issue20

EMUSIC-L Digest                                      Volume 61, Issue 20

This issue's topics:
	
	mark of the unicorn poop (8 messages)

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Date:         Thu, 17 Feb 1994 21:15:40 PST
From:         "m.c. schraefel" 
Subject:      mark of the unicorn poop

has anyone else attempted to get an upgrade from mark of the unicorn
from say 3.64 to 4.2 of performer??

i'm getting really pissed off. they got my order first week of december
and after a month of waiting, called. well, they'd lost my order and heck,
we don't have any upgrades in. they're backordered and were at the time of your
original call, but jan. 21 they'll be here aand we'll ship them out two day del
ivery.

every week since then i've called and every week it's been:
"they're supposed to be in this very afternoon, and as soon as they're here
we'll ship them out two day delivery"

at this point i'm grossly frustrated. it seems this is completely unaceptable
and yet what's a soul to do?

i'm open to practicle suggestions...or similar stories.

thanks

m.c.

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 18 Feb 1994 21:54:42 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: mark of the unicorn poop

>at this point i'm grossly frustrated. it seems this is completely unaceptable
>and yet what's a soul to do?

Switch to Opcode.

Yeah, really. It's what I did, having been through Performer, Unisyn,
Composer, MTP-I, MTP-II. Now I use the MTP-II and occasionally the MTP-I,
but otherwise MAX, Vision, Galaxy, OMS.


                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Sun, 20 Feb 1994 00:22:41 -0500
From:         Joe Kellman 
Subject:      Re: mark of the unicorn poop

>has anyone else attempted to get an upgrade from mark of the unicorn
>from say 3.64 to 4.2 of performer??
>i'm getting really pissed off. they got my order first week of december
>and after a month of waiting, called. well, they'd lost my order and heck,
>we don't have any upgrades in. they're backordered and were at the time of your
>original call, but jan. 21 they'll be here aand we'll ship them out two day del
>ivery.
>
>every week since then i've called and every week it's been:
>"they're supposed to be in this very afternoon, and as soon as they're here
>we'll ship them out two day delivery"
>
>at this point i'm grossly frustrated. it seems this is completely unaceptable
>and yet what's a soul to do?
>
>i'm open to practicle suggestions...or similar stories.

Ah Yes, the infamous MOTU problem of them being stuck up jerks.  I co-teach
the computer music program here at Georgia Tech and ever since the class
was initiated back in 1986 we have used MOTU's Performer.  Back in '91 when
I started co-teaching this course, I've nothing but problems from MOTU -
both in upgrades and in technical support (i.e. lack of 800 number & the
120 minute wait before you speak to a human who has an attitude problem
because they probably look like King-Kong on CRACK!!!!)  The nightmare
continued when we tried to upgrade from performer 3.61 to 4.1.  It seemed
all of a sudden any record of being registered users, who has been feeding
lots of money into upgrades and associated B.S., dissappeared.  Even after
finding the ORIGINAL @#@((@*(@)_! receipts and faxed it to them, they sent
us disks that were defective (Macintosh couldn't recognize the disks.)
After trying thier "convenient" 1-607 number and the "Immediate"
availability of a "qualified" person "willing" to help a long-time
customer, they sent us a copy of version 4.2 (keep in mind I was still in
shocked that the Purchase Order for the upgrade to 4.1 sat on someone's
desk at MOTU for 3 months!!!!!!!!!!)  After receiving version 4.2 guess
what.......Install disk #2 was defective.  After trying by phone & sending
a strongly worded e-mail message to MOTU (In which I've never received a
response from yet), I said $%^& it and just fix the disk myself since we
were already 3 weeks into the quarter and MOTU wasn't interested in helping
(at least that's what I figured) and I am recommending for the proposed
computer music lab (20 stations) that we deal with Opcode systems since
I've recently been working on projects using Studio-Vision and dealing with
Opcode seemed a little more refreshing.  I would love to see the people at
MOTU's face when we send them all the disks from version 1 of Performer and
Composer to the recent versions of Performer with a 'nicely' worded letter
of satisfaction of thier service for all of these years.

I really hope you find this to be an interesting experience dealing with
MOTU (mark of the ugly).  I hope they get thier act together before they
lose all of thier customers to Opcode and other companied that manufacture
hardware/software for the Mac.



=============================================================
Joe "J-Trane" Kellman
gt7216b@acme.gatech.edu
Georgia Institue of Technology
Atlanta, GA  30332
(404) 708 - 8036
=============================================================

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 23 Feb 1994 11:03:52 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: mark of the unicorn poop

>I've nothing but problems from MOTU -
>both in upgrades and in technical support (i.e. lack of 800 number & the
>120 minute wait before you speak to a human who has an attitude problem
>because they probably look like King-Kong on CRACK!!!!)

Now, I understand that the right to call a toll-free number in the United
States is enshrined in the Constitution, but apart from that I tend to
agree about MOTU. I have little experience with their tech. support number
in the US (since I have to deal with a pack of bonobos who distribute their
stuff here) but I didn't find them too bad. In fact, Opcode's UK
distributors are a lot worse (although I get on pretty well with Opcode
directly).

However: if you follow things at all closely (and it is recommended) I
think it's reasonably clear that MOTU started going off the rails
technically about the time of Performer 3.3. My guess is that some chief
technical and/or QA staff left at around that time, leaving Performer
development short of discipline. Meanwhile, Opcode (with such high-flyers
as Wyatt and Zicarelli) came up with a superb environment for MIDI
applications (OMS) and put MOTU on the defensive, with fare like FreeMIDI,
Unisyn and so on. I have letters from MOTU, from a year ago, which pretty
much indicate this. I personally think MOTU have pretty much lost it in
terms of software, even though Performer as a basic application
(interfacing apart) is (or was) a very nice piece of work; their only edge
these days is hardware, and even there the bundled control software is
problematic.

Since this is EMUSIC-L, perhaps I should get more philosophical. In this
arena, software companies have to retain revenue income by offering
upgrades. In order to charge for these, they have to add More New Features.
After all, who will pay for the same features over and over again? Result:
software bloat. It's inevitable when that's the only degree of growth in
the particular marketplace. (Comparison with other software markets is
interesting.)

I expect Performer to be totally off the rails by version 5, and Vision to
be getting that way somewhere into version 3. I think it's inevitable,
especially when the customer values features over reliability and elegance;
it's the lack of perception of the importance of the latter which I find
most disturbing.


                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 23 Feb 1994 09:25:32 EST
From:         James R Black 
Subject:      Re: mark of the unicorn poop

> applications (OMS) and put MOTU on the defensive, with fare like FreeMIDI,
> Unisyn and so on.

        Fare like FreeMIDI?  It doesn't exist.

>  I personally think MOTU have pretty much lost it in
> terms of software, even though Performer as a basic application
> (interfacing apart) is (or was) a very nice piece of work;

        They lost it with 4.01, IMHO.  They lost all credibility when they
released a product with so many bugs.  I think they must be porting
Performer to Windows and this is sapping all of their resources.  Why
else would a vapo-product like FreeMIDI be announced/defined and yet to
hit the streets a year later?





-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  Jim Black     |    jrblack@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu                       |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------
Date:         Wed, 23 Feb 1994 09:58:53 -0500
From:         Joe Kellman 
Subject:      Re: mark of the unicorn poop

>However: if you follow things at all closely (and it is recommended) I
>think it's reasonably clear that MOTU started going off the rails
>technically about the time of Performer 3.3. My guess is that some chief
>technical and/or QA staff left at around that time, leaving Performer
>development short of discipline. Meanwhile, Opcode (with such high-flyers
>as Wyatt and Zicarelli) came up with a superb environment for MIDI
>applications (OMS) and put MOTU on the defensive, with fare like FreeMIDI,
>Unisyn and so on. I have letters from MOTU, from a year ago, which pretty
>much indicate this. I personally think MOTU have pretty much lost it in
>terms of software, even though Performer as a basic application
>(interfacing apart) is (or was) a very nice piece of work; their only edge
>these days is hardware, and even there the bundled control software is
>problematic.

Nick,
I agree with you about those changes in the structure of MOTU around the time of
Performer 3.3.  And as I recall, the changes occurred around all of the
main departments,
including educational sales and technical support.  Yes Performer is a
great software package but my main gripe comes from the experience I had
when 4.0 (.1, .2) came out.  I remember all of time spent on the phone
trying to get the upgrade which would work on the Quadra the lab received
at that time.
At my school, we are on the qurter system which usually last 10 weeks long
so when a delay 4 weeks to incompetence occurrs, the student's quarter is
already 40% over with and by this time, they should have been fluent enough
with the basics of sequencing to start turning in projects.  And not to
mention the constant inquiries by the head of the music department didn't
help either.  Owing to this factor, this is why I've been bitter about MOTU
ever since that whole scenario.

>I expect Performer to be totally off the rails by version 5, and Vision to
>be getting that way somewhere into version 3. I think it's inevitable,
>especially when the customer values features over reliability and elegance;
>it's the lack of perception of the importance of the latter which I find
>most disturbing.
                                                        AMEN!!  My feelings
exactly!!!


=============================================================
Joe "J-Trane" Kellman
gt7216b@acme.gatech.edu
b/k/a:  "The MIDI Maniac"
Georgia Institue of Technology
Atlanta, GA  30332
(404) 708 - 8036
=============================================================

------------------------------
Date:         Thu, 24 Feb 1994 16:54:37 +0000
From:         Nick Rothwell 
Subject:      Re: mark of the unicorn poop

>        Fare like FreeMIDI?  It doesn't exist.

Correct. It did shake things up a bit and free up OMS for developers, but
otherwise ... Folks at MOTU swore to me a year ago that they were using
FreeMIDI for development. I don' theenk so.

>        They lost it with 4.01, IMHO.

Rather than 4.0, 4.02, 4.1 or 4.2 you mean?

>I think they must be porting
>Performer to Windows and this is sapping all of their resources.

That's my guess. Best of luck to them, although given how technically Savvy
Opcode are, I could see Vision beating them to it.

I went to a PowerPC presentation by Apple UK this afternoon. I was asking
about the robustness of the interrupt-level services like MacTCP. The guy
mentioned MIDI Manager during his talk, so I also mentioned that Apple have
not exactly been that keen to support it. He  replied that Apple are
working with "hardware vendors" on a new MIDI system. Which vendors, I
asked. "Opcode and, erm, what are they called? Mark of the Unicorn."

Uh-uh. Wrong answer. Opcode and MOTU are at each other's throats and have
been for years, and as for Apple's part in this, well...


                        Nick Rothwell   |   cassiel@cassiel.demon.co.uk
     CASSIEL Contemporary Music/Dance   |   cassiel@cix.compulink.co.uk

------------------------------
Date:         Fri, 25 Feb 1994 05:29:00 GMT
From:         Adam Greifer 
Subject:      Re: mark of the unicorn poop

m.c. schraefel (MSCHRAE@UVVM.UVIC.CA) wrote:
: has anyone else attempted to get an upgrade from mark of the unicorn
: from say 3.64 to 4.2 of performer??

: i'm getting really pissed off. they got my order first week of december
: and after a month of waiting, called. well, they'd lost my order and heck,
: we don't have any upgrades in. they're backordered and were at the time of
your
: original call, but jan. 21 they'll be here aand we'll ship them out two day
del
: ivery.

: every week since then i've called and every week it's been:
: "they're supposed to be in this very afternoon, and as soon as they're here
: we'll ship them out two day delivery"

: at this point i'm grossly frustrated. it seems this is completely unaceptable
: and yet what's a soul to do?

: i'm open to practicle suggestions...or similar stories.

: thanks

: m.c.

Switch to Vision 2.0.  You'll be glad you did, take it from an ex-Performer
user.
--
   *** Adam Greifer ***
   agreifer@netcom.com
 voice/fax (213) 381-3883

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