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.
