In fact it’s still got a hooky copy of Cool Edit PRO 2 installed on it. Heady days.
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I loved cool edit Pro. Damn, flashback.
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But when you switch on the monitor, it’s sitting on a blue screen right? 
Case closed. If that’s what you see when you open the box. Its an unfinished product.
If it was a note at the end of the last page of the manual, you’d think, oh cool, maybe they’ll add stuff down the line.
Subtle but big difference.
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In the spirit of this thread I think I nominate Korg as the “what you bought is what you got” company. Although they did give some pretty substantial updates with the Wavestate, but other than that don’t expect much in terms of updates and added features. That shit is final sale!
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Going back to Ableton and using push has made me realise what a bunch of mugs most of you are.
These hardware companies must be pissing themselves.
They’ve got you all on the hook waiting for that one perfect piece of gear that can probably do most of what Ableton and Push have been able to do for over a fucking decade, but it’s never going to happen.
It’ll always fall short in one way or another, because the only way to beat Ableton is to be Ableton, Bitwig have figured this out and are a decent controller away from being seriously competitive, but all these hardware companies are nowhere near. Much better to keep selling you an open promise for you to fill up with your own desires. They know you’ll come back for more.
Unless they’re not trying to build that super special all in one instrument.
But then you’d feel silly for constantly asking them for one, wouldn’t you…
Although 10 fucking years of firmware updates had made Push 2 an absolute fucking arsehole to learn.
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In some ways I kind of wish we were back to that point - kind of makes the device feel a little more self-contained, without having that live-service ecosystem BS being shoehorned in to our devices, and then becoming a walled garden pay-to-access-not-to-own nightmare that especially Roland has leaned strongly into (i.e. Roland Cloud).
I have to complain about the software side of stuff on Yamaha, being forced to have a system with Windows or Mac to be able to use much of their stuff for music production with a device that isn’t one of their flagship workstations (this includes the Seqtrak for getting beyond that device’s limitations with the user interface by itself, before downloading presets and samples on to it).
Roland is leaning way more into the consumer stuff side of stuff, they’re overall pretty unhelpful for more… discerning producers from what I can gather with much of the gear I can see they’re selling.
Korg will have my money for gear until they slip up. Roland and Yamaha will be a distant second and third until they get their crap together and cut that BS of needing to have a computer with Windows or Mac running nearby just for people to make music with their devices. Come on, Native Instruments and Teenage Engineering are a meme in the hardware music production/tech community for a reason.
another thread for the mute pile
You don’t have to announce it you know.
You can just mute it.
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And with the BS of Windows as of lately (MS Recall and Copilot being on by default, being bullied into using Edge, more crappy bloat that no one wants or needs, longer term users being pissed about how office software is a pay to access deal now, Win 11 being a thing despite Win 10 previously being marketed as the “last version of Windows”), no wonder people are making the switch to macOS or Linux. chromeOS if we’re too poor and/or scared of tech.
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macOS can be pretty nudging towards using their services too, sometimes enabled by default on a fresh install and you have to opt out but only after the fact. But I haven’t been on a recent version of Windows so I guess it’s worse there…
Also, it’s getting increasingly difficult to install third-party apps on macOS. But there’s still a reason creators gravitate towards that platform, for now.
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In all fairness to Elektron, they’re not the only ones conspiring to deny us features. For example, piano makers, providing only a single preset sound, wtf? And no song mode, either. And what’s with the lack of inputs and outputs on violins?
I told my wife, the other day, how upgrading from an OG Digitone to a DNII would allow me to make “more complicated” music. She replied that my music wasn’t complicated to begin with. Good point, honey. Perhaps I’ll stick with my trusty OG. And besides, I’m currently on the wagon for NGNY25.
I am okay working within the limitations of my tiny setup (DNOG only), so I don’t consider myself a “mug” in your sense of the word. If Elektron adds cup-holders to their next instrument, I could cave, however.
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Yeah, I’d wonder how all of these companies could keep getting away with it if it weren’t for everyone breaking their wrists pulling their wallets out so fast every single time.
Funny thing is, updates and their notifications in modern software (os level included) is part of the reason I mostly use hardware. I’m migrating away from macOS and windows since they’re both garbage these days, relearning Linux. I don’t have any interest in most newer hardware and I certainly don’t buy anything that hasn’t been out long enough for the people who like to pay to be beta testers to find the bugs in. I usually can’t be bothered to do updates on my hardware that’s actually capable of receiving them as there’re not typically compelling and I wouldn’t buy something that wasn’t already stable enough to use, gambling isn’t in my nature.
I don’t buy the “we’re in a golden age of gear” sentiment, well, maybe for the companies. There’s a lot of it even if it’s mostly the same few things over and over and it all comes half functional from the factory. It’s attainable but that’s because we’re in a golden age of debt driven luxury poverty.
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I gotch’er firmwares right heah!
Much easier than wetware updates, and I am a professional wetware updater.
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Limpware updates
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