Tales from the depths of customer support, Rd. 2 (Fight!)
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Okay, I know I said in the last go-round that I wouldn’t actually put e-mails up from customers, but this is too odd/good to pass up. Plus, judging from the tenor, it’s incredibly unlikely the customer in question reads this blog. Anyways, the wife and I went up to Portland today, and when I got back, sitting in the queue was this:
_Witch one of your items
Is good for changing your Voice and also djing because I like to sound crazy on a track I want my voice to sound very crazy I did find the right software yet
Can you please call me on my cell #XXX-XXX-XXXX
Ps the best for my voice to change it thank you very much
_Now, this was amusing enough in and of itself. My first impulse was to hit the “Delete” key, since I knew where this was going, but that’s just not right. So, instead, I thought a little feeler would be safe. I replied:
You want to look at Discord 2. It can do crazy voice effects.
So, about ten minutes later, I get the following:
_How can I get it and can it work with pro tool
And what crazy voice effect it has
_Okay. Ummmm. Where do I go with that? I thought it best to nip this right in the bud, because I’m a helpful person (as many of you know that have written the AD or AI contact lines with obtuse/obscure questions, and been rewarded with a 4K missive on some topic or another) but, well, you have to draw the line. So I send back:
I’m sorry, but our products don’t work with ProTools.
Now, I know that isn’t strictly true, but the other half of the company thought it would be mean to sick him on Angus and FXpansion, and, well, you know. Anyways, a couple minutes later, I’m blessed with the following:
Can I use them on a pc
And how do I use it
Dear Sweet Baby Jesus, give me strength. I’m afraid to reply to that one, and it is 8:00pm on Saturday, after all. Where would you go with that?
34 comments
this is where you give him the number digidesign. tell him to ask them...
Looks like you might have to hunker down for a good long while with this one. I think you'll be hearing from him for weeks.
"So how do I turn the pc on?"
Just refer the guy back the AD site, and don't respond past that. All the information he should need is there. If he needs info more general than that, it's all on the Internets and not hard to find. If he isn't resourceful enough to figure that out on his own, there's little you can accomplish even by answering all his questions.
c.
Been there, done that. Just give up now, it's only going to get worse.
Also, I bet that in a few months, this guy will send you a new email just like the first one -- people like this tend to forget they've already had a (fruitless) conversation with you, and they'll try to start it all over again.
Another x in the "no" column for the whole "DJs are musicians, too" debate.
Dj's are musicians, just not very good ones.
perhaps you could send him along to your new, outsourced support staff in belize?
Just tell him "If I were you, I'd by a digitech whammy pedal off of Ebay" and then put his name in the old junk mail filter.
Here is a voice effect popular with some DJs:
http://www.zzounds.com/item--BOSVT1
Recommend that to him, and he will probably be happy. It is most likely the exact "voice to sound crazy" type effect he is looking for. And it works with Mac and PC, and with ProTools. :)
So, you send the guy to that link, he decides it's exactly what he wants, and then begins demanding that you tell him which one of your plugins that is...
Actually, that being said, that IS an AD plugin I would buy. :)
Yikes. Really? That thing is terrible! And not "cool" terrible like the Radio Shack effects.
-CR
i'm with frugalpole, give him digi's # and tell him they can explain everything.
W
CR,
That old Boss voice effects thing has been in production for at least 10 years, 12 years, right? If it is not the exact one, it is very similiar to the old Boss voice changer that has been around since forever.
It might suck (I can't remember what it actually sounds like, to tell the truth) but it is definitly a 'classic'... It is a kind of staple of low budget DJ setups - which is why I think that is the specific effect that the guy is looking for.
I like this part of the zzzsounds page:
"This item will NOT connect directly to a phone."
It looks like something that would be a lot of fun to play with. I know I would have more fun playing with a plugin that cost $35, mapped to the control surface I already have, than I would by shelling out $300+ and going "Argh! This thing sounds like crap..."
If the original sounds crappy, is it reasonable to think AD could make one that doesn't?
It may be a niche device, but I'll cheerfully spend $35-40 on a niche device. It's the kind of thing I might not use on a weekly basis, but would be interesting to have tucked away as a random performance tool.
It has struck me over and over again lately that while the people reading this site have high standards for the quality of the audio we generate, the people in a crowd watching a show on Friday night just want to get worked up. ANYthing that's not another rock and roll cover band or two chicks with acoustic guitars will get you noticed here. That tends to mean that you have "traditional" Friday night bands - be they country, blues, r&b, rock, jazz, metal, punk, etc - and a slew of freak-out bands. There's very little middle ground, where you get a musically talented group of people bringing in some new technologies, new sounds, etc. I've started thinking about a pretty simple sample triggering setup with my laptop and a behringer floor control board. In practice, it's made me wish all this stuff was simpler. I wish my PA speakers sounded as good as my studio monitors. I wish there weren't so many goddamn wires.
I like the idea of individual plugins, with a smallish cpu profile (read: robust, not likely to destroy the whole setup and make my partner play while I reboot the damn computer) sort of "pre-rolled" to do something performance oriented.
My brother and I have discussed building small performance plugins with a pre-chosen set of samples and effects, one each for whatever songs we're doing, in Sonic Birth... for each song performance, you'd load up an AU that was pre-loaded with the samples you wanted, a way to trigger/loop them, and a couple of effects chosen for that song, mapped to the two expression pedals on the floor board. Could probably do this just as well in Live.
Anyway, maybe there would be something to an AD version of a DJ's "crazy voice" effects plugin, something with a bit of a fun attitude about itself... perhaps the interface could look like a rusted, beat up, beer-spilled-upon VT1. :)
This reminds me of something that happened to me... Im almost never at a loss of words but once I was performing and after the show 3 hot girls come up to me and say:
"We want you to know we don't like you just your music."
Thats the day I realized Im either amazing or a loser.
"That's fine, I don't like you, just your..."
--Adam
I actually looking up the VT-1 to find out more information about it. Seems that a lot of people have used it - but the only ones I recognized were Air, Bjork, and D.I.E.. It has also been in production since 1996 (so my guess was about right).
Also, many companies sell custom modded versions of it that can connect directly to the telephone, hence the "This item will NOT connect directly to a phone" warning on ZZounds.
The one thing I couldn't find was a sample. It is very annoying, as I am curious how the thing actually sounds. I know I have heard it before, but for the life of me can't remember what it sounds like.
"I am curious how the thing actually sounds."
http://www.soundarc.net/music/hijinx.mp3
I have no idea if thats what it sounds like, but i kinda hope so.
Yeah them puppies are favored by the security field for voice disguise. Specifically that model for the supposedly "gender voice bender". Never heard one in action though.
why don't you refer the guy to diamond dave? they sort of speak the same language.
right. thus my suggestion to send him to the new, outsourced, belize-based, AD tech support center...
Yo, Sex Rhino,
If memory serves, (I'm way not into researching it right now), the original VT-1 would attach to the phone, could be totally wrong though.
"right. thus my suggestion to send him to the new, outsourced, belize-based, AD tech support center..."
guess i missed that. diamond dave refs are only slightly less funny when they are redundant. :)
I'd be a jerk and advise him to buy a Sherman Filterbank :}
Best to cut these types of requests off early, otherwise they turn into something resembling
http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/python/Scripts/TheBookshopSketch
Thanks for keeping our sanity in mind ;) . Maybe try to pre-empt the next few emails, send a bunch of info that'll give some bigger picture. There is the question of if you care anymore haha . Keep the sanity mate .
Johnny_FX
support is an occupation which requires the utmost patience.
without patience, i would never be able to handle conversations like.....
me - "okay well somehow you've corrupted these files, so lets move them out of this directory so the software will recreate them when you launch it. So what i need you to do is move them to the desktop..."
customer - "how do i do that?"
me - "well, let's start by creating a folder on your desktop"
customer - "right... and how do i do that?"
utmost patience!!!!!!!!!!
I was at Quiznos today, and the guy in front of me in business clothes asks his friend, "do they sell sandwiches here?" The girl half-laughed just enough not to be rude. The guy gets up to the counter, and asks the guy, "Hello, do you sell sandwiches?"
I mean, even if he was illiterate, there were pictures everywhere. And would an illiterate guy need to be wearing a tie?
How much is that 25 cent item?
Who was buried in Grant's tomb?
Am I a moron?
How do you relocate an item on the desktop?
Question: which of these statements doesn't fit?
Re: quiznos.
Sandwich is an alien term for a guy in a suit.
The answer the guy at the counter should have given him is.
"No sir, we don't sell sandwiches, we sell solutions. Tasty solutions!"
Thats what the guy in the suit was probably fishing for.
You do know that no one is actually burried at Grant's tomb? He is entomed there.
And his wife, for what it's worth.
Viz. Quiznos, they don't sell sandwiches. They sell stomach pain. I've eaten there twice, and got sick both times. And they're slow. That shit blows.
-CR
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