V-Machine

[mon8169]

Wish I could say the same about being happy with it,
I'm waiting and hoping for the CPU upgrade as I only use piano and the odd
rhodes sound. Fingers crossed that the people at SM PRO can make it happen.

Which Rhodes vsti do you play or want to play? I'm still searching for one that sounds good to my ears... any suggestion?

Ramon

[delafuerte]

I mentioned this on this forum a month ago ....the price in the U.S. has dropped $100 in 4 months I Paid $600 for mine and still really cant use it for anything other than a over glorified Soundfont player. Charging for an upgrade @ this point adds insult to injury. I've lost money on hardware before , but never in under 2- 3 years of using it. Its funny this topic comes up over and over again ... I couldn't sell this thing for half of what i paid for it. The folks at Muse research are probably laughing all the way to the bank.

I have contacted Muse research and, believe me, with Musebox they will do exactly what I would have expected from the V-Machine...

...unfortunately I've been so hurried (and maybe so stupid) to buy this brick...but I wont do the same mistake in the future...this is sure!

[Sasu Honka]

Now I've got it!

SM PRO and V-machine are a part of a clever marketing plan of Muse Research Musebox! They have made this just to convince buyers of their superiority!

Next week I'm going to crack the Da Vinci code!

I must be supergenious!

[raintalk]

I like the new street pricing on the v-machine - $520 - it's got me thinking.
I'm looking forward to the street price of the v-rack. For me, It looks like the v-rack would be better for me, but v-machine could be of some use.

For Muse Musebox - why don't they just lower lower lower their prices on the Receptor? It's got to be cheaper than developing a brand new box. It'd be out right now. Otherwise they're going to have to put up with SM Pro Audio and others (including netbooks) jumping into their market.

[EvilDragon]

One thing I don't like about the Musebox is that I've read somewhere that it could play only one VST at any time. That purely sucks for me.

V-Rack seems to be the right and affordable choice, but I CERTAINLY HOPE that the VFX software will be finished with all functions available before release of V-Rack. MAKE IT HAPPEN!

[delafuerte]

One thing I don't like about the Musebox is that I've read somewhere that it could play only one VST at any time. That purely sucks for me.

This is not correct; here is what Muse Research support wrote me about the Musebox:

We expect that you will be able to run two "medium weight" VST instruments at one time. This is because our system is actually a dual core processor, and we have very high speed RAM and storage feeding the processor. We have been able to run Ivory successfully in one core, streaming samples off the optional internal hard drive, so we believe that most typical plugins will run without a problem.
....
Specifically, the architecture has two distinct modes: The "basic" mode has two VSTi slots, along with two effects slots for these two VSTis, and then one master effect. So the expectation is that you can run up to 5 plugins in this mode. However, we also have a mode called "Advanced" that switches over to the normal "Receptor" software, which provides 16 slots for VSTis, as well as up to 57 effects. Can you run that many at one time? No way... however, you could have a very large number of plugins loaded and ready to play using our unique snapshot technology. It is important to point out that both the Basic and the Advanced modes support Snapshots, so for many people the basic mode will provide everything they need as long as they don't need more than two sounds happening at once.

In conclusion...perfect for my needings

[gafaell]

I mentioned this on this forum a month ago ....the price in the U.S. has dropped $100 in 4 months I Paid $600 for mine and still really cant use it for anything other than a over glorified Soundfont player. Charging for an upgrade @ this point adds insult to injury. I've lost money on hardware before , but never in under 2- 3 years of using it. Its funny this topic comes up over and over again ... I couldn't sell this thing for half of what i paid for it. The folks at Muse research are probably laughing all the way to the bank.

I have contacted Muse research and, believe me, with Musebox they will do exactly what I would have expected from the V-Machine...

...unfortunately I've been so hurried (and maybe so stupid) to buy this brick...but I wont do the same mistake in the future...this is sure!

No VM firmware update after 3 months, with lots of bugs and problems.

At this moment, this VM is useless for me. Are all SM PRO products the same quality as VM ?


I think I am going to sell my VM for 50 USD. Anyone interested in buying mine ?

[EvilDragon]

Hm, nice, I finally got more info. We'll see how will V-Rack cope with this.

I can see how great it would be to have Pianoteq 3, VB3/B4-II, ZD6, Pro-53, FM8, Minimonsta, OLGA, Korg M1, Wavestation available at any time with sending only program changes and triggering from various MIDI channels accross several keyboards, or one great MIDI controller (such as a Kurzweil), to change patches. I'm not interested in playing sample libraries from such a rack because of the load times, my patch changes need to be instantaneous.

I'm liking the V-Rack because it has 4 USBs plus MIDI, that allows up to 5 keyboards to be connected.

[EvilDragon]

Are all SM PRO products the same quality as VM ?

No, they aren't. The rest of SM PRO line is pretty much great quality as I've heard from other people. It's only that V-M seemed to be rushed to the market without polishing the software part first, and that's what kind of ruined the show. But, I'm holding thumbs everything goes well with the V-Rack, as they are offering a really competitive package for a competitive price.

DON'T MESS THIS UP, SM PRO!

[vuckmachine]

The price drop in such a short time is ridiculous. SMPRO would be well-advised to take the frustration in the V-Machine community serious. They really should come up with some kind of make-good for existing owners.

All of us were early adopters who bought the product in good faith and we all ended up as slated beta testers who spent an awful lot of time trying to get the damn' thing working - with more or less success.

Really hope they take care of their customers. SMPRO should not translate to "Silly Musicians Pinch Rip Off - never audio solutions".

[kansas#1]

Just my stupid opinion-----

When I got tired of trying unsuccessfully to get my V-Machine to do what I thought I bought it for and blaming myself for being too stupid to make it work I sent it back and got a refund. I was lucky the store took it back. I then bought a Muse Receptor (the Nova Edition from Nova Musik)and have absolutely loved it ever since I worked with it a few hours.
My grandfather always told me that the most expensive thing in the world is that bargain that doesn't met your needs or expectations. Save a nickle to lose a dime...
Here's my take on the Musebox that I know almost nothing about but what I've read on here...
If the street price for the Musebox is $899.00 and you can only load two vst's in it then why not spend another $300.00 and get a Receptor like I bought that I've loaded four pretty large vst's in and never had a glitch whatsoever. There are tons of free plugins and some are killer and some are o.k. but very few haven't worked in my Receptor. The downside to my Receptor?
It's best to use plugins that are adapted for the Receptor (Receptorized)and after buying the M-Tron Pro to hopefully use in my V-Machine (it never worked!)I had to cross-grade (it cost extra)to get the lesser version that didn't contain a lot of the features that I initially bought the M-Tron Pro for as opposed to the much cheaper regular version. Oh well..bad with the good.

[kansas#1]

The price drop in such a short time is ridiculous. SMPRO would be well-advised to take the frustration in the V-Machine community serious. They really should come up with some kind of make-good for existing owners.

All of us were early adopters who bought the product in good faith and we all ended up as slated beta testers who spent an awful lot of time trying to get the damn' thing working - with more or less success.

Really hope they take care of their customers. SMPRO should not translate to "Silly Music Pinch Rip Off - never audio solutions".

SM Pro Audio isn't unique in doing this to their customers. If you remember the Alesis Fusion (still a fantastic synth.!)they lowered their prices drammatically very soon after those of us who jumped at the chance to get such a versatile keyboard grabbed ours. They also listed features on the boxes that weren't even implemented! Their explanation? Basically...get over it! People still bought the Fusions and some even loved them, it'll be the same with SM Pro Audio I suspect. I personally got great technical support from SM but it wasn't enough to outweigh the problems.

[raintalk]

I think I am going to sell my VM for 50 USD. Anyone interested in buying mine ?

Sure I'll buy it - if you're serious PM me.
To be honest, you'll do better on Ebay, if it's worth the hassle to you. I might even bid on it there.

[raintalk]

The price drop in such a short time is ridiculous.

Maybe it was just overpriced in the first place?

Early adopters always take this risk. Lowering the price always pisses off someone - SM Pro can't win this unless sales really do take off at the new price point. Maybe they'll drop again.
If it was the same price as a netbook I'd be in now.

[nschmidt-dd]

it does not really matter what I said

I appreciate your honest and open self criticism, really ...

The sun is going to shine in the morning, at least above the clouds.

Well, there is always something you can really rely on