Is Tracktion now an orphan?

[Njxt2]

PC-people can just stick with T1 or T2 - if they don't need dual-core support

There's far more advantages/features in T3 than dual-core support.

From Valley :

'you pays your money, you takes your chance.'

Yes and no.
Comparing a product (hardware or software) to a horse race seems flawed to me.
Betting on a horse is a game of luck with immediate rewarding or loss.
Buying a product is expecting it to do what it's supposed to do. And T3 is not doing what it's supposed to do on Mac or on PC on some points (first note drop, PDC and stuff).
There is of course, a little chance that the company will run ount of business or take decisions such as stopping the production ... but at least there's communication about that at one moment or another.

The real problem right now is information (or lack of) from Mackie to customers. It's so simple to adress these days with internet and forums and e-mails that it can't be forgiven to not do so for months.

My day job is programming manager in a little software company (25 employees, ~a thousand customers, ~2500 software licences installed). The software is very specialized and quite expensive compared to T. and we partially live on annual software maintenance contracts ... you could say that's a slightly different world than Mackie and T. BUT, regarding respect to our customers and their businesse, I CAN'T imagine we stop communicating with our clients and prospects (english ?) suddenly like that and not giving them a insight on our situation and projects. In our modern fast communicating word, it's the ABC of business ... In "niches" business, bad news goes so fast that it's hugely costly to get back on it. And silence is bad news for 80% of people.

[terrynoakes]

Well put Njxt,
All this debate/speculation could have been stopped in it's tracks if someone from Mackie(Beno?)
Popped up and said were working on it be patient it will take some time.

http://www.myspace.com/terrynoakes

[headquest]

That level of support is hugely expensive though... To have someone semi-permanently monitor these forums and provide support/customer ego massaging will cost Mackie upwards of a 40K a year. By the time you've factored in health care, payroll taxes etc, in truth they're probably in for 80K. That's before training costs for the support guy, and time spent liaising with senior staff members when a thread like this one gets going. So even if T had half of this guy's time, that's still a serious expense to Mackie, and for $200 you're just not getting that kind of service.

I see your point, but I'm not sure how/why this might have recently changed?

1) In the past Beno regularly communicated with Tracktion users on this forum, and *cost* was not apparently an issue... but this communication seems to have dried up. Hence the OP.

2) Tony took time to write two quite detailed replies, but in neither of them did he give a straight answer to the simple question. It would not have cost Mackie a single $ more for him to have given a short but helpfully decisive reply instead of two medium sized replies that side-stepped the question.

[mcnelson]

(Mr Mackie MD calls Beno into his office)...

"Beno...you parlez with those squabbling idiots over at KVR - they think we've ditched Tracktion, just take 5 minutes to log on and tell them they're being squabbling idiots"

or:

"Beno - those pesky kids at KVR have rumbled us and know we've dropped Tracktion. Maintain radio silence long enough for us to slip out the back door and maybe they won't notice!"

[valley]

I see your point, but I'm not sure how/why this might have recently changed?

Because you are making the assumption that a) Beno was assigned to monitor this forum, rather than just monitoring it in his free time because he is generally speaking, one of the good guys, and b) he hasn't been assigned other responsibilities in addition to his role with Tracktion.

Since none of us actually know what Ben's job title is, or what responsibilities he might have at any one time, it's kind of hard to draw conclusions from his presence or lack of. I.E. if we went a full 12 months without a single point revision, that would speak far louder than any level of contribution Ben might make to this forum. Conversely, if we were seeing updates on a bi-monthly basis, I doubt we'd be having the conversation either.

1) In the past Beno regularly communicated with Tracktion users on this forum, and *cost* was not apparently an issue... but this communication seems to have dried up. Hence the OP.

During my work hours I regularly contribute to a few forums that are related to my job. I'm not paid to do that in any official sense. I'm in an academic environment, and the sharing of knowledge is just accepted. I participate because the pay-off comes when I'm in need of assistance. That said, if I have deadlines to meet, my primary responsibility is to my official workload, and not to some external community. Ben obviously has a different, and closer relationship to this forum, but, fundamentally, this a community forum (and not a Mackie one at that) not an official channel. Even the Mackie forums seem now to be classed as community forums. Support questions are, AFAICT, supposed to be submitted directly to Mackie.

2) Tony took time to write two quite detailed replies, but in neither of them did he give a straight answer to the simple question. It would not have cost Mackie a single $ more for him to have given a short but helpfully decisive reply instead of two medium sized replies that side-stepped the question.

I'm not dissing call-center staff here since I've been one in a previous life, but you've clearly never worked in a call-center. The scary bit is that he actually gave a personal reply. A stock response straight off the stock response auto mailer would be more typical. You're talking to a bob though. You might just as well ask the lady behind the deli counter whether Tesco has plans to expand to East Asia.

[valley]

PC-people can just stick with T1 or T2 - if they don't need dual-core support

There's far more advantages/features in T3 than dual-core support.

From Valley :

'you pays your money, you takes your chance.'

Yes and no.
Comparing a product (hardware or software) to a horse race seems flawed to me.

It does to me too, but for, and let me clarify here, for off-the-shelf software, a gamble is exactly what you make.

Once your dollars are paid, you have, or should expect to have, no relationship with the developers, no further updates, or upgrades, and no meaningful level of support past, insert-the-disk-and-let-autoplay-do-the-rest type 'FAQs' on support websites.

Be it games, OSs, tax calculators, you're typically buying on faith. Hell, a couple of the large player sequencers out there that people keep pointing to as 'how things should be done' don't even offer demos. If that aint a gamble, I really don't know what is.

There is of course, a little chance that the company will run ount of business or take decisions such as stopping the production ... but at least there's communication about that at one moment or another.

Tell that to Adobe.

The real problem right now is information (or lack of) from Mackie to customers. It's so simple to adress these days with internet and forums and e-mails that it can't be forgiven to not do so for months.

I agree. Mackie are totally dropping the ball. But again, the ball in this case may not be Tracktion. If they've screwed up something that really matters, smaller market stuff like Tracktion is by necessity going to take a back seat until they've got their crap together again. Who knows what's going on there right now. Some problems you can talk to your customers about. Some you can't.

My day job is programming manager in a little software company (25 employees, ~a thousand customers, ~2500 software licences installed). The software is very specialized and quite expensive compared to T. and we partially live on annual software maintenance contracts ... you could say that's a slightly different world than Mackie and T.

It's a very different world. You are essentially reliant on building a relationship with your customers, and in turn that relationship is what they are paying you for. You don't get that with Microsoft though. I would expect my tailor to address me by name, and remember my taste in fabric, but I don't expect that from The Gap.

[rockstar_not]

I agree. Mackie are totally dropping the ball. But again, the ball in this case may not be Tracktion. If they've screwed up something that really matters, smaller market stuff like Tracktion is by necessity going to take a back seat until they've got their crap together again. Who knows what's going on there right now. Some problems you can talk to your customers about. Some you can't.

I'm hopeful that this is the case. Let's face it - Tracktion is unique in the DAW market in more ways than being iconoclast in it's ease of use.

It's the only DAW currently owned by a company that makes it's lion share of profits from HARDWARE products almost unrelated to DAW software use. Yes, music products, but mostly live-sound reproduction products.

Why they decided to purchase Tracktion from Jules has always been a mystery to me. Their efforts to crack into the low to mid-level recording market have met with much less fanfare and market acceptance than their live-sound products; exceptions possibly the HR series of monitors and a mixer line (can't recall which series).

I'm not sure where their factories were in China (yes they were making plenty of products in China), but perhaps the earthquake situation has affected production to the extent that even Beno is assembling mixers in a warehouse on the west coast somewhere. Pure speculation - yes. Possible - also yes.

So in this point, I can agree with Valley.

Now his point about buying a product with advertised features as a gamble, can't quite swallow that point.

Time stretching was advertised as a feature for T2 from the beginning, and about the only thing it was useful for was adding a watery blur to whatever clip one applied the 'effect' on.

It should never have been advertised as legitimate time/pitch stretching.

It's why we have the Federal Trade Commission in the US (I'm sure there are similar agencies in other countries with capitalist governments) - to protect consumers from false advertising, amongst other responsibilities. If a company states a product functions in a certain way, and then it doesn't, then they are actually in violation of the law - at least in the US.

T3 seems to have at least a few things; real Mac compatibility being one of them, that really don't seem to line up with advertised capability.

Here's to them getting this sorted out quick and letting us all know they've done the job.

-Scott

[UncleAge]

Once your dollars are paid, you have, or should expect to have, no relationship with the developers, no further updates, or upgrades, and no meaningful level of support past, insert-the-disk-and-let-autoplay-do-the-rest type 'FAQs' on support websites.

valley, I agree with the spirit of your posts on this topic. For the most part your just injecting a dose of reality and common sense. However, its a lot of users expectations and perceptions about this experience that has led to these comments. I lurked on KVR for over a year before I posted and before I put my money down on the Tracktion square. A very healthy portion of my decision to purchase Tracktion [to the credit of the users on this forum] came from the fact that I saw a company taking part in the Q&A with its customers and potential buyers. I am often reminded by those I work with that "perception is reality" as I sometimes come across to tohers as a bit harsh. I mention this because this is not the first thread of this type I've seen here. And maybe, just maybe, this time, users perceptions are just as real as the other factors surrounding our purchase. I don't think most of what has been voiced is unreasonable. It was in place when most of us made our purchase of this software. And regardless of whether or not any of the supposed scenarios are true or not, I find it hard to believe that an email to its user base would have put any kind of financial/time/personnel strain on Mackie/Loud Tech.

I'll leave this alone after this post because I don't believe I can add anything more that hasn't already been shared. But no matter the outcome, I appreciate you guys letting me voice my concerns.

[headquest]

Lots of common sense indeed, valley

My only other thought is that Mackie are at least now aware of this thread...

Any perception that Tracktion could become abandonware could obviously damage future sales. If we positively assume that Mackie are still committed to Tracktion's future then I think we should definitely expect that they will act quickly to give a short response here. It would really be dropping the ball if they now failed to set the record straight and thus protect their own market/commercial interests.

So... enough said. I think I have nothing else to add either.

[diverdee]

No matter what the reality is consumer perception is incredibly important.
All it takes is 'Hi guys, tour friendly neighbourhood Mackie rep here, don't worry we are working on things, hush hush for now - stay cool'.
Took me a few seconds to type that, now i'd have been beno or some other Mackie guy peeps would feel much happier.

[warbug]

I was thinking about this a few night ago while I was playing with the live 7 demo.


Maybe after this T3 fiasco Mackie will try to abandon all tie with the name Tracktion, Raw Materials and this KVR forum. But renaming what would be T4 to somthing like "Mackie Fast Track" or something stupid in hopes to still be in the mid level sequencer market.


I can't think of the name for this and a searching engine did not help



When Leo Fender sold Fender guitars to CBS in 67(?) he has to sign a contract that did not allow him to design guitars for 10 years when that was up he started Music Man....

I wonder if Jules had to sign something like that. If Mackie dumps Tracktion what is stopping him from putting out a better version of T3?


and if it goes away it goes away as. Live 7 is growing on me

[Mr. Tingle]

personally i think the release of T3 was so problematic (not least was the terrible decision to send the UK boxes by ship adding months onto the European distribution) that, far from the rapturous reception they anticipated for T3 there were a never ending stream of complaints and frustrations. I think this has taken the wind out of their sales and are now THINKING about what to do next.

IMO they only have themselves to blame as the software was not properly tested.

I seem to remember a buzz about the pending release of T3, not much going on now, all those bugs have sapped the soul right out of the community.

If they were to rethink Tracktion as a download only product I think this may bring some interest back to the product. Tracktion as a box was just plain unnecessary.

Still, its been a good journey so far no matter what the outcome.

[independentfactory]

+1 for Valley's POV and the generally sober discussion here.

I also like to contemplate the promotional video for T3, still on the mackie site, with all it's kooky marketing hooh-hah, with the studious silence from Beno / development team we are currently experiencing.

What does that tell us about ourselves?

[LBN]

It's the only DAW currently owned by a company that makes it's lion share of profits from HARDWARE products almost unrelated to DAW software use.

What about Logic?

[mrcleats]

OK, I'm trying to just get this clear:

T3, we all fundamentally like. That's why we're in this forum.

SO - Question is, is there further support for this product? Well, there's nothing apparent.

That'll do me, Tracktion = dead. Seriously, it's finished, move along, nothing to see here.