Doepfer

--- In Doepfer_a100@y..., Florian Anwander <Florian.Anwander@c...> 
wrote:
> Hi RM
> 
> first of all: please sign with a real name. This is a requirement 
in the
> usenet and should be good taste in a forum like this too. (Btw: If 
I would
> be D. Döpfer, I would not care for a post of someone, who does not 
stand
> for his name. But I don't speak for Doepfer).


hi florian, i do not mean or want to disrespect you or the members of 
this group. i wish to keep my identity private and personal. if mr. 
Doepfer wishes to contact personally, i would be glad to do so. the 
reason mr. Doepfer should take me very seriously is the simple fact 
that i have well over $10,000 USD invested in his equipment.

24U of A100 modules (2 portables including a full spec. vocoder and 2 
6U rack units), MAQ 16/3, Regelwerk, Schaltwerk and a Drehbabank.

i would say that me puts me in the top tier of users out there. 
Second, this also means i am firm supporter the Doepfer company, not 
a newbie who just purchased his first synth and midi sequencer with 
cv and gates.

i have been evangelizing Doepfer products since i first discovered 
them. i have helped bring at least $7000 USD of business to his 
company, simply by letting other people having a go with my gear.

to give you an example, 10 days ago a few friends of mine got 
together to socialize at my place( i.e. have a few beers and listen 
to music). one of them had never seen my studio before. we are all 
people who make music using both hardware and software. when he 
walked in, the first thing he noticed was the MAQ. he said he 
previously owned one, but was disappointed with the unit. my friend 
has a sick modular that makes mine look like an SH_101 in comparison. 
he asked how i liked it. i said great. i turned on the MAQ. i pressed 
play and he noticed the PA4 in the event field. he said i have never 
seen or used it in that mode. why? the manual is not clear, plus the 
fact that you can't access it when the MAQ is in run mode and if you 
turn the dial to go to the PA and PR fields in the MAQ ,from NA1 
let's say. once you start turning the dial in run mode to GO to the 
PA and PR fields, when you reach the T32 field it throws the sync of 
the channel right off then it speeds up and slows down for a few 
notes. IS THIS A FLAW OR BUG? i don't know, you tell me. sure seems 
like a bug. the only way to access the PA and PR fields is when the 
MAQ is in stop mode, then you turn the dial all the way to the end to 
get the PA and PR fields. the golden question is why are the PA and 
PR fields at the back of the event field? shouldn't they be right 
after the NA and NR fields,so you don't throw the sync between the 3 
channels out. Everybody i talked to has never used the MAQ this way. 
my assumption from the few people i have met that have used the MAQ, 
is that the majority of MAQ owners would only be using the MAQ in the 
NA and NR modes and constantly triggering 16th notes. 

 it would be nice, Bakkis for you to create a poll to see how many 
members have an MAQ 16/3 and use the MAQ in the NA and NR fields only 
or use the NA,NR and PA,PR fields. and also to see if other members 
have the flaw or bug i reported above.

then my friend complained about sync and timing. i showed him how 
tight the MAQ is.  i slaved the MAQ to the TR-909 and used the MAQ to 
trigger my Kawai XD-5  and vice versa. the result was he couldn't 
find any difference, it was smack on. i have never tried to measure 
them in logic. 

to conclude this segment. my friend is thinking of purchasing the MAQ 
again. DID I SHOW HIM MY SCHALTWERK? THE ANSWER IS NO.  i am too 
embarrassed to say i even own one.


> 
> So now to the topic: I am one of the first Schaltwerk users and 
Betatester
> (mine is that old, that is has no CV interface). Chris Assall (the 
software
> engineer at Doepfer) received a four pages of bugreport for the 
Schaltwerk.
> We talked a five hours about it. The result was: the processor is 
on the
> end of his power. So this is the truth as you stated.
> 
> 
> 
> The following is  MY PERSONAL OPINION - nothing I know from Doepfer.
> 
> The Schaltwerk was assumingly an economic disaster: Originally 
developped
> as an addition to the MAQ for Kraftwerk (and with a lot less 
features),
> they decided to make a complete product out of it. Then there were 
a lot of
> unnexpected problems (hardware and software). 

why bother to develop and release a product if major problems arise. 
most companies do R & D  on future products. if they can't make a 
vaible product or find a suitable market and price point, they simply 
don't release them. you do not see a company release a poor product 
to try and recoup their R&D because they failed to execute it 
properly. 


>The developement time
> exceeded any reasonable amount. So they had to make it quite 
expensive.
> This caused, that sales did not run.

the sales did not run because they were trying to sell apples in a 
golden basket. look at the Future Retro Mobius. There are 256 
recordable patterns available. Each recording note duration, pitch, 
accent , glide, loop point, and time signature. Pattern editing 
features include copy/paste, pattern shifting, pattern transposing, 
multiple pattern cueing, and LED chase. Pattern editing and recording 
can be done while the sequencer is running, and it will automatically 
save all your edits so you don't have to stop creating!

people this unit sells for $325 usd. if they can manufacture the 
entire unit for that price, you mean to tell me that Doepfer can not 
produce a new cpu, memory and software upgrade to include some of the 
above functions and all the ones mentioned in the Doepfer EZ board 
forum for $150 to $200 usd. i don't buy it for a moment. they have 
admitted defeat and shafted all the schaltwerk owners out there, my 
self included. i am sure that all the schaltwerk owners would gladly 
pay that sum to salvage their machines instead selling them for less 
than half of what they originally paid for them and actually start 
using them for creative uses, intead of sending only 16th notes.



> They tried to get some value return, by creating the Regelwerk 
(which we
> can describe as the original idea: combination of Schaltwerk and 
MAQ). 

tell me why the regelwerk is short on memory, CPU power and 
functions.this is were they should have picked up the pieces and run 
with it.no siree. they could have built a new cpu logic PCB with more 
memory and a better OS . they could have built one board to do both 
the schaltwerk and the regelwerk and have written code for each 
machine separately to accomadate their respective hardware surfaces 
and functions. again no, they chose to limit them.


> It sold better and did not cost that much, since half of the 
development
> was done already for the Schaltwerk. So it had a little better, but 
not
> very good cash return.
> 
> So they had to invest energy, time and money into products, which 
give
> better sales. 

right, we failed and you bite the bullet. we will ignore you in the 
meantime,then dangle the software revision carrot to pacify you.but 
hey you can buy the new and improved version with BLUE LEDS.the 
bullshit has to STOP. fix it and watch people buy them and be happy 
they purchased one in the first place.


And they had to do this immediately, since the sales from
> other products (Keyboards, MS404, basic A100) had reached their max 
count
> of possible sales. So they developped lowbudget versions of a 
faderbox.
> This took all their manpower. 

manpower that was misspent in my mind. there are 4 versions of the 
product, plus one with blue leds. what's so hard about having a 
version 2 of the schaltwerk. there is a version 3 of the MAQ 16/3 
which users of version 1 had to pay for a board replacement for the 
upgrade to version 3. when i saw Kraftwerk live in '97, they were not 
using black face version 1 MAQ's on stage. i would bet the bank they 
would love to have their schaltwerk upgraded to a version 2 that can
tie and slide notes. remember they tied and slid notes with Roland 
MC4B's before Doepfer made any products.

> 
> For such a small enterprise like Doepfer an unsuccessful product 
like the
> Schaltwerk can be a killer problem. 

they can remedy the situation and the problem will go away.the 
benefit will be a happy customer base that evanglize their products  
which will then generate more sales. more sales means they recuop 
thew losses from their inherit miscaculation from the start.


This would cause nine people becoming
> unemployed. 

Future Retro are basically two people who run the show. they do 
upgrade their products,when needed. i don't see any notices of them 
going unemployed.

>So I can accept that they invest in better selling products
> instead of bugfixing of older products, which do not return any 
buck.

they did it with the MAQ 16/3, why not with the schaltwerk. i don't 
see a notice of Doepfer discontinuing the MAQ 16/3 any time soon. 
seems it served Doepfer well to uprade the MAQ 16/3



> 
> So far these are my private theories.

Florian, i respect what have you written. the above replies and 
opinions, are how strong i feel toward the Schaltwerk. i feel sad 
that the machine has not reached its full potential, which it truly 
deserves. something should been done immediately. plus ,why do all of 
their sequencers trigger only 16th notes? i did not spend two hours 
of my life writing this post top slag Doepfer. i wrote it to some how 
inspire them to fulfill the schaltwerk's due course.

Regards,
RM


> 
> 
> In fact I know that the bugfixes are still on the to do list at 
Doepfer.
> Chris Assall called me last year, whether I had further complaints. 
So I
> know it is deferred, but not kicked out.
> 
> 
> Florian
> 
> -- 
> Florian Anwander                  |ConSol*  HP-Support
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> email: florian.anwander@c... |http://www.consol.de