Open Letter to Digidesign:
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
Dear Digidesign:
Could you stop being so lame? I know that’s a tall order, but I also know it’s possible. I can think of lots of largish (to me) audio software companies that aren’t lame. Ableton and Native Instruments come immediately to mind. I realize that you’re only one cog in a much larger wheel, but even so, it has to be possible.
Why are you lame, Digidesign? It’s hard to enumerate the specific reasons that have led to such a pervasive lameness, but in my general opinion, you haven’t really done anything worth a shit since Turbosynth came out, frankly. It is true that your products are the de facto standard of the professional recording community, and kudos for that, but I think that’s where the problem lies.
With the release of PT M-Powered, you have made available to a much larger userbase a product which is inherently unsuitable for people that aren’t, well, smart. I know this because these people write me a lot. “Well, that’s kind of odd,” you say. You no doubt say this because we don’t actually sell RTAS plugins. That would be a logical deduction on your part that while making a certain amount of sense, is demonstrably false. I will quote a sample letter, received not two days ago:
I’m installing the 2 plug ins that i have just bought but when I go to find them on my hard drive they aren’t there. Im installing them onto a MacBook OSX. Can you help? Could there be a problem with the plug in files?
I’ll give you one guess as to which host this customer was using. Now, one could say “this dude obviously has a larger issue, because everyone knows that PT doesn’t host VST plugins without a wrapper.” Well, as it turns out, not many PT M-Powered users know that. Because you never tell them. Nowhere on your site does it say “hey, the vast majority of plugins don’t work with our shit.” In actual fact, it says there is a “[h]uge selection of compatible third-party plug-ins and software options.” In your defense, there is a list of which plugins do work with your shit, but that list doesn’t include FXpansion’s wrapper;. Any thoughts on that?
Don’t even get me started on that wrapper, Digidesign. Seriously. Just don’t.
So, here’s one way you could be less lame: either start hosting AU/VST in your product, or make an effort to tell your customers that only RTAS products work with that shit.
kkthxbai.
Chris Randall
Audio Damage, Inc.
10 comments
But it has the word PRO in the name...it MUST be good
Ha!
Murphy's law is misunderstood most of the time; it gets confused with the law of unintended consequences and/or pure bad luck most of the time. It is not. It's about users and engineering products: Murphy was an engineer and he basically said (I am paraphrasing):
In a product, if you leave a way for the user to do the wrong thing, many of them will go for it.
The situation commented by CR is a great example... by not putting on their site, IN HUGE LETTERS that they are not VST compatible, it only causes the majority of their customers to think it is... why do they hide it? Well... my theory is that in truth, and trying to be as impartial as possible, I believe P-Tools, while good, is not a better application than Logic, Cubase, Sonar, Nuendo, et al - at least when it comes to features. Specially the LE and M-Powered versions, which don't give you the advantage(though very expensive) of additional external DSP power. So it's natural that they don't advertise that.
I also think they don't care about the consequences, since at least to me it's obvious that plugin developers will get the call as opposed to them...
Just my $.02.
V
The word "Pro-Tool" does apply to alot of Pro tool users I know. Don't even get me started on M-audio.
I didn't know that. Really, that sucks.
mmmmm, turbosynth.
What's really sad is that even if you and digidesign did plaster your website's front pages and manuals with bright flashing letters "UA and VST PLUGINS WILL NOT WORK WITH PROTOOLS" - these same people would still be buying the AU/VST plugins and bombarding you with the same emails asking why they can't get 'Fluid' sync their HBO to Protools and why Dr D won't put tracks on their MPCs. Perhaps it's just better to point and laugh.
Well you could point and laugh if you didn't have to deal with complaints and refunds. These things cost time, time which could be better spent developing new plug-ins, assisting regular customers, cranking out grindhouse hits, etc.
Truthfully, I don't really mind. The customers, that is. It isn't a big deal; it takes me all of 15 seconds to deal with it. The hard part, sometimes, is getting the answer out of the customer I expected all along. This is the distasteful bit.
Often I use the tenor of the email to determine my answer. Something like the above that comes with very little information actual support might need, from somebody who obviously didn't take the time to look at our support pages (I know this first by the content of the email, and second by the fact that he just replied to his email receipt rather than actually writing the info@ address we use for correspondence), and in a rather poor facsimile of the English language, from an American, natch... Well, I know that person isn't going to have a lot of luck with FXpansion's product, so I don't even bring it up. I just say "hey, PT needs RTAS plugins and we don't make them. Want your money back?"
That actually bit me in the ass once, though. I got an email that was pretty much like the above one, in tone and content, and I just offered a refund. About an hour later, the guy writes back in a semi-pissed manner, because one of his friends was running AD products in PT, and he assumed I was lying or stupid.
The funny thing is that we get nailed with a lot of these sorts of orders every time an American magazine does a review of one of our products. This is why we don't send NFRs to US magazines or buy advertisements in them. Actually, the fact that the average US magazine costs at least four times as much to advertise in as the average European magazine has something to do with it, as well, plus the fact that most American magazines are all high and mighty about their editorial content, but when it comes down to it, the more you advertise, the better your coverage. I find this quid-pro-quo aspect of the business to be slightly ridiculous. We didn't start advertising in CM/FM until we started to feel bad for all the nice coverage we were getting.
But I digress. I'm not pointing and laughing at the customer, per se. He walked in to Guitar Center and said "I wanna record music on my computer" and they set him up with some shitty M-Audio interface and PT M-Powered, and there you go. Luckily, we were the first company he bought plugins from. Imagine trying to get your money back from Roger Nichols Digital.
-CR
As an aside, it's worth mentioning that most companies our size release all their products as VST/AU/RTAS, as well; the fact that we only release VST/AU is somewhat unusual. We easily could, and it would make us a not-inconsiderable amount of money; we just don't, because we have pride and we're not gonna suck up to those monopolistic bitches. Also, it would add a little more speed to the moving target that is OSX development, and quite frankly I think that would put Adam over the edge.
But the logos on each and every product page are fairly self-explanatory, I would think.
-CR
over 90% of the DAW guys I talk to in Japan seem to be PT, but I never even considered buying it because I simply could not understand their product lineup. When I went to plan this setup, I saw that Logic came in kids, juniors and adult sizes with a clear upgrade path and understood immediately what it works with. I tried to figure the same thing from Digidesign and for the life of me could not clearly understand the same thing. I'm not so much of a dummy but it was clear to me that I needed a degree in marketing to understand their shit so my fistfull of Yen went to Apple instead.
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