Was it released too soon ? [compilation topic]

Off-topic @tinytempo- What’s your gaming company? It sounds like just the type of company I like to support. I’m very much in favor of your approach to beta vs. full release. It seems you may have found the middle path that works best for everyone. Kudos for that, seriously.

On-topic- I love the Digitakt, but even from the first NAMM video I got this vibe like “We MUST get it out immediately,” but I never understood why there has been such a hurry. It feels almost like a reality show where there is always an imposed deadline to make the show more exciting. Why was it so important that the Digitakt get released so soon? Who was served by this decision?

I think when all the dust settles, everyone will be very happy with the Digitakt as a finished product. I think the main cause for debate/concern is that it was sold before being anywhere near a finished product.

I’m in the position of never having to think about the cost of things (I do anyway), but back when I had very little money, I would have been forced to return both the Digitakt and MPC Live until they were finished. As it stands, I’m happy enough to learn the workflow while the two companies iron things out. I won’t be doing it again, though. In the future I will wait until a product is at least 95% functional before buying. I’m not into buying gear very often, so I like to buy the right gear and then keep it for a decade or so before thinking about an upgrade. Now I’m in the position of having to wait several months to know whether keeping the MPC Live and Digitakt were wise or unwise choices. All signs are good, but there is still a risk.

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sorry you’ve had bad customer encounters with elektron. I’ve only ever had excellent customer service with them.
I’ve only ever had minor issues like lost / broken buttons from me messing around with my units but they’ve always sent me free replacements without quibble and free postage.
it’s consistently makes me feel like a valued customer. I have owned every one of their products apart from sidstation, most of which twice too, so damn straight gimme me free buttons :rofl: gnomesein

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I see your point, but I’ve got to say my experience here in Japan with Elektron’s customer service has been excellent.

Simon at Elektron Japan is a great guy, extremely helpful, knowledgeable and generally a real pleasure to do business with, as is everyone in his office. I’ve never felt like I was being treated as an arsehole, even though I probably am one. :wink:

Maybe I’m an old fart, but I remember when Apple had excellent customer service too. In fact, last year I had a problem with my iPad which was out of warranty and they fixed it free of charge.

I agree that overall, communication needs to change. I don’t mind being a beta tester as long as I am asked first.

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To add on the Elektron CS.They shipped me a missing PSU from Sweden and got here to FL faster than Sweetwater from 4 states away.
That gives me confidence that hopefully this is the same way they treat their software/hardware.
I’m a new Elektron customer so this is the part where I learn if I want to support them or not.
So far I see them as reliable and professional (at least their CS).

Lack of communication though is worrisome.

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It’s 2017 and they can’t get midi to work. Wow midi was better in the 90’s

Well, it’s exactly the other way round. The “machine specific stuff” forms the basis of everything and is anything but “high level”. I don’t know anything about the hardware built into the DT but it is clear that those components (CPU, DSPs, etc pp) would be the most different to any other Elektron hardware and thus require the most basic, low level programming, i.e. C/C++. Furthermore, are those components off-the-shelf? If yes, good, there are IDEs and abstraction layers available. If not, then the effort to program all that hardware could be much bigger. Even if they have a MIDI sequencer working on the OT, what kind of OS is running on it? What kind of architecture? Porting software from one platform/architecture to another can be a major headache and sometimes you’re better off starting from scratch…

Lots of generalizations, here. I’m not comfortable with this (I’m speaking as a Naut, btw)
I’ve come to think most of sentences with “always” and “never” are just wrong.
You just need one counter exemple to invalidate the speech…
E.g. : ants or bees are not selfish, they only live as part of the community, as cells of a larger body.

I can’t think for one minute Elektron has a mind set on screwing customers. Each word of each member of Elektron staff showed a will to do good, and a deep respect in the way they speak even to disrespectful people.
It hurts a bit to see one bring his own darkness on their acts and supposed motivations.

Elektron instruments have brought me so much joy these last few years that I have full confidence the staff will sort out the actual problems very quickly.

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I agree. I think they could have spent more time getting DT right, but i do not think they have this view of their customer. I think some of their actions is done through naivety. They have always been great via their support to me.

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How has Apple done that? I own several Apple products but have never felt that they have screwed me over. The stuff Apple releases is solid. I wish Elektron could match their products in quality (actually, the earlier Elektron units are high quality in my opinion but Digitakt seems to be ruining their reputation).

Agreed. They could have handled this one way better but I don’t feel like it’s a general reflection on their overall customer/product support. Which I’ve found to be great in the past. Pretty big hiccup but I’d imagine it won’t happen again and they’ll nail the DT OS asap. Hard for me to be entirely pissed at a company that gave me OT and AK :slight_smile:

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@42, it’s Out of the Park Developments. We do sports management games, I founded the company almost 20 years ago and I’m in charge of development of our baseball game, Out of the Park Baseball, which won the Metacritic PC Game of the Year award in 2016. We also have a hockey game (which is still early in its life cycle and not as advanced as the baseball one), it is called Franchise Hockey Manager. We are a very small comapny (about 20 folks), but we love what we do and we love interacting with our customers.

Maybe there were certain deadlines to be met in terms of financial reports that had to show some extra revenue (maybe to get investors involved?)… whatever it was, all we can do is speculate and voice our opinion about the way we (the customers) are handled.

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They need Colin Fraser to pay them a visit for some midi skill-ups!

The new Tempest beta release only a few days ago, would suggest that they changed their mind.

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The let down for the DT is software, which will be fixed. The build quality is excellent!

Apple has a very generous CS indeed. Specially if you’re nice to them and don’t come in demanding stuff. I’ve had issues with my iPhone on holiday, went into an Apple store and after some testing they swapped it for a refurb with a brand new screen/casing.

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I work with Apple. They’re good people. They don’t think their customers are holes of any kind.

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There have been several threads about wrong buttons in wrong places in DT as well as some buttons being sticky etc. Also many have complained about encoder values changing slightly automatically. That does not seem like excellent build quality.

Hopefully they are able to correct the software errors, some of the problems seem like the unit may be underpowered for what it’s doing.

What you said doesn’t relate to build quality but to quality control. The build is good. The buttons are good. As long as they’re putting them in the right places :sweat_smile:

I haven’t seen “many” people complain about the encoders. It’s fine in 1.02. You have to get used to the higher resolution and “acceleration” when turning faster. But that also has nothing to do with build quality.

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Early adopter here! And I knew it. I was never expecting perfection - but I must say, I was expecting to be able to sync DT to midi.

From this point, the ball is in elektron’s court - and I have to say some better communication would go a long way with me.

Wading through hundreds of forum posts looking for staff posts - or second hand news of tickets isn’t my scene. I would much rather the release notes, or website was clear that there are ‘known issues’. It simply cannot be the case that the MIDI sync crashes were not spotted before release of both 1.01 and 1.02.

Roll on stability and sync! DT is an awesome product - and I have faith that once these niggles are sorted, it will be a reliable mainstay of my setup for years.

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I agree, when they get the midi fixed it will be a superb product. Releasing a product when something as essential as midi functionality doesn’t work is a real head scratcher. I bought it to be the center of my live show and now I have to wait or just keep using ableton.

From everything I’ve read about DT so far, it seems it is not built up to the standard of older Elektron devices (and that is to be expected as it is almost 50% cheaper, while still not cheap).

What do you mean with higher resolution? I haven’t found anything wrong with the resolution of encoders in my Analog Four, I can dial in very precise adjustments. How are DT encoders higher resolution? Most of what I’ve read about DT encoders is people complaining it’s difficult to dial in precise adjustments. That doesn’t seem very high resolution.