One more BIG THANK YOU to MOTU!

[Frodo]

As far as the PRODUCT, I am in agreement, DP is the best, so let's get that out of the way.

So let's talk tech support.

M-AUDIO - calls are answered immediately (or within about 3 minutes) and the guy who answers always knows what he is talking about. If there is a problem, the unit is fixed or replaced, even when it is out of warranty if they have a known defect.

MakeMusic - As much as I am moving to Sibelius, I still use Finale and while the company may be in denial about bugs at times, they respond quickly to most problems and provide real solutions.

Bose - Probably the premiere company on this front. Customer support is probably the best on the planet. I have always been treated with respect and given credit as a thinking professional (can't always say the same about MOTU's "scripted" responses.)

Adobe - Again, responses are handled quickly, hnoently and professionally.

Apple - Generally, the same as Adobe. They really try to get you going and will replace HARDWARE if there are known issues. Even past warranty dates.

MOTU tech support has been great at times, but more often than not, if I am reporting a bug which has been confirmed by many other users here, the MOTU tech will often say it is NOT a bug, only a problem with my system. And 5 or 6 months to respond to a tech support email is a joke. What are you supposed to do if you are dead in the water? Wait 5 months to get back to work???

I use DP, MachFive and MX4 because they are great products, even if they are a bit slow on the M5 intel transition - like a year! But if I had to depend on MOTU techs to stay in business, I'd have swithched to Logic or some other DAW a long time ago. This site is my tech support. I don't even bother to contact MOTU any more- except for updates, of course.

Man, I'd say you've had great experiences with various tech support and I don't fault you one bit for it. I'm just glad that this one MOTU issue-- which wasn't always "make or break"-- is finally being pursued.

For me-- M-Audio's documentation about certain drivers were faulty a few months ago-- said they were Tiger compatible when they weren't. It took about a month before I heard back from them, and they suggested I wipe my entire hard drive and install Panther.

MakeMusic-- I send them my computer and system specs along with a description of my problem, and they respond several weeks later asking about how much RAM I have installed (when that info was included in my original e-mail). I had to revert to v 2006 and can't use 2007.

NI and GPO-- I'd bought the full version of GPO before Finale included the scaled down version. The Finale version canceled my full GPO authorization and I had to go from MakeMusic, Garritan to Native Instruments-- it was a three-way circus that was never resolved. I've not been able to use any version of GPO on my computer for two years now.

As has been said before, nothing or no one are perfect. But when a company contacts me directly and wants my help to pinpoint a bug-- which is clearly a difficult one for them-- there is a measure of assurance there that I can't take for granted... and every user's experience with tech support is different. That's just the way the cookie crumbles, I guess.

[maswot]

I've been a happy MotU customer ever since Performer first came out in the 80s, and I have to say that during all this time I have consistently been amazed at their unsurpassed approach to customer service and tech support. They are just as pro-active a quarter century later as they were when they were a start-up, and that's not something that can be said about most businesses. They are truly an amazing company. Just my two cents.

[bradswan]

Hey Frodo it's good to show our appreciation so thank you for sharing your experience with us. Too much energy is wasted on bichin' and moanin' and brother I've done my share. I've made alot of music with Motu and I am eternally grateful for that.....now if I could only get 5.11, the most stable update in quite sometime to play nice with me.
Do you think I should re-install? I've tried all the obvious stuff like trashing prefs, deleting unused soundbites etc...,
and that works for a little while, then the crashing, strange.

I truly believe this is a stable update so there must be something that's getting in the way.
Any ideas?

[Frodo]

Hey Frodo it's good to show our appreciation so thank you for sharing your experience with us. Too much energy is wasted on bichin' and moanin' and brother I've done my share. I've made alot of music with Motu and I am eternally grateful for that.....now if I could only get 5.11, the most stable update in quite sometime to play nice with me.
Do you think I should re-install? I've tried all the obvious stuff like trashing prefs, deleting unused soundbites etc...,
and that works for a little while, then the crashing, strange.

I truly believe this is a stable update so there must be something that's getting in the way.
Any ideas?

Hey Brad:

Maybe we should get together for one of our DP pow-wows pretty soon to take a closer look at what's going on. It could be a RAM issue-- either not enough, or perhaps some RAM has gone bad-- not sure. Some of your plugins may be fighting with DP and OSX, or it could be a drive bus clog.

During DP 4.x, it was necessary to delete the undos from time to time, or to at least limit them to something around 50 steps. I've not had this problem in DP5.11 at all, and can't even remember the last time I looked in my undo history list.

Whatever it is, it sounds like something very simple-- or at least I hope it is.

What are you doing at the time of the crashes? Have you checked your crash reports to see what the offending file might be? Have you checked your background processing window to see what's active? There are some edits that are difficult to do on the fly or to put into effect too quickly. For example, fades need a few seconds to gel, and quick stops/starts during fade calcs can jam things. I'm just not entirely sure what's could be the cause.

Peace,
Frodo

[bradswan]

Frodo,
That sounds like a great idea, I would really appreciate it.
I'll be in touch.

Brad

[monkey man]

`
Not sure what happened in Frodo's case, but the issue MOTU contacted me about was one many of us have experienced, but nobody's managed to nail.
Info for the troubleshoot was thin on the ground in all relevant threads.

This prompts the question:
Did MOTU PM us 'cause they'd extracted all they could from the board concerning the issue?
It would seem so, and it makes sense.

I'm just not sure about their choice of candidates in my case.
Perhaps they knew I wouldn't bite their heads off.

[Phil O]

.....now if I could only get 5.11, the most stable update in quite sometime to play nice with me.
Do you think I should re-install? I've tried all the obvious stuff like trashing prefs, deleting unused soundbites etc...,
and that works for a little while, then the crashing, strange.

I truly believe this is a stable update so there must be something that's getting in the way.
Any ideas?

I hate to be the one to keep bringing this up, but I notice you're using Waves. Waves is not officially supported for DP 5.11 and although some people are reporting no problems, others (myself included) have linked it to crashes. Try moving Waves to another location for a bit and see if the problem goes away.

Phil

[Frodo]

.....now if I could only get 5.11, the most stable update in quite sometime to play nice with me.
Do you think I should re-install? I've tried all the obvious stuff like trashing prefs, deleting unused soundbites etc...,
and that works for a little while, then the crashing, strange.

I truly believe this is a stable update so there must be something that's getting in the way.
Any ideas?

I hate to be the one to keep bringing this up, but I notice you're using Waves. Waves is not officially supported for DP 5.11 and although some people are reporting no problems, others (myself included) have linked it to crashes. Try moving Waves to another location for a bit and see if the problem goes away.

Phil

Good call, Phil. Excellent advice.

[bradswan]

thanks Phil, will do. What do y'all think about the possible conflict of Waves and Auto Tune 5 or even just AT5 causing conflicts?

[tripit@earthlink.net]

Jeeez...I wish MOTU would contact me. I've been beating my head against the wall about the DAE issue since DP5 came out.
I can only hope that they are finally addressing it in the next update.....

[HCMarkus]

Now if I could only get 5.11, the most stable update in quite sometime to play nice with me. I truly believe this is a stable update so there must be something that's getting in the way.
Any ideas?

As Phil noted, some Waves MAS plugs are bad voodoo with DP5.11. I went to a strict Waves AU diet and, as I have spewed repeatedly throughout this forum, have been very happy with the performance, particularly in light of the pre-rendering that is now available.

AT MAS was another big problem. I have not moved to AT5, but had to move to the AU version of AT4 to make it work under DP5.11. The MAS version of AT4 was guaranteed instant crash!

I can report continued excellent 5.11 performance at heavy V.I. loads with my PPC. I hope you soon hit the sweet spot, too, Bradswan.

[Eleventh Hour Sound]

Antares stuff, (espcially AVOX), and AutoTune 5, is a little sketchy for me... I love what they do, but the current releases seem to complain when I open their GUIs, so it wouldn't surprise me if they were clashing (or at least making things hard) on other plug ins

thanks Phil, will do. What do y'all think about the possible conflict of Waves and Auto Tune 5 or even just AT5 causing conflicts?

[tomeaton]

I've been using Performer for 20 years and in that time I have NEVER spoken to someone at the company that knew more than I did about the product.

The MAJOR faults that I have with the company are:

They will not admit when there is a problem even when they are trying to fix it.

And

They have every registered user's name and contact info on file but do nothing to keep us up to date about changes to DP, updates, etc. Every software and hardware manufacturer that has any sense actively tries to maintain their clients by keeping the client UP TO DATE with the current software release. Why won't MOTU let us know when there's a MAS patch, or a new driver? Bizarre.

That said, I do like DP... and use it every day to make a living. 5.11 is solid, 4.61 was too. 3.11 was good, too. Every now and then there's a release that can keep you going for a year or more, and then it's headache city for a few months. Right now it's pretty smooth sailing here.

(Expecting crashes and general chaos tomorrow)

tom

[monkey man]

It was a thrill to be contacted by them.
It seemed this would never happen, that I'd always be watching from the sidelines.

So I'm just letting those who feel left out know that I suspect several Unicorns would have been contacted, specifically those who were involved in the relevant thread/s.
It seems I've deleted the message, but I believe the fella involved said I'd stated/discussed/encountered the issue, and that's why I'd been contacted.
Why, oh why did I go and delete the message?
I remember thinking, "if I trash this it'll encourage the flow (of more correspondence with MOTU)".
I wasn't thinking (as usual); I wouldn't expect further contact unless I happen to get involved in discussing another dead-end issue, and even then, I won't hold my breath.

Again, I propose that they watch us (and weep and laugh), and that when we're unable to solve issues, they tackle 'em.
I hope I'm right, not least because it'd be efficient business practise.

I s'pose we'll all get our turn eventually, probably when we least expect it.
When (or if) it does happen, the natural Unicorn response is to shout, "THANK YOU, MOTU!".

[Phil O]

Again, I propose that they watch us (and weep and laugh), and that when we're unable to solve issues, they tackle 'em.
I hope I'm right, not least because it'd be efficient business practise.

There are a lot of software products that have spawned forums, but I've yet to see one as active and as well moderated as this one (kudos to James). MOTU would be foolish to not have someone monitor this board on a regular basis. It just makes good business sense. I can't believe they don't already.

Phil