Whats with the Arturia Haters?

[kingdubrock]

Hi,

From pursuing the forum I can see that people have had some frustration with tech support, but I see mainly people who are satisfied with the sound of the V collection of emulations.

I will say for the record that I requested and received prompt customer service the one time I needed it and felt they really made an effort to ensure my satisfaction.

Here's my issue/question though...

I've been stumbling into some serious Arturia bashing on various forums. Not about the customer service mind you - but a disturbingly consistent set of claims about Arturia and code recycling among the different emulations.

The source of this is an old SOS article where the writer found that the triangle wave and the filter code in the 2600V were merely copied from the MiniMg. He claimed that when approached, Arturia admitted this, and did so on the premise that ARP famously  used the same filter as Mg. The Author corrected them on this point (but didn't elaborate - I assume he meant that ARP then changed the filter) and claimed that the person he spoke with would address it. The matter of what the author described as a "shark tooth" wave which he saw using a scope on the miniMg was used as the triangle wave on the 2600V was left hanging there.

This story has morphed it seems, into the widely spread claim that Arturia does this with all their emulations and that they are all merely the same code with with different routing and skins. Amazingly common as well, (and which certainly does not match my own experience) is the claim that they all sound really similar because of this.

Lastly, not only are these claims made, but made with an equally common palpable hostility towards Arturia. Poster after poster will chime in with words like "a joke", "Crap", "all marketing hype", "so and so puts them to shame" and so on. And in each case that I have seen it, it goes unchallenged. And the usernames are not the same.

The first time I saw it I brushed it off. The second and 3rd time it started to bug me. I even jumped to Arturias defence on the ableton board  where the same claims were being made.

What I would like to know is if there have been any revisions that specifically rectify any of the legitimate claims and any definitive statements from Arturia refuting these claims of across the board recycling of code.

The product that sold me was the Modular, which no one picks on. Personally I love all the others and have every one except the SEM. To me they sound a lot like the originals, but then again I haven't worked with the originals in a long time. Bottom line, I like the way they sound which is what matters, but these claims are fairly slanderous if untrue.

Anyone with good knowledge of this saga?

[Koshdukai]

What I would like to know is if there have been any revisions that specifically rectify any of the legitimate claims and any definitive statements from Arturia refuting these claims of across the board recycling of code.

The product that sold me was the Modular, which no one picks on. Personally I love all the others and have every one except the SEM. To me they sound a lot like the originals, but then again I haven't worked with the originals in a long time. Bottom line, I like the way they sound which is what matters, but these claims are fairly slanderous if untrue.

Anyone with good knowledge of this saga?

No, and I'm glad you posted this. I wasn't aware of that SOS article and this is really an interesting subject.

Fortunately (for my sanity) I reduced a lot of my forum browsing and only briefly go to KVR, Ableton and NI's forums and recently due to the lack of spare time, reduced a lot my presence on Arturia's own forum so maybe because of that I was never exposed to the type of bashing you're describing.

The only exception to this was when I started looking for every info I could get around the web for the Minibrute. Checking some forum discussions, one can clearly see some tendency to badmouth Arturia's current hardware offerings, mostly referencing the fact that it's Made in China and that explains a lot of the issues.

I have 2 of their hardware products and even though I can clearly see some differences (not necessary bad, just different) when comparing to some of the other brands I own, I can't complain more (maybe even less) about the quality and durability of their products than I complain about the other "more established" brands.

Nonetheless and like you mentioned, it's quite easy to be aware of a (new?) "bashing" trend rise around this forum and usually, when I spend some time getting to the bottom of it, I see that mostly are users that loose their patience/temper too soon or complain on something Friday night and Monday morning already posted about waiting for 2 days for a reply! (Not frequent but I've seen a few of these, usually when Monday was a holiday  )

Not to say that Arturia couldn't improve its support and even social/forum presence maybe by increasing their human resources dedicated to that (I know times are hard and not every company can do this when needed, only when possible).

Even so, it's easy to clearly see the efforts of all the Arturia staff when there's something to say or do about what's posted.

Also, regarding some recent performance and mostly stability issues on the different supported platforms and formats, users should try to help themselves by helping Arturia to get to the bottom of the issues. Usually it's quite hard to fix an issue if it's impossible to reproduce it. I won't even mention the fact that some users don't even know how to configure/optimize their setups to run more CPU demanding software.


So... yeah, I'm also a bit curious about the official response to your original question, although, if you had the new Wurlitzer-V or the Oberheim SEM V (you really need to at least try the demo) you'll see that nobody can point their finger at Arturia for "copy+pasting" sound generation code (there's always some framework/auxiliary code reuse of course but that's the expected good development practice)

[kingdubrock]

Well, I worked at a very well known established a/v manufacturing company for a long time. Our products were not cheap and were often fraught with hardware and firmware issues - often with a significant link to our China manufacturing practices. Downward competitive price pressure makes manufacturing outside of China basically impossible. I wish more people would just accept that or stop supporting the major manufacturers and big box stores that ultimately force the situation, and be prepared to spend a lot more. Its called sucking and blowing at the same time.

 In one case we had a pretty gnarly firmware issue that would actually blow the amp in certain situations. Not most situations but enough - and a guy with a real bug up his butt started a huge sprawling campaign to collect examples and statements from other users from all over the world in this giant forum thread and would not let it die, despite that fact that anyone who reported this particular problem to us would be given close attention and troubleshooting as well as an instant replacement. This was a rare move on our part but were were actually stumped.  It got to the point where when you googled that particukar model his thread would be the first result that came up. It hurt sales in a big way. Meanwhile our engineers were frantically trying to figure out what was even causing the problem and months went by.

In fact, I was on the sales and marketing side officially but also handled tech support because we were a small team and kept getting smaller as the economic depression wore on. Some of the issues were systemic and there was nothing I could really do for people. In some cases it simply wasnt possible to fix because a supplier would go under or something. The only option would be refund or cheap upgrade and while ethically it would be the right thing to do, the top management simply would not permit it. So you either dance around or quit. And I will admit that when things got too hot I would sometimes avoid my phone and support inbox. I would have to spend all my time getting yelled at, not be able to really help and not be able to focus on sales, which was my actual job. It's just a fact that support is a money pit which can kill any profit and thus, the company itself. The understandable arguments from customers that honesty and full blown support would generate more loyalty just dont pan out in the bottom line or companies would invest more in support.

I am not some denizen of the message boards. I usually land on them when researching a product or options for a product and generally seek consensus on which ones seem to be leaders. So if I hadnt bought my Arturia plugs before seeing the bashing threads, I would be lying if I said it wouldnt have influenced me. These days parting with money in an industry that is losing its ability to generate a ROI is more nerve wracking than it used to be.

If Arturia were my company I wouldnt let false and misleading claims stand like that. I would probably not respond directly to accusations but would put out a white paper or something that showcased on a fairly technical level the differences in the modelling code between the different products and show off our talent - not just the TAE blurb they put in the manuals.

While I can see that Arturia has some problems, I dont want to judge them or bash them for that, but want them instead to succeed. I dont know if people realize how crappy our music would sound if the smaller companies with some muscle and track records go out of business because people with no insight and an internet connection want to vent - and all we had were a few major brands and free vst's.

I also would NOT put a forum on my site if there was no one around to carefully monitor it who was empowered to speak openly and act decisively.  

[SETTIMIO]

YOU HAD A GOOD EXPERIENCE WITH CUSTOMER SUPPORT???

READ MY CASE PLEASE :

I bought a "analog the factory" keyboard-controller over a month ago.

It has worked 2 times and since then i wrote everyday to the customer department,

Sometimes they replied, many many times they did not.

The few times they did reply, they were not able to fix the problem, so i thought they were going to replace it.

But they didn't .

Last mail, over two weeks ago, they asked proof of purchase, which i regularly sent to them

since then, NOTHING, SILENCE.

I ask myself, why such bad service? is this the way customers are treated at arturia?

I really would like to see if they answer to this, or simply delete this from the forum...

Settimio Di Castro Case 109209

[Antoine]

Hi Settimio,
After several yet unsuccessful attempts to fix your issue remotely, I have forwarded your case to the Sales department to organize a warranty exchange of your unit. As they are just taking a slight breath after Hybrid Madness real madness, I kicked again to accelerate things.
We did not forget you, never. Things take times. Not an excuse but an explanation.
Cross-flooding the forum do *not* accelerate things, believe me.
Anyway someone will get an answer to you this afternoon, I'll do my best for such thing happen.

[SETTIMIO]

Hi Settimio,
After several yet unsuccessful attempts to fix your issue remotely, I have forwarded your case to the Sales department to organize a warranty exchange of your unit. As they are just taking a slight breath after Hybrid Madness real madness, I kicked again to accelerate things.
We did not forget you, never. Things take times. Not an excuse but an explanation.
Cross-flooding the forum do *not* accelerate things, believe me.
Anyway someone will get an answer to you this afternoon, I'll do my best for such thing happen.

So, let me get this straight for other users too: the only attempt you made was to turn on the keyboard holding some keys so it would have reset the keyboard. That unfortunately did not work and that was it.

The day after (at least 2 weeks ago) you said the sales department would write me, but they did not.

It's not like they need to come here and pick the hardware up, they only need to authorize me to send it back.

If writing 4 posts is cross-flodding, i m sorry i did, but when you say that does not work, you are obvoiously wrong: IT'S THE FIRST TIME YOU REPLY TO ME IN WEEKS!

 I have a shop myself: when i organize a sale, i make sure i can handle customers.

I look forward to see if what you say it's finally true and someone will get back to me this afternoon.

untill then, yours remain the worst customer service i dealth with in my life.

I m sure you understand the frustration that a guy goes trough when he uses all his savings to buy something that does not work, from a company that does not reply.

Settimio (semi) Di Castro.

[SETTIMIO]

P.S.

If weeks ago, instead of silence, someone would have said that there were so many difficulties with customers, i would have been way more patient!

Semi

[stuey]

My two cents, or pence as i'm from the UK would be...

Confining technical issues through the correct channels, chasing with polite emails or using a telephone to follow up a ticket. Thankfully I have only had two issues, one was that my e-licenser stopped working, and another I figured out myself.

Although at first I did feel that my ticket was not being looked at, I chased the guys with a call and a few emails and they sent me a new dongle and I was back up and working in a few days.

In my opinion, posting threads from disgruntled users just makes it more difficult for support to track progress of an issue as they cannot reference a conversation you had in a forum back to a ticket number, and for them to add these notes to a ticket just isn't viable for them, baring in mind support is free.

It might be worth posting a poll on how many users would want to pay for technical support, it's fair enough to say if users have purchased new products there should be a grace priority tech service available, but after this we should appreciate the work that is being put in.

Stuart         

[SETTIMIO]

I d like to let anybody know that they finally sent me a new (and working) hardware.

after all the critics, it's time to say thank you.

[Filip]

In my case I had a bad experience with the tech support giving me useless feedback .
Things like that I have to update ?
No respect at all!
It's the first thing I do when I buy new software.
Telling them this by email.
Never had any reaction on this.
Another thing was the minibrute they promised in April and after canceling the available date time after time and giving no support at all about the date, the first units are now arriving in the U.S.
I live in Europe and the dealers here will get them in oktober (pre -orders)
Again no respect at all.
NO RESPECT!!!!
Again .
NO RESPECT FOR CUSTOMERS IN EUROPE!!!
NEVER NEVER NEVER I WILL BUY ANOTHER INSTRUMENT FROM THIS COMPANY.

[Filip]

THE ONLY THING WHERE ARTURIA IS GOOD IN IS PROMOTING !!!
BRAINWASHING YOUR HEAD WITH FAKE PROMISES .

[stuey]

In my case I had a bad experience with the tech support giving me useless feedback .
Things like that I have to update ?
No respect at all!
It's the first thing I do when I buy new software.
Telling them this by email.
Never had any reaction
NO RESPECT!!!!
Again .
NO RESPECT FOR CUSTOMERS IN EUROPE!!!
NEVER NEVER NEVER I WILL BUY ANOTHER INSTRUMENT FROM THIS COMPANY.

I guess if you worded your support request like this, no wonder you didn't get a response.
Remember, these guys don't read minds, they make music gear

[Koshdukai]

@Filip: To start with, I have 0 (zero) complaints about Support. Maybe I'm more patient than you? or lucky? or... maybe, polite and descriptive of my issues?

Sure, some initial Support answers may seem generic and not-to-the-point but that's a natural thing to happen, so usually after a 2nd more descriptive or counter-reply explaining what the Support has missed or didn't understand, the issue is solved.

The only place where I've seen some unanswered questions is here on some of these forums, but, we all know that these aren't Support forums, right? Even so, there's a lot of answered questions around here, by Arturia staff.

I would like to see a heavier forum/social presence from Arturia, to avoid some of these bashing threads to grow wildly but that would need more resources thrown in or taken out from other departments or projects.  

Anyway, about the Minibrute:

THE ONLY THING WHERE ARTURIA IS GOOD IN IS PROMOTING !!!
BRAINWASHING YOUR HEAD WITH FAKE PROMISES .

I agree, Arturia is usually very good at promoting their products ...and that's not a bad thing, IMHO.

I'm in Europe and I'm waiting, like everyone else.

Do you see me complain? No. What for? If complaining solved all the logistic issues Arturia had to deal with to bring this product to us at this price with the quality I'm reading about from those that got it, I would be complaining as hell (maybe more than you) to "help" but... doing so will only cause a bad mood to everyone, including the Arturia staff that's trying hard to bring their baby to the masses.

I totally understand Arturia's decision to send 100% of the 1st shipment to the largest and earliest to order market. It's bad to wait but that makes total sense business-wise and... honestly, I want Arturia to stay healthy financially for decades, so they can keep producing this and future smartly made products at a good price vs quality ratio like the Minibrute.

I see lots of posts complaining about false release dates. Well... maybe believing those dates was your first naive mistake... so naive as Arturia was when mentioning April as their official release date. You both are at fault, including the sellers, btw, those were the ones most at fault, by mentioning release dates earlier than the official ones, just to get the pre-orders.

So... suck it up, either wait patiently or make room for those that want and are patient enough to get the Minibrute when it arrives.

Personally, I'll be happy if  I get mine before Xmas of 2012   ...if not, heck, I have so much to do already that I'll be happy to get it when it arrives and that's that.


Maybe this "little" incident will teach customers that building a new hardware product manufacturing and parts supply structure isn't something as easy as making a forum or blog post on the web. AND really hoping that Arturia will also learn (again) with this...

I guess manufacturing digital based controllers isn't quite the same thing as sourcing and making full analog hardware, right?

[stuey]

I would like to see a heavier forum/social presence from Arturia, to avoid some of these bashing threads to grow wildly but that would need more resources thrown in or taken out from other departments or projects.  

I guess manufacturing digital based controllers isn't quite the same thing as sourcing and making full analog hardware, right?

I agree with a lof of what you're saying but would have to disagree with your first point. The fact some of the tech guys are present on the forum has maybe compounded certain user issues. I mean a forum is a ' user area' as you say not a fast track for tech support. Helpful as that maybe for some, having the tech guys getting involved with the forums has counter productive knock on effects.

So if one guy gets some help from an arturia tech guy on this forum, everyone tries the same thing, before you know it you have people screaming for tech support, then there's the ticket system, which has no way of referencing these forum posts. No wonder things get messed up. I think all official support requests should be kept to the correct channels, that way there isn't any crosstalk, that's what makes for all the upset. Sure, if tech want to post useful points, FAQ and other useful info then that's all well and good but monitoring a forum isn't part of tech support.

I'm glad that arturia are pushing the envelope, making a leap to make true analog gear, maybe their delivery expectations were off and that has to be addressed, but aren't you glad you have some amazing sounding software synths and once the minibrute arrives you'll also have a true analog synth, which I know will also sound amazing.

Going back to tech support, when support are receiving these requests, they have a to presume that the user is a total beginner, also you have to work in a methodically way to ensure the user has done everything that is required. This means updates and the usual 101 stuff, once that has been completed then if any more help is needed you both know where you are, it's then a matter of going through things trying to diagnose the issue. This I know can be frustrating for experienced users, but providing full a clear instructions of what is wrong is imperative if users are to hope for a resolve. "it's broken" isn't helping anyone.

 I've done my fair share of tech support and there is nothing more frustrating than receiving a ticket saying "it's gone all weird on me man" then you ask for more infor info and they are like " er, dunno dude it's doing some odd stuff' like its just broken.... Fix it" rant rant rant

" oh, so I'm a mind reader now am I?, as well as tech support"

To make this even worse, here you on,y have email support, but then it's free so we can't really argue eh

Stuart

[Aovi]

Since this thread has morphed a bit into a tech-support-experience thread, I'll post mine:

About 7-8 months ago I bought the V2 collection bundled with the Laboratory 49.  About the only problem I have had was when I first started using the CS80V right after I upgraded to Pro Tools 10, I had some GUI bugs (and the Jupiter 8V too, if I remember correctly).  I created a ticket and within a day or two was told they were aware of the issue and to expect a patch in a couple of weeks at most.  A couple of weeks passed and there it was: a patch.  It fixed the problem, and I have had little to no problems since.

Based on both my experience with tech support and the quality of the VI's I have since added Spark Vintage and Oberhiem SEM to my collection.

I can understand frustrations build when things do not go as expected or as they ought to when you have dropped some hard-earned cash on a product.  Begin your contact with a respectful and level-headed tone, and work with tech support to find a solution.  Provide clear descriptions and accurate as possible conditions in which the problems occurred.  There are crappy companies out there, but for the large part, companies do want their products to work for you, so you will return, and tell others.