toodamnhip wrote:I do not concur with there being some sort of “hate” for DP or it’s users. I know there was ONCE a problem of support and yes, that was unfortunate and pissed all of us off. But I don;t think it was based in “hate” unless such can be traced to actual Waves staff stating they “hated” DP and it’s users.
I do agree that DP should be respected as one of the oldest DAWs on the market and should be supported. But all the “hate of DP” talk might find it’s true causes in simple technical incompatibilities between Codex and DP. Technical quirks of DP is FACT I can attest to in my dealings with various developers, never hate of DP.
I was met with derision, sarcasm, and a hateful tone of voice when I would mention that i use Digital Performer. I was forced to call them a number of times over the phone, because the L3 MultiMaximizer would not install. There was a conflict with the Platinum Bundle authentication, which had the L3 ULTRA-Maximizer (a free addition to the bundle) authenticated, so the authentication skipped the L3 MULTI-Maximizer. After about 8 phone calls, spread out over a year, I can attest that I tried every possible solution that I could have done, and I came to understand the problem well. It had nothing to do with Digital Performer.
But when they asked me what DAW I was using, I would say "Digital Performer," and they'd say "there's your problem right there: Our plugins don't work with Digital Performer."
"Yes, they do. Most of us who use DP use Waves plugins every day with DP."
"You're not supposed to. It's not supported. You can't be doing that."
"We paid dearly for it. It works. Why wouldn't we use it?"
"Because it's not supported! It'll do bad things to your system."
So, they'd have me go through the uninstall, and install for ALL of their plugins. This meant that my installation was compromised, and I now needed new installers, which I couldn't get officially, because I used DP. But after going through the process with them, it wouldn't work (for the same reason stated before) and they'd say "Your problem is that you need to use a REAL DAW! You can't do anything with Digital Performer! Nobody uses it, and I mean NOBODY! You should switch to a real DAW like Logic or Acid."
Every time they mentioned DP, there would be derision and sarcasm in their voices.
I'm not even telling you the whole story. It gets a lot worse. But you're probably thinking by now, "What did Shooshie do to provoke this behavior? Surely they wouldn't do this for no reason."
I never did figure out the answer to that, except that I was confident that I did nothing other than to tell them what DAW I used. (I say "they" because essentially the same conversation happened with at least three different guys during the first 8 months of this. Finally, someone told me of an engineer to ask for. I had to call at night, because Tel Aviv is around the world. When I got him, he first went through the same suggestions that the other personnel had taken me through, except that he was polite about it. I politely told him "no, those won't work. I've tried those a dozen times."
So, he listened to me describe it, and he finally said "it sounds like the installer won't authenticate, because the Platinum Bundle installer is stealing the authentication from it, and it only authorizes the LE Ultramaximizer, which is free with the bundle.
I said "YES! You got it! That's what I've been telling them for a year!
"You haven't been able to use this for a year?" (Also, by this time, Waves was supporting DP again. That's another story, involving another member here: kgdrum.)
I explained the story. He apologized profusely, and said they've hired a bunch of morons for the front lines with the customers. He told me he couldn't have the fix for me right away, but he'd get one of his best programmers on it. He put her on the line. We agreed on a time to talk the next day, and she promised she'd have a new installer written by then. She was very smart, very efficient, and polite. Spoke english like a New Yorker. The next day, we talked and she had the installer ready. It worked. At last, I could use my L3 Multi-maximizer.
No matter what I said to the other guys, they always countered with "your problem is that you use Digital Performer. It doesn't work, dude. NOBODY uses DP. You need to switch to a real DAW." They'd put me through incredible busy-work, uninstalling, re-installing, running the authentication process, even though it didn't work. They'd have me do it several times. They'd say things like "see? That crazy Digital Performer is preventing it from working. You need to delete that DAW."
This is a bizarre story. Similar conversations took place about 6 or 8 times. Their voices were derisive and sarcastic. They laughed at me for using DP. I mean, real laughter. I always got the impression that more than one were listening, because of the way the one would laugh, and the things he would say or ask.
So, toodamnhip. How would you explain this? To what would you attribute their sarcastic tone of voice and derisive laughter at the mention of "that Digital Performer." Do you think they were only trying to be helpful in suggesting (sarcastically, derisively, and with extremely negative attitudes) that I switch to a REAL DAW like Logic or Acid? What do you think was their motivation?
In all the years I've talked to tech support at companies all over the globe, I've never once encountered anything like the crap I got from those frontline Waves support "morons" as the engineer described them. In fact, the only time I've ever been treated even close to that badly was by a collection agency who mistakenly thought I was some guy who had bought a Hummer, and they weren't going to listen to me or let me off the hook. They were coming to get that Hummer. (I hadn't bought a car in 5 years, but I paid cash, and it darned sure wasn't a Hummer.) It took threatening them with legal action to stop them, and to this day I still get letters in the mail about that Hummer. That's what those Waves guys were like. Always coming back with "no, dude; it won't work, because you use Digital Performer. It's not going to work until you switch to a real DAW. Nobody has even HEARD of Digital Performer."
Never mind that I explained to them that DP users all over the world used Waves every day, even though it was not officially supported. "NO, they can't use Waves, because we don't support that host."
I called about every 6 weeks, hoping to get someone who knew something, but each conversation was pretty much the same, until I finally got that engineer.
Now, your experience may not have been that involved. But if you'd called for reasons like mine, I'm pretty sure you'd have gone through the same thing. Let me tell you, it's very hard to forget that.
Shooshie
