Arturia team, can you please make a statement on a possible update?

[VAU]

Just wanted to remind the MB user forum community that Arturia is planning to release an firmware upgrade and we should expect it around mid-2019 as shared by Edouard; reference https://forum.arturia.com/index.php?topic=92467.msg151590#msg151590.  This isn't new news but just a courtisy to those in the community who hadn't seen it.

It would be grand if Arturia would share the list of defects and enhancements the update will include.

Do you really think, just to announce  a bug fix makes it better ... if the bug fixing is announced to happen in 1,5 years?

If you buy a car and something is wrong with the board computer, would you be happy if the company tells you: "Don't worry, we will fix it in about 1,5 years!"

[standingwave]

To put it in perspective, I paid about as much for my Matrixbrute as I did my car; a low km (20000km) 2009 smart fortwo.
 So yeah, that's why I am being so vocal. This is a premium priced synth that is made in China and has not yet been fully developed. I hope the Arturia booth at NAMM is getting hammered with questions concerning their flagship.

[endreola]

Do you really think, just to announce  a bug fix makes it better ... if the bug fixing is announced to happen in 1,5 years?

If you buy a car and something is wrong with the board computer, would you be happy if the company tells you: "Don't worry, we will fix it in about 1,5 years!"

I hear your frustration and I too am in the same boat as you and all other MB owners.  Don't take your frustration out on me because I happened to repost a timeline committment from an Arturia representative to address issues.  My post is not an announcement.  I am merely a customer just like most of us here, I do not have any affiliations, business alliance or ties with Arturia to make any such "announcements".


 

[standingwave]

No one is attacking you Endreola.
 We're all in this together. I just don't want to give them an out to what they have a responsibility to do for us as high paying customers.

[VAU]

Do you really think, just to announce  a bug fix makes it better ... if the bug fixing is announced to happen in 1,5 years?

If you buy a car and something is wrong with the board computer, would you be happy if the company tells you: "Don't worry, we will fix it in about 1,5 years!"

I hear your frustration and I too am in the same boat as you and all other MB owners.  Don't take your frustration out on me because I happened to repost a timeline committment from an Arturia representative to address issues.  My post is not an announcement.  I am merely a customer just like most of us here, I do not have any affiliations, business alliance or ties with Arturia to make any such "announcements".


 

i did not take this out on you, that was not my intention at all.

I'm just saying that scheduling at least bug fixes (for their most expensive product) 1,5 years in the future is a shame for a company that releases new products regularly.
that's why the argument: "but Arturia SAID they update the MB 2nd q or 3rd q of 2019!" is not a very good one.
even if it is repeated multiple times.

[endreola]

No one is attacking you Endreola.
 We're all in this together. I just don't want to give them an out to what they have a responsibility to do for us as high paying customers.

Understood.  And I also agree that waiting 1.5 years for a firmware update is unrealistic, specially when most companies adhere to some Agile development scrum model to reduce time to market.  We the customer should not have to feel like we're being held hostage.  The customer should always be the main priority in any business.  In today's era a company's reputation is merely a reflection on how well they execute.  The longer customers are made to wait the risk of return business increases.  This negatively impacts the company's brand which in most cases will impact them financially as customers will stop buying from them and find an alternate company to buy from.

Having to wait 1.5 years suggests the company doesn't conform to some Agile DevOps model.  Will this experience prevent from spending big dollars again with the company, probably so.  Will it prevent me from buying smaller priced items, absolutely.  Like a lot of other customers here, I too personally own multiple Arturia products.  And having to continue to wait is unsettling. The verdict still remains if I'm going to dump this gear on Reverb and move on.

[standingwave]

 This statement says it all about how they treat their customers internally.
 There was a bug in the forum and it allowed me access to the company's private forum communications which included records of their weekly meetings. This is just one example of their business practices.

(internal documentation has been removed)

[standingwave]

 Basically this tells me, if they continue to make money, screw us.

[endreola]

I hear what you're saying.  The way I interpret that is like this, the main focus of the marketing team is to drive awareness to boost sales, right?  Just because it showed good results doesn't necessarily mean that the leadership teams don't care about its customers. The performance of the leadership team is gauged on execution and if customers bail to some other brand then that will have a negative impact on sales.

[standingwave]

 I'd say that's a pretty generous interpretation. First off, spamming is illegal. Secondly, when customers are asking you to please stop and you continue because it works "in terms of money" it shows a pretty blatant disrespect for your customers in general, marketing team or otherwise.
 So if their attitude is we will do whatever we want as long as it works "in terms of money". We must ensure that it does not continue to reward them to disrespect us, the people who supported the company.
 Maybe a boycott is the only way to communicate with a company like Arturia?

[VAU]

i can not follow here...

Arturia is making good products at very fair prices. The Matrixbrute, just as Pigments (2 i own and can talk about) are wonderful instruments.

What was this spamming? i subscibe for the newsletter of any company i am interested in. In my opinion that's a good thing and completely legit.

you guys really should try to keep things apart, there's a lot (!) of good things Arturia is doing, and for sure they stand behind their products,
even if their customer support or update policy could be improved. Boycott? Come on...

[fede bts]

Just wanted to remind the MB user forum community that Arturia is planning to release an firmware upgrade and we should expect it around mid-2019 as shared by Edouard; reference https://forum.arturia.com/index.php?topic=92467.msg151590#msg151590. 

The reason why I appear to have rehashed an old thread was because I had this (surrealistic, I would say) chat with one of the Arturia employees taking care of their Facebook account. https://m.facebook.com/comment/replies/?ctoken=10156395304868813_10156395427333813&p=24&count=27&pc=2&pgdir=1&ft_ent_identifier=10156395304868813&gfid=AQBGmZ26JGUTTuCU&ref=m_notif&notif_t=comment_mention

Basically, the employee repeated (months after Edouard statement) that the update is still in the specification pipeline, that - at least to my ears - means that nothing has been done in the past few months. Later on, I have been told to write in this official forum (which is something I had been doing for quite a long time before their advice, and without any luck) and send support tickets specifying WHICH bugs I would like to see solved. Needless to say that, apart from linking the threads I had already opened in the forum, I made clear that every Matrixbrute user would legitimately expect to see ALL the bugs solved, not just a selection of the most voted ones! Moreover, I have been told this: "Yes, many people request it. We are reviewing the feature requests and bug fixes requests at the moment. So the more comments and messages we get, the most likely it is to happen." I do not know what that sounds like to you, guys, but to me it seems like an implicit admission that Arturia is still internally debating wether they are going to release this frigging update or no. Now, I personally trust Edouard, who always kindly answered to many of the support tickets I sent over the years... But what I would personally like to know is if Edouard's comment was meant to be an educated guess (maybe he is hoping for an update as well), or if we are entitled to take it as a proper and official statement.
Things are not clear, and Arturia does seem interested in taking time rather than giving proper answers at the moment. 
Am I the only one thinking so?

[standingwave]

 I've been following this intently and am just as baffle as you are Fede Bts. Their customer service is at best lip service.
 When internal memos talk about their customers as the screen shot above does,  I question a company's entire practice.
 Money talks, they obviously arent listening to our words.

[VAU]

@ fede bts:

I think the update will come, but scheduling it so late is not nice to say the least.

And i am with you: to have to send tickets, so they can decide what to do makes no sense at all to me
(which i said a few times here before). They gave us space here to discuss feature requests, so they should read them, join in here,
and pick those who make most sense or can be made real. 

i know some of my request are good ones but i did not send tickets for them, i did send them one email, asking, if they had read them,
they said "yes we did, some legit ideas", this must be enough then -  though i would have preferred if they discuss all ideas here with the users.

[rens]

Im sure youse are going to hate on me for the following, but I feel I have to say it because I have some decades of experience with software startups.

Arturia has a right to send mail to their customers.  Complaining about messaging as spam does not make it spam.  But if you feel that your data is being misused, report them to CNIL, the french information commissioners office. GDPR is a wonderful thing.  I dont feel that Arturia have done anything wrong to me, so I’d suggest you be damn sure before taking such a step. https://www.cnil.fr/fr/agir

But please bear in mind that Arturia are a company, not a charity, and need to make money to deliver, among other things, support for the MatrixBrute. Marketing things to the installed base is by far the cheapest way for most companies to get them money in that allows them to continue. You cannot begrudge them that.

I hate the lack of updates that they have delivered for the matrixbrute, and if you do to, then by all means stop doing business with them. I sure have: despite my interest in updating my v-collection and my occasional need for a new controller keyboard, I have decided not to pay them any more money for anything until the MB gets an update. Thats not a political stance, thats what I have decided to personally do because I have a sense of fair play. Notwithstanding, “if my studio burned down” I would get another matrixbrute because its awesome. I would buy it on the second hand market to square those two positions.

Its pretty clear that the MatrixBrute is a ‘halo’ product that is there to allow the mass market products to bask in its reflected glory. If you go around the internets and read the reviews for the MB, its fulfilling that role. And, it deserves it!! Its the best mono I have every owned and most of you on this board love it to death.

I have sympathy for Arturia, with about 50 employees, which can only do so many things at once and they are very extended with the large number of products that they have in the market. Bug fixes for a niche halo product are never going to pay the bills so I can understand the prioritisation. And who knows, maybe a key person or people quit on them and getting the ability to do MB updates is non-trivial for them.

Im going to take them at their word that an update is coming, and I look forward to getting the update and also to someday in the future buying another Arturia product in consequence.

In the meantime....Im just gonna keep making tunes that use the MatrixBrute because its awesome.