Absolutely. It infuriated me when I bought DT that there were huge bugs (like crashes when connected to USB and not clocking to MIDI) that the buyer had to spend ages rooting through the forum to work out:
1 - Whether this was a known bug - or you had a faulty unit
2 - If there were any workarounds
3 - Official word on fixes from staff
Sadly, Elektron don’t seem to get that customers have better things to do than try to understand why their new purchase is not working. A simple honest statement on known issues at a URL on the main site (rather than spread around the forum) would be ideal.
I don’t think they get it, which is a shame. The products have a huge amount of potential and some extra effort in this area would save everyone a lot of frustration!
I guess a few have knowledge bases, and some manage these things via forums - some forums are a bit better organised by thread than this one.
But the question is more ‘are there any music instruments companies that should maintain an customers’ issue tracker’.
Ones that ship drum machines that are unstable and won’t work with MIDI clock, or crash when conected to USB should have a note about this on their support pages, if you ask me (as a customer).
I’m pretty damn sure that all music instrument companies use an issue tracking system of some kind.
I’m not at all advocating that Elektron opens up their issue tracking system to the general public. I’m suggesting that they create and maintain a separate public list of issues they’re aware of and plan to resolve at some point in time.
this forum is a safe space for Elektron for sure, some harsher words in other places now that the second box in the DIGI series has been released with crashes and freezes. If this was Korg or Roland people would be sharpening their pitch forks. This good will is because of the great machines Elektron makes i imagine, unique and great. But this good will only last so long, already I am seeing people around with anger towards the brand (to be fair, valid anger imho)
Yeah imagine all the retail music staff that have to deal with angry customers who don’t use this forum, not fair on them now that Elektron are focusing on distribution to more retail suppliers
Fair play. I think there’s a ton of opportunities for Elektron to turn this into a good thing, though. Sell the first batch of a new instrument labelled as “Beta” or “early access” at a small discount instead of a premium, get a ton of feedback from users eager to start playing and help improve the machines. I think they’d sell the same number of machines, but people would have a totally different perception of what to expect and the whole discussion would become a lot more constructive. Maybe sounds nutty, I’d still give it a shot.
In most cases at a premium actually. I paid €1.445,- for my A4MK2 and OTMK2 and €1699,- for my ARMK2. All of these prices went down by at least €50,- at retailers within a few days after release (which of course doesn’t mean a price adjustment by Elektron). I’m not complaining, I knew that was going to happen. Still I think in conjunction with the fact that releases tend to be less than smooth these days, it’s a strange practice and prices should be a tad lower initially.