I was going to limit this the major players, but then it doesn’t matter. Good support and service should be celebrated.
For me, the company who stands out is Novation. I’m no fanboy either. I’ve only ever owned a few of their products and aquired them second hand.
Bought a second hand circuit in 2016 that came with no MIDI DIN adapters. When I contacted Novation to ask where to buy them, they simply asked for my address and sent them out free of charge. I recently picked up a used BS2. After a week I noticed that some of the knob caps we’re literally falling apart. Contacted customer support and after sending a few photos, they are kindly sending me a new, complete set, free of charge!
Small gestures like these enhance a brand imho. I’m trying to think of another company that has left this kind of impression on me and I can’t.
*Edit - honorable mention OTO. Fixed my 2nd hand
BIM free of charge and refunded the shipping fee!
Yes! I have an old Remote SL MKI and the knobs were weird and sticky. They sent new knob caps for free! They’ve even helped troubleshoot my 2nd hand Safire soundcard.
Yes, Novation support is great. I have a pitch wheel that’s sending random bend data on an out-of-warranty Impulse controller keyboard. I tried opening it up and cleaning it out, but it hasn’t helped. So I asked Novation support if I could buy a replacement wheel assembly. They just posted me a new one free of charge!
I’ve had three Novation Peaks, the first had a mushy button that took extra effort to push and have the press registered, the second had a different mushy button, and the third was perfect. Please keep in mind that this was in the very early days of production for the Peak. Novation replaced them both times with zero questions asked once I had explained the problem, and not only that they shipped me the replacement BEFORE I shipped them my Peak, and were so helpful and kind on the phone that they did not even ask me to provide a credit card, they just trusted me. Granted, I was communicating with a local person at the US offices and not an overseas customer support center, but it’s always better to try and contact the local offices versus just the standard support line. I was floored by the quality of their customer support. Not only that, they independently followed up multiple times to make sure that I was happy!
IK Multimedia sorted me out with a small issue I had with my monitor. One of the bolts to my MTM monitors shipped with a defective thread; they had two new ones out within 3 days. It wasn’t a big problem, but they handled it very professionally.
Novation again for the win! The rubber on my BSII pitch and mod wheels corroded. I removed it but thought I would see if Novation could provide replacements. Customer service rep responded to my ticket in 2 days. New pitch and mod on the way… free of charge.
Plus 1 for OTO. When I bought my Bam I’d just moved into a flat and went through a phase of buying old bits of furniture and doing them up with a bit of spray paint.
I got a bit trigger happy with it though and at one point thought it’d be cool to spray the Bam knobs bright pink. Safe to say it looked disgusting and totally ruined the look of it and after trying to forget about it ended up emailing and explaining what a turnip I’d been and he laughed and sent me some brand new knobs for free
Doepfer support are great.
Elektron too - although it can depend on which person deals with it.
Had good dealings with Roland and Korg UK spares departments too.
Synthstrom are great.
TE are terrible, though used to be ok at beginning, depending on who you dealt with.
Chase Bliss are outstanding. I managed to tear the micro usb port off of the daughterboard - they paid for shipping there and back again and fixed it for free.1
I guess they had a bad reputation back in the day, but Arturia have been massively helpful to me and super prompt and polite. I’ve bugged them a lot and they never tire of it.
I just had a great experience with Elektron support. Had a minor repair needed on an off warranty device and the US service team got it taken care of very promptly and returned back to me within 2 weeks of sending it in.
