ROLI's writing on the wall happened

[BONES]

Others are arguing that regardless of that, at some point even Windows deprecates and renders useless old drivers, some things become abandonware etc. and it's best to stick with companies that are healthy so you don't lose things.

Except Apple prove amply that successful companies have no compunction when it comes to deprecating features if it saves them money and increases their profit. And that's the irony of all of you arguing about this - you're all Mac users and Apple is the absolute worst for this, yet you don't stop using their products. That makes you all massive hypocrites.

This of course is very true of people looking to buy an M1 Mac considering Roli might go under before they make drivers for Apple Silicon etc.

But if you have your priorities right, it is actually a reason not to buy an M1 Mac, not a reason to avoid Roli.

I have a Midisport 4x4 as backup for my MTP/AV here, and it works even though it's not officially supported, the driver for the newer hardware works fine with it, but I in no way would want to 100% trust that it's going to work for much longer. That's all anyone is trying to point out, that you're living on the edge when you use drivers that haven't been updated in 8 years for deprecated hardware. There's not a chance in hell it will get a new one from M-Audio for instance if Windows 11 breaks it.

So what? It cost you f**k-all so it doesn't take too long to get to the point where you can be happy you've got your money's worth from it. With my MIDIsport, I reached that point probably 18 years ago. If the day comes when it stops working, although I'd put money on the fact it won't, I'd be in awe of the value I got from it because, frankly, I expected it to stop working after Avid acquired MIDIman and rebranded everything as M-Audio. OTOH, If I lived to be 100 and sold 5 million albums, I'd still not feel that I'd gotten my money's worth from a $3000 RME interface. And that's my point - you are absolutely not getting your money's worth when you pay that sort of money for that sort of product. There may be ways to justify that sort of expense but this definitely isn't one of them.

Those interfaces are priced for the professional market, studios, where you can recoup your money over time by charging people to use the equipment and where any downtime will cost you money. For the hobbyist or home studio, they are massive overkill. RME probably hate having to deal with consumers, so they deliberately try to price themselves out of that market.

[_leras]

OTOH, If I lived to be 100 and sold 5 million albums, I'd still not feel that I'd gotten my money's worth from a $3000 RME interface. And that's my point - you are absolutely not getting your money's worth when you pay that sort of money for that sort of product. There may be ways to justify that sort of expense but this definitely isn't one of them.

Those interfaces are priced for the professional market, studios, where you can recoup your money over time by charging people to use the equipment and where any downtime will cost you money. For the hobbyist or home studio, they are massive overkill. RME probably hate having to deal with consumers, so they deliberately try to price themselves out of that market.

Don't knock it until you've tried it. I upgraded to an rme after I couldn't get my mackie onyx interface drivers to run on windows 10. The rme has been rock solid, low latency and has good software to run it, powers headphones well, and has great audio quality for recording. I just don't have to think about it. They're just hassle free.

[pdxindy]

Don't knock it until you've tried it. I upgraded to an rme after I couldn't get my mackie onyx interface drivers to run on windows 10. The rme has been rock solid, low latency and has good software to run it, powers headphones well, and has great audio quality for recording. I just don't have to think about it. They're just hassle free.

The 3 cheaper interfaces I had one after the other before getting an RME all had regular problems. 1 of them if I left the computer (phone call or whatever) and the computer went to sleep, it crashed. Another had random crashes that I never figured out. Changing sample rates was iffy on 2 of them. One driver update had an unhappy surprise.

Since buying the RME, never had a single issue of any sort. It's invisible and never draws attention to itself. I wish I had bought the RME in the first place. Would have saved money in the long run and also saved myself a lot of headaches.

[machinesworking]

Don't knock it until you've tried it. I upgraded to an rme after I couldn't get my mackie onyx interface drivers to run on windows 10. The rme has been rock solid, low latency and has good software to run it, powers headphones well, and has great audio quality for recording. I just don't have to think about it. They're just hassle free.

The 3 cheaper interfaces I had one after the other before getting an RME all had regular problems. 1 of them if I left the computer (phone call or whatever) and the computer went to sleep, it crashed. Another had random crashes that I never figured out. Changing sample rates was iffy on 2 of them. One driver update had an unhappy surprise.

Since buying the RME, never had a single issue of any sort. It's invisible and never draws attention to itself. I wish I had bought the RME in the first place. Would have saved money in the long run and also saved myself a lot of headaches.

Yep, the Fireface 800 works the same as it did when I got it 15 years ago. Bought a Babyface Pro recently as a front end and the whole thing is ridiculously seamless. There's something to be said for just paying once and not spending time worrying about anything breaking. Plus the pres in cheap audio interfaces are complete garbage, the A/D converters are all good these days, but my god the garbage that passes for pre amps on consumer audio interfaces.

[machinesworking]

Except Apple prove amply that successful companies have no compunction when it comes to deprecating features if it saves them money and increases their profit. And that's the irony of all of you arguing about this - you're all Mac users and Apple is the absolute worst for this, yet you don't stop using their products. That makes you all massive hypocrites.

I like how you keep the mac hate alive and well here, it's cute.
Apple is moving to their own chips, this involves OS changes, this will benefit the entire industry in the end. I have an 09 Mac Pro here, besides no AVX it's entirely capable of being a time machine for software that doesn't make it to Apple Silicon. This is your point really, deprecated soft and hardware can live on if you don't follow the OS upgrade path religiously etc.

What everyone has argued is that going forward, companies that are willing and capable of keeping up, that's a good thing. You're literally arguing for keeping to an OS that doesn't change much, cool, then arguing for cheap soft and hardware that's end of life. Yet everyone else is a hypocrite.

IMO you're just defending Roli because you like their product, that's fine, but it's made for multiple weird knots you've tied yourself into, which basically results in blocks of micro replies to barrage your way out of it.

This of course is very true of people looking to buy an M1 Mac considering Roli might go under before they make drivers for Apple Silicon etc.

But if you have your priorities right, it is actually a reason not to buy an M1 Mac, not a reason to avoid Roli.

Technology moving forward is bad, I get it. Stay with the company that went bankrupt, avoid new architecture.

I have a Midisport 4x4 as backup for my MTP/AV here, and it works even though it's not officially supported, the driver for the newer hardware works fine with it, but I in no way would want to 100% trust that it's going to work for much longer. That's all anyone is trying to point out, that you're living on the edge when you use drivers that haven't been updated in 8 years for deprecated hardware. There's not a chance in hell it will get a new one from M-Audio for instance if Windows 11 breaks it.

So what? It cost you f**k-all so it doesn't take too long to get to the point where you can be happy you've got your money's worth from it. With my MIDIsport, I reached that point probably 18 years ago. If the day comes when it stops working, although I'd put money on the fact it won't, I'd be in awe of the value I got from it because, frankly, I expected it to stop working after Avid acquired MIDIman and rebranded everything as M-Audio.

I've always been into tech, but I come from a guitar players perspective on it. Buy some quality gear, and be done with it. M-Audio have always sucked. I'm glad the MIDI sport still works but it's never been that good to begin with. Plus this is the kind of knot I'm talking about, someone mentions Win11 breaking something and it's "so what?", but hey Apple moving to new chips is bad okay?

OTOH, If I lived to be 100 and sold 5 million albums, I'd still not feel that I'd gotten my money's worth from a $3000 RME interface. And that's my point - you are absolutely not getting your money's worth when you pay that sort of money for that sort of product. There may be ways to justify that sort of expense but this definitely isn't one of them.

We get it, you're cheap.

For what it's worth I bought my FF800 for 1k in 05, it's still working in my studio to this day, it's hooked up to the Babyface. You're just wrong about RME, there's not much to say, the Pres are far better than the garbage on other interfaces, all of it just is as solid as it gets, and no matter what OS or BS happens in the future, RME backup their products.

Those interfaces are priced for the professional market, studios, where you can recoup your money over time by charging people to use the equipment and where any downtime will cost you money. For the hobbyist or home studio, they are massive overkill. RME probably hate having to deal with consumers, so they deliberately try to price themselves out of that market.

They don't have to deal with anybody, they just update their drivers and put out quality products.

I don't know where you're getting your 3K price from, more like $1,300 for more than most people need. It's about twice what a Scarlett would cost, but I have literally never heard about any RME interface dying, and I've heard multiple stories about Scarletts dying. You get what you pay for.

[Ploki]

my entry level RME was FireFace 400, new old stock for 500€ in 2010.
It was my main interface until last year when i went for UFX+ for DSP and need for more I/O.
It still works and is now being used gf's studio room.
It still works flawlessly on an M1.
So in 12 years, i spent 500€ on an audio interface and recorded a fuckload of things with it, and it's still being used because there's literally not a single good reason to retire it.
Bones i bet my f**king ass you spent more than 500€ on interfaces in the last 12 years.

Before that i had swapped about 4 interfaces in 5 years, and i was still using PC, not Mac.

Except Apple prove amply that successful companies have no compunction when it comes to deprecating features if it saves them money and increases their profit. And that's the irony of all of you arguing about this - you're all Mac users and Apple is the absolute worst for this, yet you don't stop using their products. That makes you all massive hypocrites.
This of course is very true of people looking to buy an M1 Mac considering Roli might go under before they make drivers for Apple Silicon etc.
-
But if you have your priorities right, it is actually a reason not to buy an M1 Mac, not a reason to avoid Roli.

I bought second wave of roli products (blocks etc) because their initial Rise support was as good as Apple's with Mac.
I liked the seaboard, but the support was what gave me confidence in the company and product.

Which all went to shit when a seaboard block glue went bad and the silicon unglued itself and the whole seaboard looked like it had mumps.
and i had to wait about half a year for a new one - after i shipped the defective one back.

[Dasheesh]

https://www.esi-audio.com/

[BONES]

Don't knock it until you've tried it. I upgraded to an rme after I couldn't get my mackie onyx interface drivers to run on windows 10.

How come? They seem to have up-to-date drivers available - 4.47,0 from 2019.

The very first interface I bought was a Mackie and I never managed to make it work at all. I returned it after a very frustrating week. Of course, that was in the days of dial-up internet so you only had what came in the box to work with. I was pretty sure it was designed to be Mac-only, but the guy at the music store insisted it should work so I took him at his word. Still, the UA-20 I ended up with was half the price and 18 years later it's still going.

The rme has been rock solid, low latency and has good software to run it, powers headphones well, and has great audio quality for recording. I just don't have to think about it. They're just hassle free.

I get exactly the same experience from every one of my ~$200 interfaces. It's kind of the minimum standard anyone would accept, surely?

The 3 cheaper interfaces I had one after the other before getting an RME all had regular problems.

What were they? I've never allowed any of my computers to go to sleep. In the old days they used to take forever to wake up so I got into the habit of not allowing it. These days it doesn't make sense when your computer will start from cold in less than 10 seconds so I still don't bother with it.

Since buying the RME, never had a single issue of any sort. It's invisible and never draws attention to itself.

I can say that about all the interfaces I've owned, too. In fact, they sit behind my laptop, underneath the riser I put my keyboards on, so even getting to them to turn 'em off/on can be a hassle. I usually end up unplugging the Overbridge's power to turn everything off in one go. Again, surely what you get from your RME the very minimum anyone would accept from any interface?

Yep, the Fireface 800 works the same as it did when I got it 15 years ago.

Just like the UA-20 I paid $200 for or the Toneport KB37 I paid a bit more for (because it's also a MIDI controller). Just as I'm sure I'll be able to say about each of my newer devices as they turn 15.

But wait on, I assume your FireFace device uses FireWire? So the only way it can still be working like it was 15 years ago is if you are using it with a computer that still has FireWire. Is that the case?

Bought a Babyface Pro recently as a front end and the whole thing is ridiculously seamless.

Are you f**king kidding? You had to buy a second ridiculously expensive device so that you could get your first ridiculously expensive device to work like any sub-$200 device would work out of the box? And you're saying it like it's a good thing? Are you out of your f**king mind!?! (Serious question.)

There's something to be said for just paying once and not spending time worrying about anything breaking.

Well, for once we are in total agreement, except that I can spend $200 and get that peace of mind, where apparently you think you need to spend thousands. PT Barnum sure had it right.

Plus the pres in cheap audio interfaces are complete garbage, the A/D converters are all good these days, but my god the garbage that passes for pre amps on consumer audio interfaces.

The whole concept of pre-amps is garbage. A con-job to fleece of your hard-earned cash. What you want is absolutely transparency and you can get that with even the cheapest devices.

Apple is moving to their own chips, this involves OS changes, this will benefit the entire industry in the end.

What about when they dropped 32 bit entirely in Catalina, for absolutely no reason except they couldn't be bothered with all that annoying legacy support stuff that was eating into their shareholder's dividends. I'd be f**ked if I couldn't run my old 32 bit Orion on my laptop today, it would cause me massive pain every time I need to get an old song working for a live set or re-vamp an old project I did for work.

This is your point really, deprecated soft and hardware can live on if you don't follow the OS upgrade path religiously etc.

Not even close, mate. Until Windows 11 betas started, I was doing all my work on beta versions of Windows 10. I upgraded to Windows 8 as soon as I could get onto the beta for it and I was on W10 as soon as they started rolling out stable betas for that, too. I always have my OS as up to date as I can make it and it all happens automatically.

IMO you're just defending Roli

I'm not defending Roli at all. I don't give a toss about Roli, I've got all the Roli stuff I might need and I know that I can happily keeping updating Windows and not have to worry about any of it not working well into the future. As I said, I let Windows update it self, I want it to be as up to date as possible. (Or I do so far but I will have to look into Windows 11 very carefully before I decide if I want to install it or not. From what I've seen it is going to f**k my workflow over royally but ,hopefully, it will be flexible enough to allow me to keep using the Windows 10 style Start (there's a hack for the beta versions but it may not function in the release).)

Technology moving forward is bad, I get it. Stay with the company that went bankrupt, avoid new architecture.

You're assuming that this is a forward step but I'm not seeing it. And GM's bankruptcy didn't stop me buying an Opel Astra, nor does it seem to have slowed them down much. Why wouldn't Roli manage the same? For that matter, did Moog's bankruptcy stop any of their products from working? Sequential Circuits? ARP? Oberheim?

Plus this is the kind of knot I'm talking about, someone mentions Win11 breaking something and it's "so what?"

Where have I said that? I think I've been pretty consistent in saying that Windows doesn't break things. The fact you think I don't bother updating Windows tends to show you're not paying attention. Really, it's getting hard to see how you manage to get through a day.

We get it, you're cheap.[/qute]
You f**king bet I am. I have way better things to spend money on than boring shit for my computer.

You're just wrong about RME, there's not much to say

No, I'm not and I have provided ample evidence to prove it. The fact that you keep shifting the goalposts to try and make your argument is all the proof anyone should need. i.e. Having lost the argument about reliability, you start to prattle on about pre-amps which, as I've said, are an awful, terrible thing that no-one should want at all.

I don't know where you're getting your 3K price from

It was for whatever device was mentioned that started this discussion. I looked it up at Store DJ, where I buy my stuff from, and it was Au$3300 or something equally absurd. I almost fell out of my chair that anyone would think they needed to spend anything like that amount of money.

[CinningBao]

Wow, this is getting super-boring.
Get off KVR and go and make some music or presets or play a guitar or something!
You guys need to find other ways to expunge your anger, or go find a room and just.. you know..

[pinki]

I'm probably going to regret this but..I agree with Bones on this, but from a different perspective.

If people are throwing away less 'stuff' then that is unarguably a good thing. Keeping a low cost interface going for twenty or even thirty (Motu 828 Mk1 anyone?) years is better for the planet.

Taking the Motu 828 Mk1- still works, still sounds great but- ah, the firewire interface. No problem I'll convert to Firewire 800 with a simple lead but- ah- there is no firewire 800 on Macbooks anymore.
And so it goes with Apple, constantly screwing over their customers and the developers. They even got rid of the the headphone jack FFS!. they are seriously a complete mess these days, a shadow of their former selves.
They used to be the 'outsiders', the alternative, but now, I mean how more mainstream can you get?

Windows is the alternative these days and if I was starting out today I would definitely choose Windows over Mac no question. Apple want to sell shitty iPhones, the rest (computers) is an inconvenient legacy from the genius of Jobs.

[Ploki]

You’re not agreeing with bones here tho. You’re agreeing with everybody else who makes a case for RME.

Your hot take on apple is pointless. My 2012 retina mbp still works flawlessly.

No problem I'll convert to Firewire 800 with a simple lead but- ah- there is no firewire 800 on Macbooks anymore.

that's silly.
2% of computer users still need FW (probably less). If you do, you can get an adapter that works flawlessly.
I'd rather have a super-fast thunderbolt port i can adapt to my needs than 10 legacy ports that i'll never f**king use.
Why not include a printer parallel port? Surely someone still has a printer with a parallel port.

The whole "apple is shit after jobs" argument is banal anyway

They used to be the 'outsiders', the alternative, but now, I mean how more mainstream can you get?

How is not using a chip everyone else uses and having ~15% of the market share MAINSTREAM?
And why the hell are you trying to make a case of "Why is apple not more like windows" (literally an alternative) and at the same time "they're not alternative anymore"
non-sequitur

[pinki]

OK Apple fanboy you keep sucking at the teat...

[Ploki]

what a retort,
quickly someone give this guy a medal

[pdxindy]

Yep, the Fireface 800 works the same as it did when I got it 15 years ago. Bought a Babyface Pro recently as a front end and the whole thing is ridiculously seamless. There's something to be said for just paying once and not spending time worrying about anything breaking. Plus the pres in cheap audio interfaces are complete garbage, the A/D converters are all good these days, but my god the garbage that passes for pre amps on consumer audio interfaces.

I have a BabyFace Pro for travel/portability and a larger RME for the main studio. Couldn't be happier with both of them.

[pdxindy]

If people are throwing away less 'stuff' then that is unarguably a good thing. Keeping a low cost interface going for twenty or even thirty (Motu 828 Mk1 anyone?) years is better for the planet.

That is exactly why I now buy good quality gear in the first place. It last longer and performs better. If I had bought an RME interface right from the start, I would never have purchased the other cheap interfaces that didn't work well and which I had to move on from.