It's a sad day...
 

I'm not normally the guy that complains, but... (this time I do)
I feel like a fool, having to pay an annual subscription for my S6, which is not exactly cheap, and getting zero updates. The last PT update, 18.12, even broke some functionality so plugins not getting shown when editing from the S6.

Ever since I got my S6, there has been a lot of small things where it was annoying, but I kept telling myself that it was the best surface ever, probably because of the money I spent on it. I has been pretty proud of my S6, in my medium size studio in Denmark. But now, with the non-existing updates, I think I have had enough.

I also hate that sometimes one of the modules looses connection and have to be rebooted, and my dealer tell me that happens a lot for their customers. I'm not a fan of the tiny "m" labeled button for Trim, and the "f" labeled button for automation modes. Same with the Swap button, which is somewhat big, but not used for anything.

Did I mention not getting any updates for a year?

I find myself missing my old D-Command, it was made to just work with Pro Tools, and the integration was great. The S6 is made to work with everything speaking Eucon, and that makes it less integrated with Pro Tools.

So I have been looking for alternatives, but there are not really any. D-Commands are a bit old, and most of them have failing knobs. Så I have been thinking about trying a Raven (never seen that one coming) ;)

More than 2.5 years ago I asked about setting pre roll times from the surface, I did that a lot from my D-Command
http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t...light=pre-roll
Jeff said it was a good idea, and would request it would be "euconized", nothing have happened, and when I asked about it some time ago, I was told they had more important stuff to do. Fair enough. But, all the stuff people suggest/ask for, is never implemented :(
Also this one about duplicating tracks, nothing: http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=398919

One positive thing: Eddie and Jeff are fantastic when it comes to help and answer questions.

Ah well, had to vent a little, regretting I spent a fortune on my S6 :(

Re: It's a sad day...
 

Sorry to say, I have to concur with the post above.

Expected rapid development in new functionality and bug fixes when I bought a very promising, but fairly unfinished product 2.5 years ago. And coming from ICON, I took for granted that every function from my D-Command was either ported over as is or implemented in a more suitable way.

Disappointingly, I can now say 2.5 years after, that the progress is far slower than expected, and that the S6 is shockingly absent of several ICON functions I still miss every working day.

As a loyal customer through more than 20 years, I cannot understand the logics behind not taking care of us who have used (and even promoted) AVID products for an entire career. We represent the majority of power users, who are daily pushing the equipment to the edge of functionality. Needless to say, losing out on features when investing in "the next big thing", the S6, is a BIG letdown. New technology should make us leaping forward, and I did accept for a while that there would be some adaptation and "growing pains", but I frankly cannot accept that we still don't have everything the ICON offered, even if S6 has other new stuff.

And the fact that we both payed for an unfinished and lacking product back in the day (with a promise of rapid development of features missing from the ICON), AND that we have to pay for that same feature development to actually happen, seems more and more like a scam to me. But that isn't the worst of it. Now we have paid for an entire year of software upgrades that hasn't happened! So we are paying for absolutely nothing that shouldn't have been offered us free in the first place.

So, AVID, I think you should come clean and give us the REAL story here, because there obviously is something fishy going on. We are continuously let down by you, as bugs aren't straightened out and new (and old) functions requested from users are still painfully absent.

What do you have to say, guys?

Javed Kurd
Oslo, Norway.

Re: It's a sad day...
 

Firstly, I hear you and agree that the upcoming release will be nearly a year after 18.3 and I am truly sorry about that. We have been working hard on the new release, which hasn’t been delivered because we have been working on improving stability. Whilst not having all the requested features yet, there are some great new ones and we’re including some highly-requested ICON ones in this upcoming release as well. Everyone who took out support in the past year will absolutely get the update.

Whilst not wanting to excuse the delay, we will have made 6 releases in the past 2.5 years and I can assure you we are continuing with development. When the ICON was released it took over 10 years of ongoing development to get it to where it is now and S6 is only half way into that – please bear with us and continue to share your opinions on what new features are most important to you.

Re: It's a sad day...
 

The feature I need most is...

Stability.

One of our 3 M40s is disconnecting from the workstation all the time. (The other ones do too, just not as regularly).
That is with dedicated IT and tech department, using only recommended hardware, software and network settings.

My mixers have not a lot of trust in the S6 anymore. It's really annoying that you can't trust the thing to just work.

Re: It's a sad day...
 

Have you contacted Customer Support ? We find the most common cause of that is the network setup on the Mac. A simple test would be to disable all other ports on the Mac including WiFi and run for a bit and see if it improves. There are a number of other things I could help you check if you like, but if you have contacted support they will have probably got you to do this already.

Re: It's a sad day...
 

Hi Eddie,
thanks for your suggestions, but our tech department and 3rd level support are in contact with Avid support regarding this.
That being said, if you could give me a list of things to go through that would be great.

Disabling all other network connections is not possible in our case since we're booked back to back and work from a huge NAS.

Re: It's a sad day...
 

What is your company name ?

Re: It's a sad day...
 

Sent you a PM Eddie.

And all the hassles aside, I can only repeat what others have said. The personal support you guys give here on the DUC is really awesome!

It's a sad day...
 

All complaints aside, I agree that the personal follow up from Eddie and the team is highly appreciated!:)

Javed Kurd.

Re: It's a sad day...
 

We had an issue with modules losing connection. We fixed it by building our own cat6 cables (instead of using those that came with the device) and not plugging into the patch panel on the S6 and instead going directly into the switch.

Had it continued, our next step was going to be to drop the Switch that cam with the S6 and get something a bit more robust.