FX Xpansion. poor customer relations!

[mike16877]

without going in to details I have really been put off this company recently. Their customer relations are totally non existent. When I send them an email (heavily) explaining the problems I have had installing thier 'buggy' and not very good sounding BFD drum module I get back a totally non interested one liner email like

"the plugin has to be installed in the correct folder"

Yeh Like im Stupid!!

I then email them back and they email me back with a another one liner and on and on it goes.

The whole tone of FX Xpansion reminds me of Bombfactory and quite honestly I am sick and tired of spending good money on companies who couldnt give a rats ass about their customers. Hence I will never buy another BF plugin and have not installed ANY of the ones I do own.

OH, and I never did get the DR008 demo to work on my PC or MAC despite numerous emails to them. And Im not the only one. I gave up being interested in the drum module and at this time I am not impressed with the sound of their BFD Acoustic drum module. I also have Steinbergs Groove agent which I have been very happy with. The sound of FX Xpansion module sounds rather amateur to be honest. The best I could describe is a cross between Eric Persiing's heavily processed sounds with a poorly recorded drum kit in fact the sounds remind me of some kits I had recorded in my early years). The sounds (so far) simply dont fit with anything. The more layers of other instruments that are added the more the drums sound very weak and lose all snappy tones. Of course this could be me but this is exactly the same thing that happened with 'Stylus'. Great on its own, crap in the mix...Hmmmmm

The point is many of us are looking forward to the release of their VST-RTAS adapter and I have to say that my experience with this company has not been good at all. I think this company are biting off a little more than they can chew at the moment as they seem to be rushing out as many products as they can.

Is this is case of we wont last forever so lets get as much stuff out there to sell as quick as we can!!

Sorry for the moan......:)

[kmshroom]

who have you been in contact with @ FXpansion?

i've had nothing but good experiences with them, and i rate them as one of the better companies in terms of support/service, actually. i always deal directly with either Angus (i think he's head of the co.) or SKoT (one of the lead programmers). they also are pretty responsive on their own forum, the FXpansion section of the KvR.

BFD was released prematurely, true. but at least they are fixing the bugs and releasing updates in rapid succession (Hmmm, let's think what IK have done with ST2, or ANY of their products for that matter, and suddenly FXpansion isn't the one to complain about!).

they do seem to be biting off a tad bit more than they can chew- in the immediate present, they are doing the following (that i know of, at least).. patching up BFD, about to release v1.19 of DR-008 any day now, and have those two wrappers for us PTers for imminent release ..all at the same time. for a ..five(?) or so person company, that is quite a handful.

[mike16877]

The very first email I sent of which was asking about info on the VST/RTAS adapter recieved a pretty dismall response. A bit to short and curt......yes they probably are busy hence I suggest they have someone dealing with customer support. The busier and bigger they get the less customer service there will be. I believe good customer service pays for its self in the long run. All these companies could benefit from that. Companies the size of Digidesign could also benefit with a better PR dept. I always think of Virgins PR/customer relations and Its obvious that has a lot to do with their success.

But, Im also sick of companies releasing software before its ready...IK Multimedia included (although I would never have bought that sampler from them).

Dont you feel that this is mostly a software issue compared to other products you would buy. Of course I can buy a DVD player today which could be faulty. But its rare (in my case) to have to return toasters, washing machine etc. I cant recall when I had to take something back.................But with Computers (especially recent apple Ones) and software there always seems to be problems. I mean how could someone at Apple not notice the Jet fans on many G4 machines before they were released. Thats just blatant lets chance it, they might not notice stuff.

And, its becoming quite the norm isn it. Not accpetable, but quite normal. Eventually WE will accept it as part of the course which means the software companies are aware of this and may start selling their stuff knowing that the honest buyers will do a lot of the Beta Testing for them....OOPS I forgot they already do!!

In the last 6 months I have started buying hardware for my studio. I havent had a single problem with any of the new gear. Why is that? Well, for a company to recall hundreds, possibly thousands of faulty units would be horrendously expensive for them. Even if the repair could be done locally it would still be very very expensive especially for the smaller companies like Empirical Labs for eg. However, in the case of software its merely a matter of posting an update on a website to fix all the bugs the buying public pointed out to them. But I still think its a case of "Its nearly ready, they expect bugs so lets release it now before Company X releases their version......Well fix it later"

FX Xpansion hopefully are a good/responsive company. But all I can say is that so far Im not exactly jumping for joy with my new but slightly disfuctional software that I bought from them.

Im still moaning....

[One Track Music]

While there was some bugginess in the first releases of BFD, I found their customer support first rate and very prompt. I've had BFD up and running smoothly for a while now & I think it's awesome. For me at least, the kits are great, well recorded and highly flexible. Sorry to hear you didn't find the same. Give 'em a chance though, they're certainly NOT a Bombfactory-like company. They also have a very useful forum that helped me iron out some issues; check it out at:

http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

Good luck,

Joel

[kmshroom]

http://www.kvr-vst.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=13

oh, and this is slightly annoying, but the only place you can get updates for FX software is via their forum.

[wmcintyre]

I've had BFD up and running smoothly for a while now

Hi Joel, have you managed to get BFD to respond to tempo/time sig changes?
I can with Logic but not Pro Tools HD. Any ideas?

As for customer relations I too have had good response but considering
that the BFD program could not have worked from the original
version supplied(RTAS) I think they could do better as to making sure
that the program works in the first place!

[kmshroom]

have you managed to get BFD to respond to tempo/time sig changes?
I can with Logic but not Pro Tools HD. Any ideas?

BFD is not yet able to do that in PT, and both Angus and SKoT are aware of this. in PT, it currently only works as a sound module.

[david korn]

It gets tempo information when used as a ReWire app with PT. I use 1.03c and was able to make it work in sync, including fills, etc. I love it. But it's a CPU hog.

[GKB]

In the Past I have had dealings with Angus from FXP and haver found him to be the most helpfull person that I have ever dealt with in any software company. If you want to know what bad customer relations are try talking to Bombfactory.