A Minnetonka Audio Customer Support Story

[myke2242]

Well once upon a time I purchased software from Minnetonka Audio. It was actually a application called AWE. i purchased to do one specific task. Two years ago i had contacted Minnetonka about the issues i was having with AWE. during that interaction i was put in touch with the AWE developer. i told him all the issues i was having how i thought the product could be in proved.

Two years later i posted in the AWE section of the MASI forum about the issues and major bugs that still existed. i was asking for help to get these things fixed so i could use their product which i paid a chunk of cash for. I was then informed Minnetonka would be discontinuing said feature in the next release and that i should hold on to the version of AWE i currently have. oook.... i promptly replied with my concern about how it wasn't right to discontinue that feature for those who were waiting to for it to be fixed. i mean come on, avid doesn't even do that! they at least tell the upcoming release will be EOL.

Instead of responding to my post Minnetonka just completely close the AWE section of their MASI forum. i am pretty disappointed how this was handled and wanted to let others know their Minnetonka Audio products are probably not as safe as they may think.

[Postman]

Yeow! A feature was always buggy and eventually dropped from the software altogether. That feature was a primary reason you bought the software to begin with. Most companies would extend an apology and perhaps some other form of good will. I'm surprised, Minnetonka is a reputable company!

Can you say what is the feature that was dropped?

[quadraphonics]

I have dealt with the Minnetonka developers for several years now. I am a bit surprised to hear your story. All of my interactions have been really positive. They might be closing down the AWE side since they are focusing on their AWE Server based software.

Randall Smith

[myke2242]

Yes. they dropped the Mp3 support. not a huge deal to some. but from time to i manage the audio recordings for large medical conference where i may have 40 - 50 rooms to manage. on average the rooms are spitting out about 50 + recordings a day. just too much for one person to QC.

What i liked about about AWE was the watch folder which would automatically look for new files in a targeted folder and process them as they came in.

Here are some things that are wrong AWE.

Mp3 support just doesnt work. if i throw a LAME encoded mp3 into AWE, you get a blank file back.

The Normalize module has a bug where it cant detect or preserve channel layout. so if i place a mono file in the que, i get back a stereo file with audio on the left channel.

Cache files. so every file that goes through AWE has .mppi cache file created. not a issue if they are small. some times these things are a few mb's. so when you are dealing with network storage and trying to limit bandwidth this becomes a huge issue!

those are just some of the things.

[myke2242]

Originally Posted by quadraphonics

I have dealt with the Minnetonka developers for several years now. I am a bit surprised to hear your story. All of my interactions have been really positive. They might be closing down the AWE side since they are focusing on their AWE Server based software.

Randall Smith

I thought the same thing two years ago. but nothing has changed since i talked to their dev about the issues with AWE. maybe it is the plan to close down AWE in wake of AWE Server. which by the way i was very excited for (not anymore). but why close down the AWE section on MASI? just doesn't make sense.

I E-Mailed tech support last Friday. i have yet to receive a responds to my bid for help.