Why I would never buy anything again from Slate

[MetalSound]

A few months ago I bought SSD 3.5 and had to download it as I am living in Germany. The company sent me the login name and the password and everything went well. I have a rather slow internet connection so downloading took very long as the files were very big.
But the company gave me 5 days to download it. "That should do it", I thought. After 3 days of nearly full time downloading I couldn´t login anymore so I emailed the support.....and didn´t get an answer. This I did 3 times in 3 days and......didn´t get an answer. So I sent a pm to Slate in this forum and he got back to me with another login name and password.
What would I have done if I wasn´t in this forum or knew about it?
I guess I would still be waiting for an answer from the support.....


Now after reading all the hype of trigger going on here I said to myself "okay, people eat shit. a million flies can´t be wrong." and finally bought Trigger ex.
This time the download worked. Got them all unzipped them into my Trigger folder as it said in the manual, installed the program, opened Nuendo and.......nothing happened. No Trigger there.
In the plugin information I found out that Trigger could not be loaded. So you know what´s coming next.........I emailed the support and.........I got an answer!!!!
Alex was quite nice and told me to try installing Trigger in his own folder under Nuendo. That´s what I did and..........it worked. The plugin was there. I tried to open it as an insert on a track and...........crash.
Nuendo just shuts down without a warning.
So I tried it again.
And again.
And again.
Deinstalled the program. Reinstalled it. Deinstalled ilok. Reinstalled it. Everything you can imagine I tried.
Nothing worked.

So you know what´s coming.......I emailed the support and.............didn´t get an answer. On the next day I emailed the support again and.....................didn´t get answer. On the next day I emailed the support AGAIN and was fucking furious as I bought the program and needed it but.....................I didn´t get answer.

So I sent a pm to Slate here on this forum but.............I didn´t get answer.

This really drives me mad. I am a registered user and a customer from this company and they don´t care about me.
I know a lot of you guys don´t have any problems with Slate´s stuff or got quick answers from the support.
This I think is due to simple questions going along with installing programs or registering or anything else which can be fixed quite simply.
But as Trigger doesn´t work on Nuendo 3 at all (in this moment) I think they are in trouble as there doesn´t seem to be a quick and simple solution for fixing this.

So I learned that this company is selling software that is still in beta version and abusing their customers to be beta testers which I think is a shame. We all are giving them money to get a program that works.
If you buy a car you wouldn´t expect the seller to say "ooooohhhhh, I am DEEEEEPLY sorry. We have some troubles with the engine. It will take another week before you can drive your car. But you can already sit in there and have a taste of the new car smell."

 

[dcb]

all i can say is everything (trigger plat, fg-x, ssd 3.5 plat etc. ) works fine in nuendo 5.

but i never got any answers from customer support either...
had serious issues with instrument maker... fg-x didnt install the first time... the fgx update isnt working.

i love slates products! i use them on a daily basis and am looking forward to VCC Console.
but yeah the support is kinda weak. im sure they work their asses off, but
i suppose they get more people for their support team as some stuff.

 

[KHE]

i would try to call them instead of sending e-mails. Spoken words are so much more effective than the written ones...

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Kontakt never worked on SL 3 on an intel mac FWIW. Shit just might not be compatible. Either way, shitty if that's the case.

 

[::XeS::]

They also opened an official forum where you can write your problem.
Unfortunately you're right about one thing. Nowadays every company sells new product with no beta testing...I mean, if you watch around you, you can notice that every new product line that comes out, have lot of problems (cars, iphones, macs, computers, softwares...). There is a delirium for put new products on the market first of the others, and the beta testing is done by the first buyers. Look at the new macbooks when they came out, look at the new iPhone 4... they had problems immediately noticeable with a little amount of beta testing, but they sold them.

 

[nex666]

They also opened an official forum where you can write your problem.
Unfortunately you're right about one thing. Nowadays every company sells new product with no beta testing...I mean, if you watch around you, you can notice that every new product line that comes out, have lot of problems (cars, iphones, macs, computers, softwares...). There is a delirium for put new products on the market first of the others, and the beta testing is done by the first buyers. Look at the new macbooks when they came out, look at the new iPhone 4... they had problems immediately noticeable with a little amount of beta testing, but they sold them.

Apple said they spent 100 million dollars on aerial lab testing hahaha

 

[Fragle]

just FYI, you can buy a hardcopy of ssd! there's a distributor for germany, search google.

anyways, i haven't had any issues with slate product per se, but lots of issues with native instruments. activation process was a total nightmare for me. NI sucks balls. period.

 

[fitzrangerhoodngarb]

Answering tech support enquiries is a tangible way for a business to demonstrate they have respect for their customers. Those customers that have already demonstrated they have enough respect to engage in a commercial transaction with the business.

If a business model precludes the ability to answer these enquiries prudently then it is a house of cards, a commercial sham. Allocating resources to developing new products at the expense of supporting existing customers and products is like adding another storey to said house without the foundation strength to hold it up.

You can't manufacture infinite out of finite. It seems parallel product development is manufacturers attempt to circumvent reality in this sense. By continuing to support a business that is unable to provide this engagement and respect for its existing customer base is to be complicit in the perpetuation of this illusion.

If you insist on being bent over by young-audio-entrepreneurial-meat at least you want it to be one with a real dong, not an illusory one.

This seems to be happening more and more in this post GS world. It fucking pisses me off.

@Metalsound - Hope it works out satisfactorily for ya. You've gone public, of course it will.

 

[kev]

I had a hard copy of 3.5 sent. I guess they changed the distribution model shortly afterwards.

There must have been a particular problem with your system dude. Did you try installing on a fresh computer? From a tech support perspective if it always going to be a pure nightmare to troubleshoot this sort of thing as there are so many variables involved. That said it would have been nice if they tried

 

[MetalSound]

Answering tech support enquiries is a tangible way for a business to demonstrate they have respect for their customers.

Nothing more to add.

There must have been a particular problem with your system dude. Did you try installing on a fresh computer?

No, there is no problem with my system. I only use it for audio recording. I´m a professional and I NEVER had any issue with ANY other company.
Btw, WAVES have the best support of all companies I had to deal with.

 

[tarbh666]

Question for you... Is your version of Nuendo legit? It won't run on cracked software.
A friend of mine tried to run it on a cracked version of Cubase SX3 and Nuendo 3 and both of them shut down immediately when he opened trigger.

 

[MetalSound]

Of course it is!

 

[guitarguru777]

I dunno, this just seems more like a dig on Slate for no reason to me. I have spoken to support numerous times about things and they have always been great. I really think if it didnt work with you particular DAW they would know. I have run it in Reaper, Sonar 4, Sonar 8, I was even able to load it in Audacity without any problems. I have also been able to load it on multiple OS's as well. WinXP, Win7, Vista without any problem at all.

I am sure as soon as the guys from Slate see this, they will chime in.

 

[MetalSound]

I dunno, this just seems more like a dig on Slate for no reason to me.

Well, I think I have a reason to be angry with them because I paid them money for a program which doesn´t work and I didn´t even get an answer why.

I have spoken to support numerous times about things and they have always been great. I really think if it didnt work with you particular DAW they would know. I have run it in Reaper, Sonar 4, Sonar 8, I was even able to load it in Audacity without any problems. I have also been able to load it on multiple OS's as well. WinXP, Win7, Vista without any problem at all.

I´m quite sure that their plugin works on many machines and there are a lot of people that DON´T have any trouble. But that is of no more importance for me because I do have problems and they have to solve it or give me back my money.

 

[fitzrangerhoodngarb]

I dunno, this just seems more like a dig on Slate for no reason to me.

Computer says no.

 

[tarbh666]

Works fine for me on Reaper and Cubase 5 on both XP and Vista. I feel your pain, it's an AWESOME plugin

 

[slashvanyoung]

Torsten, kann dich absolut verstehen. Das ist einfach nur eine Riesensauerei und einer der Gründe, warum ich voerst bei apTrigga bleib und 'nen großen Bogen um die Firma mach.

 

[departed]

mm, i'm not happy with slate either right now. i bought the 'audiomidi' $80 all ex packages 'no brainer deal', and while i appreciate the amazing savings i've got from this ($300 worth for $80), slate's servers have been 'playing up' since the 6th which was when i payed for this deal. in the meantime, i've been sent 3 emails promising me that it'd be up and running 'within a day or two..', still nothing. i was understanding for up to a week, but it's been 17 days now!! it'd have been way quicker for slate to ship the disks from the US to the UK than wait for this damned download link and serial.

while i love trigger and ex, i'm more than unimpressed with the service i've been given and if i didn't think slate's samples absolutely crap on toontrack stuff i'd swear never to buy any again.

 

[Melb_shredder]

Personally I haven had to deal with slate before and hope all goes well with my own endevours, but I can see why people ate upset and why this isn't just a stab at Slate. Chances are he will see and deal with it, but a customer shouldn't have to wait for that point to come. It's just a bad business model, plain and simple! Slats products and service will hopefully be world class like the rest, but for now I think the inexperience is showing that's all i can say really.
Great products, no question but yah :s

 

[aortizjr]

With the testing there is a LOT of market pressure. People don't realize that it is actually perfectly normal to announce something a year in advance before release, especially at invite only trade shows (ie. NAMM).

CPU's, the new WinPads, software, etc. I see all this stuff announced long before they are shipped. And first to market is a big deal, marketing 101 . Even if your product is superior, first to market almost always sells more units.

As far as Slate support, if you use the Support system on Slate Digital I got a response next day or so for a problem I am having with the latest update in Kontakt 4. NI took 2 weeks to get back to me. At the end of the day, NI took the blame and it will be fixed in a later release. Didn't give an ETA, wouldn't give an ETA, frustrating. I am not dead in the water, since I can use 3.5, but that causes bad CPU spikes and eats way more memory.

I think Slate's problem is that he is maybe too busy with customers. Constantly on forums and getting involved with dealing with whiny customers who can't wait. So the pressure is even worse. But I do really appreciate having him and his team on the forums. To me they are very helpful and provide lots of information and actually listen to customer needs for product enhancements and improvements.

See if you get that out of say... oh Steinberg, Avid, NI, Peavey (Revalver), and the list goes on. And look at the frequency of updates... hmm very few and far between. For instance where is Revalver mkIII.5? All I could see were some additional amp models that were done already in Jan? But they are still fixing III. At this point it is looking like 2011 for the beta test.