musicians need to find that same feel in order to trust an instrument enough to use it on a regular basis. This is something that Native Instruments has worked hard to achieve; Arturia, on the other hand, is not doing so well (have a look at the forum). I bought SEM and Prophet V. The Oberheim worked OK until the recent upgrade; now it runs my processors to the roof for no apparent reason. The SEM again: MIDI learn is seriously broken. I can produce repeated crashes by attempting to assign a controller from my (Arturia) keyboard. Analog Factory, which came with my Arturia 32 keyboard (which is a well-built and trust inspiring little machine): impossible to get the AU plugin to work. And no response from tech support, who I'm guessing are scrambling to handle other more serious (in their estimation) problems. Or skiing in the Alps—it's really not clear.

Trust comes from other places too. Look under the hood: Arturia scatters files all over your hard drive; no two of the synths seem to put files in the same place. And they don't respect the basic standards of the industry: the preferences folder is crammed full of nested folders which belong in Application Support (for Mac); other folders are at the root level of the Library folder, which also belong in Application Support. Who cares, you might say, if the thing works? True enough, but it's a sign of sloppy programming that seems indicative of the way the company is run. Lots of fluff (have a look at the blurbs on the website; Arturia is the second coming) but not enough rigor, not enough substance.

All of this reminds me of another French company, Realviz, which produced imaging software (most importantly Stitcher) of mediocre quality. Many bells and whistles, many of which didn't work, and no tech support. They were bought by AutoDesk and promptly shelved. Is it the 35 hour work week? I just don't get it. (I'm allowed to be a bit critical here because I'm French.)

So, Arturia, what's the deal? What would it take to have you hire someone who works at Native Instruments or Steinberg or some such company to bang things into shape? To cut back on the hype and overselling and produce something that is solid and reliable, something we can TRUST? If you truly wish to emulate these astonishing analog machines that are the backbone of your company, you would be well, it seems to me, to look to questions of longevity.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2013, 08:54:30 am by mortimer »

Adrien

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Re: Trust?
« Reply #1 on: May 25, 2013, 01:52:54 pm »
Hi

I'm really sorry if you had a bad experience.

About the Oberheim : the 1.1.6 should have fix all that. I know that you need to upgrade and sadly we don't yet have automatic tool for that.

About your AU problem, again I'm sorry. I don't know what it your ticket number, maybe just ask again.
We encountered recently difficulties with the various OS changes but also AU sdk, AAX. However we do our best to bring you all that ASAP. And even if we love skiing, I don't think the supports just ignores you.

About the "under the hood", I agree that there is not a very good standardization of files emplacement and we have to work on that. But we will not do updates to just move around files which could also be a problem. Although I agree with you it is a bit messy we have all data most of the time in 2 different places (on mac /Library/Arturia, or /Library/Application Suport/Arturia) I don't think this is so bad. If you really want to clear all of it it is pretty easy (this is not the case with most of other applications), and don't worry we are not doing that to bother you or spy on your personal data :).

"critical here because I'm French" -> I agree not doing it would be denying our national sport :).

I'm sure that we could improve quality, and be sure that we listen to every point of view. If we are not doing something that has to be done it is just because we can't (not because of the 35h nor the overselling) not because we don't want.

Really I can ensure you that we all want to make everything better.

And I'm really happy to have all feedbacks from users (on the folders, or installers, or licenses ... to improve quality). So if anyone has other ideas on how we could improve all that let us know your point of view, because we are working on all that and having your feedbacks will also help us to take the best decisions for you.

Best

Adrien Courdavault
DSP & Software engineer
Arturia

oilpanic

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Re: Trust?
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2013, 06:59:45 am »
I have to agree. My own experience with one of the hybrid midi keyboards (minilab) have been very troublesome. I like what I see but I am very hesitant to look into any other Arturia products at this point. I used to have a old version of a Analog Experience that came with a soundcard I once had. The software had to be canned because of the instability it brought to the system. Now I once again finding myself uninstalling any Arturia related files.

 

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