doepfer negative pr
2002-06-11 by ringmod45
hi everyone, i am reposting this here as an example of what happens when you don't do any upgrading to your products or have customer support. someone has decided not to buy a doepfer product. WHY? read on, here a few posts from the doepfer forum. now you why i am so adamant about what it does the doepfer image and its products. rachel Unregistered User (6/5/02 11:02:32 am) Reply Solution!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Ok, I solved it. The MTP II does filter MIDI Clock - you have to filter "Realtime" messages from the Doepfer to stop it sending a recursive clock. I still think that the MAQ 16/3 should have an option to select whether you want to send Clock out or not. Usually when you setup a box to be synched externally you do not want it to send clocks out. There should only be one master! rachel krhen Unregistered User (6/6/02 8:19:27 pm) Reply You've got to be kidding me! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Are you serious? There's no way to turn off the MIDI clock send when its set to sync to MIDI Clock in? Well... at least its not too late to cancel my order yet. Doepfer support, is this true? soundjunkie Registered User (6/7/02 5:01:20 pm) Reply Re: Solution!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- everything i read about mac16/3 is angry stuff...and what is MTP II ? krhen Unregistered User (6/7/02 10:14:08 pm) Reply MTP II ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Midi Time Piece II - a Midi Interface/Patchbay by MOTU I believe? rachel Unregistered User (6/11/02 2:18:32 am) Reply External sync sends MIDI clocks == True. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Hi krhen, yes it appears to be true. When I set my MAQ to ETS or ETC modes for external synch from Logic, the MAQ continues to send clocks out on all channels. As I mentioned previously I worked around it by filtering Realtime messages within my MOTU MIDI Timepiece II. It's a Macintosh 8x8 MIDI patchbay that does SMPTE as well although I only use it for MIDI and obviously it has nice routing and filtering functions. My MAQ is version 3.4 - that's why I was asking if there was a later revision of the firmware. It would be a simple addition to modify the firmware to add a Synch option to not send clocks when external synch is activated. I emailed Doepfer hardware support but got no response (yet). The MAQ is pretty nice though. I am warping my brain using it's functions to compose music but it's worth it. I can understand why Doepfer have a clock out on Ext synch - assuming you may slave more than one MAQ or *werk device but I always assume a single source of truth for the master clock and don't like MIDI clocks spamming my setup so an option to disable the clock should be an addition - the lack of which is a BUG! rachel rm Unregistered User (6/11/02 3:08:54 pm) Reply ext clock ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- hi rachel, the MAQ does not have a flash rom, so therefore to change the software would involve time and extra costs. doepfer are not interested in supporting these machines. i am really surprised that they have revised it to 3.4, my machine is a 3.0 version. there is no mention of it on the website or on the news page. the reason, i believe, it is not being told people is because 99% of the people who own them don't own an eprom burner or the software to do it. doepfer certainly don't feel like burning and changing a thousand or so eprom's. a company like Encore Electronics who make a make midi2cv product called the the Expressionist, designed their product with a flash rom so you could download new software revisions and do it yourself via sysex. they did this back in the year 1996. that's right 1996. did doepfer know about flash rom's back in '96.? my answer is they knew for sure. why they did they not implement this in the maq, schaltwerk and regelwerk? reason because they didn't want to spend the extra couple of dollars or they didn't want design it into their products. what a lack of clairvoyance or laziness on their part. and not have a little extra under the hood interms of cpu cycles and extra memory bits is a travesty to the products themselves and the image of their company. what are the functions they revised from v3.0 to v3.4? i asked for the ability to implement a tie-note function a la tr-303 so you can have a musical note base other than just 16th notes. if they spent the time to revise the code, why didn't they add the tied-note function in there? doepfer never gives you a straight answer. it seems they fudge the info to their benefit all the time. these machines are ecthed in stone software wise due to cpu and memory restricitions. still maybe they could lose a few routines on the Maq to have a more musical function such as having the ability to have 1/8th, 1/2 notes etc. the schaltwerk has sync problems among other lacking musical functions. Chris Assal said in a prior post that there is 15% memory left in the schalwerk.i am sure that there is enough to implement the functions a few members on this forum have been asking for. hell, Ripe 101 has even started a yahoo group to ask for suggestions from users, so he can rewrite the code himself because of the lack of effort from doepfer. can you believe that. now there is someone who has such a strong belief in the schaltwerk, that he is taking it on his shoulders and doing it all by himself. kudos Ripe 101 for taking matters into your own hands instead doepfer not doing anything about. the truth should be, buyer beware. check the machines out before you buy them. read the manuals very carefully, because they are hard to decipher in the first place due to poor translations. once you understand their functions and you are happy with them, then please go ahead and buy them. but if you are waiting for an upgrade, my suggestion to you is don't bother buying them. it's been over 4 years since they said they would implement new features and bug fixes, but the time keeps passing by. so nothing new here about being shut out and ignored. i feel like the wart that won't go away. i love these machines, i just wish that they would as well. because once they do do something about it we will all benefit from the upgrades, doepfer and its customers alike. patiently waiting to bring my machines back from thier dusty graves, RM