PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

On 2004-04-15 07:23, menno wrote:
Well I hope they sort one thing out quickly, which was a problem with the old CW as well, communication.

Start communicating more clearly to stop all these rumours spreading.

Indeed!!!

Well, may the 2 device-packets will be available for old users at a discount ?

(NO, I am not starting a new rumour )

I would not buy them all one by one anyway, and it might benefit CWA with a lot of (positive) comments, tips+tricks etc here.

Anyway, I am quite happy just to receive the update, I totally agree with Nestor.

Cheers
Stubbe

On 2004-04-15 07:23, menno wrote:
Well I hope they sort one thing out quickly, which was a problem with the old CW as well, communication.

Start communicating more clearly to stop all these rumours spreading.

Yep! This is important...

Rumours? What rumours?

They are just doing what all the companies do. They don't care about building a relationship all they want is to sell units. It might make good sense to us for them to have a dialog but to them this is just a waste of time. Their job is to produce products and our job is to buy them. You are never going to change the corporate philosphy. They know what is best for us not us. I am sure if you ask them they would say they are to busy with their product development to engage in communication. I think it would upset the power structure if customers had any kind of a say in what goes on.

On 2004-04-15 08:58, Nestor wrote:

On 2004-04-15 07:23, menno wrote:
Well I hope they sort one thing out quickly, which was a problem with the old CW as well, communication.

Start communicating more clearly to stop all these rumours spreading.

Yep! This is important...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: braincell on 2004-04-16 09:36 ]</font>

Braincell, you may have noticed that CWA is a 'limited corporation' - no obvious jokes, please Details published in some official register, like number of owners, size of shares etc.
Usually such a company is owned by just a few persons, let's assume 3 for simplicity - I'm too lazy to dig it out now

The most simple thing would be to sell the assets (read knowledge, software technology) of the company to some big player.

Rewriting something like SFP from scratch would be probably in the $20 million range, but it would take an unrealistic amount of time - that's why noone has done it yet.
That said, a 5-10 million cash deal for the owners is not unrealistic imho.

There must be something more than just business running around 'urgent' Frank's head to keep this enterprise going

cheers, Tom

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2004-04-16 11:18 ]</font>

On 2004-04-16 09:34, braincell wrote:
They are just doing what all the companies do. They don't care about building a relationship all they want is to sell units. It might make good sense to us for them to have a dialog but to them this is just a waste of time. Their job is to produce products and our job is to buy them. You are never going to change the corporate philosphy. They know what is best for us not us. I am sure if you ask them they would say they are to busy with their product development to engage in communication. I think it would upset the power structure if customers had any kind of a say in what goes on.

I might be mistaken but I think you were around when Fortune posted here regarding CW new marketing strategies and website, where it seems many user requests and suggestions have been taken into account (the demo contest for example), so....
what the fuck are you talking about?

Hey, I'm not saying it's perfect yet and I'm not quite happy with the silence regarding SFP 4 and all the rumours being allowed to spread, but they are only a small team (smaller than the original CW) and they do have actual work to do too.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2004-04-16 10:35 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: King of Snake on 2004-04-16 10:36 ]</font>

When Yamaha created FM synthesis, it became and still is the favorite type of synthesis used by Brian Eno. At the time he was told by the company that their customers were too stupid to program the DX7. Eno suggested that they make it easier to program. They didn't listen to him. Instead they dropped the FM synthesis line of products.

For me contests are nice but that isn't anything substantial.

My main request is to improve the STS series. I'm not the only one who wants this.

As to the SFP 4.0 release date, I'm not one of the ones complaining. I think it was stupid of them to create a self imposed deadline.

On 2004-04-16 13:22, braincell wrote:

As to the SFP 4.0 release date, I'm not one of the ones complaining. I think it was stupid of them to create a self imposed deadline.

I agree. It's bad enough waiting for something in general, but when they can't deliver on a date when they say they will, it makes it much worse. It's nighttime in Germany now...I have a feeling we're going to have to wait until Monday, or even later.

maybe that's why they don't talk about it too much. better to keep working than to start more sh*t. it'll be ready soon. i'd rather see them be late and minimize the problems that definitely will pop up.

On 2004-04-16 14:21, Shayne White wrote:
I agree. It's bad enough waiting for something in general, but when they can't deliver on a date when they say they will, it makes it much worse. It's nighttime in Germany now...I have a feeling we're going to have to wait until Monday, or even later.

Hey Shayne, are you serious??
Does your music life depends on SFP4?
My god, is this getting normal?
I give it up

I can't use more than one instance of Minimax in a project and I'm not the only one.

I hope this is fixed in the new version, so yes SFP 4 could be quite important in my music making.

On 2004-04-16 19:10, hubird wrote:
Hey Shayne, are you serious??
Does your music life depends on SFP4?
My god, is this getting normal?
I give it up

Actually it does. There are several bugs which I'm hoping will get fixed; yes, the DSP overload problem with MiniMax. And the MiniMax MIDI velocity problem I'm having. Besides, I'm itching for the SDK!!!!!!

Shayne

On 2004-04-16 13:22, braincell wrote:
When Yamaha created FM synthesis, it became and still is the favorite type of synthesis used by Brian Eno. At the time he was told by the company that their customers were too stupid to program the DX7. Eno suggested that they make it easier to program. They didn't listen to him. Instead they dropped the FM synthesis line of products.

For me contests are nice but that isn't anything substantial.

My main request is to improve the STS series. I'm not the only one who wants this.

As to the SFP 4.0 release date, I'm not one of the ones complaining. I think it was stupid of them to create a self imposed deadline.

Wrong on many accounts.

First off Yahama did not 'create' FM synthesis, they 'bought the rights to' the FM synthesis techniques 'created' by a man named John Chowning who actually sold the rights to Yahama through Stanford (a bit embarassing for them if I recall as they had to 'rehire' him to do so). Also speaking of big business blunders, EVERY US based company turned down the FM rights (and to think, Whurlitzer & Hammand were top dogs then) before Stanford's Office of Technology Licensing ever even got around to Yahama.

Also, Yamaha had many FM synths & prototypes BEFORE the DX7 (GS1, GS2, CE20 & CE25), and many after (DX9, TX7, TXn16, DX1 (which finally introduced a control surface), DX5, DX21, DX27, DX100, FB01, DX7/IID, DX7/IIFD, DX7S, TX802, TX81Z, DX11, YS100, YS200, V50, TQ5).
I'm ignoring beats like the FX1/FX3/FX10/FX20 (all very rare) and let's not mention that in recent history Yamaha made the Fs1r (I love mine) and most recently the DX200.
--------
You're entitled to your own opinion about the contest, but it really is intended to address Creamware's needs for higher quality demos. Imagine, they actually created a company-sponsored contest around the people you intimate they care so little about?
--------------
On the topic of the STS series, they're probably in a bit of a pickle there. Since Samples (especially 'streaming' or 'direct-from-disc' based) require fast access to random access memory (RAM) and your storage subsystems the PCI-based nature of Creamware cards leaves them on a lesser footing unless they choose to follow in the STS-5000 vein and move more & more tasks onto the cpu. Anyone who owns the STS-5k is aware of how this sidesteps the advantages of the 'dsp quality' sound that we enjoy from other Creamware products, and which seems to be their main 'trademark'. Something to think about when you ask why they aren't pioneering exciting new things for DSP sampling on a limited R&D budget.
-------------------
As for the 'self-imposed' deadline its fairly clear that this was a marketing move so that they could make a nice splash at MusikMesse and establish new alliances in the marketplace. Noone here knows what may or may not have been fixed or what the cause for the delay is, but since their web services have fallen under the burden of just downloads before and it seems SFP4.0 will require all new keys placing additional burden, its pretty easy to guess at what they might be doing.
--------------------------
Absolutely right that they're a company whos job it is to sell products. Your job is what though? Bring down Creamware and Yamaha by championing the name of Brian Eno and the little man?

I think that many people who are familiar with your posts and get upset at you do so because you're obviously intelligent and have a lot to contribute and they are disappointed that you don't. Rather than doing so you seem intent on posting pure assumption and libelous statements about half the musical world. Honestly I origintally mistook you for a young college student out to challenge all assumptions on the grounds that the world needs a good shaking up, but the last months or so my 'assumption' has changed and I suspect that you're older and the psychology at work here is a bit different. For some reason I still think that you're capable of more but that's probably only my naivety.

Innit?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: valis on 2004-04-16 20:59 ]</font>

On the topic of STS, I gave up and am happy! Seriously, I bought Kontakt which is way easier to use than the clunky STS-5000, and sounds great in combination with my awesome CW synths...

-myth

Valis,

I'm not the topic.

I think that many people who are familiar with your posts and get upset at you do so because you're obviously intelligent and have a lot to contribute

I'm afraid I don't see why you would make such an assumption since 90% of his posts is whiny bitching about anything and most of his so called "facts" turn out to be wrong in the end.

For me contests are nice but that isn't anything substantial.

the contest was only an example man. Again, did you miss out on the new website and the rebranding of the product line? I mean, they of course aren't new features but it was what many users requested right here on the forum so your whole point of CW not listening to it's customers...

I think it would upset the power structure if customers had any kind of a say in what goes on.

...is bullshit. Secondly there is still no SFP4.0 so any assumptions you make about there not being updates in this or that are bullshit as well because you just don't know.

And I think we all agreed that we were a bit pissed that CW didn't make the deadline and have been a little unforhtcoming with some information so there's really no need to stress those points again and again.

My main request is to improve the STS series. I'm not the only one who wants this.

Actually, your last post (which is the one I was replying to) was whiny bitching about CW's customer relations and had no relevance to the STS at all.

I'm not the topic.

don't tell me you don't love all the attention

On 2004-04-16 13:22, braincell wrote:
When Yamaha created FM synthesis, it became and still is the favorite type of synthesis used by Brian Eno. At the time he was told by the company that their customers were too stupid to program the DX7. Eno suggested that they make it easier to program. They didn't listen to him. Instead they dropped the FM synthesis line of products.

.....

I think you are being a tad too cynical. That's ok though because I'm also a cynical bastard and I can understand this. However Yamaha are a large corporation and Creamware are only a very very small company. So I am more inclined to cut them a bit of slack and suggest that they have not being swallowed entirely by the large corporation profit driven mentality, and actually have end users interests at heart with a dash of hard reality thrown in as well.

I see posts where people suggest Creamware should give long term users freebies for being loyal which I think is a load of crap. You've never had to pay extra for updates as the software evolves. Just take the poor people who use a Mackie DB8 as an example. If you want improvements, you got to pay for it!

Some of the SFP updates have actually included freebies. E.g. STS2000p, Modular 2, Lightwave, Prisma, Masterverb. Unfortunately by doing this it seems Creamware now have a few vocal and ungrateful users that are now looking for freebies at every software update and will winge and trash the company at any opportunity if they don't get them.

While I'm at it , I also see posts where people think they have been ripped off by advertisements. IMO, you buy into the product because it meets a need you have that nothing else offers at the time. If you bought it on marketing blurb without research (the cost of the product definitely justifies research) then you can't blame anyone else except yourself.

I think that was a rant?

Kingofsnake,

I am so excited about the new colors on their website that I wet my underwear which caused it to become the same colors as the new creamware website!

By the way, ganging up and calling me rude names will just make me post more.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: braincell on 2004-04-17 10:14 ]</font>