But let's just look at what Arturia gave us and for me, I did not have major problems with my Origin Desktop over the years. Yes, the big knob needs to be used, otherwise it moves in only one direction. That normally goes away after a couple of hours usage. A little more annoying are the encoders for the sequencer. I have one that went only in one direction and then, after leaving it alone for a while, it would do the ghost move. I fixed that by heating up the encoder with a hair dryer and by some movements. Surprisingly, that seemed to have fixed the problem for a while now. Other than that, my unit is pretty solid.
Now, should you buy an Origin at this point? I don't see why not. Tread it like a hardware synth that doesn't receive any more updates and be happy with what you have. And there is plenty to be happy about. I would not buy if you expect Arturia treating the Origin as a current product with software updates and any other service. Somehow they abandoned their baby. That is actually funny since Arturia never understood why people pay $3k for a Virus and not an Origin. Maybe it is that any Virus got updates long after they were taken off the market while Arturia is stopping updates while their product is still on the market!!
It's clear that there are two kinds ideas for what's missing: some of us still wish for modules or templates which they feel that Arturia promised now years ago. Others, like me, just want to get our units work like it is supposed. In fact I'm very happy its sound and features. To me it's 100% fine with these modules and templates. If it worked well and support/service was liable, I would probably buy it again.
BUT there are still some problems that I simply cannot tolerate: Origin KB cannot send MIDI flawlessly. If I had known this, I wouldn't have bought it. I allready had desktop, so I was buying Origin with MIDI keyboard and MIDI controller functions. If you buy a synth for 3000 euros you can expect that it can send MIDI correctly, right? Origin is really my first synth that have these problems and I have owned few since 80s. Earlier (about a year ago) Philippe showed some interest for fixing it, but this led obviously to nothing. I cannot blame him, I think it's Arturia's money policy which sees no interest in Origin anymore.
Build quality & support (or should I say lack of it) is still the most annoying part of the puzzle. In fact the way they "handled" my warranty case is the real reason, why I will probably NEVER buy anything from this company. First, they build an instrument which have very poor quality of knobs. Second, they build an instrument which is practically impossible to repair anywhere else than in France. Third, they clearly do not even want to fix those malfunctioning units (no matter if they are under warranty or not). They simply ignore all our efforts to get help or information.
To me it's amazing how this company can think that they will survive from all this negative publicity around their flagship product. Is it really wise business to ignore us and hope that Arturia brand will stay in business regardless all these disappointed Origin users? Giving us and Origin more respect story might have been opposite: proud Origin owners strengthening the Arturia brand and reputation as a "company which build the great Origin". Now I know well that in many forums Origin is known mostly from its problems and Arturia is mostly known as a unliable company which tries to do this and that and everything has problems (and poor support too!). I am quite amazed about all this, but perhaps they make enough money with all these plastic MIDI controllers which are made in China...?
