I've been formulating a list of complaints for gear manufacturers. These are just a few off the top of my head. Add to it if you wanna!
Why is the talkback button in the middle upper portion of the board?
Why is there no jack for a simple remote talkback button?
Why make channel strips without polarity switches (or ones that only work on mic inputs)?
Why rackmountable gear has IEC/power inputs on either right, left or middle? Pure hell when trying to isolate power and audio!
How come your shock mounts fall apart in a year?
Please put pad switches on your preamps!
How come your metering doesn't correspond to any of my other gear?
Could your DAW software please have scaled metering? Please?
If your mic pre has an output control please mark the UNITY setting for that!!!
No more 1/8" plugs with 1/4" adapters on headphone cables!
No more curly headphone cables!
No post fader metering on the mixer meter bridge? Why?
Hey, your mic body is milled so tight that some XLR cables won't fit inside!
Your pop screen clip doesn't fit half my stands and when it does the screen still won't stay in front of the mic.
Your mic stand boom ALWAYS sags downward no matter how much I tigten it.
Hey, the little plastic clips on your mic case break off after a few years of careful use.
Wall warts are a pain in the ass for many reasons.
Gigantic external power supplies with 4 foot cables suck too.
Okay, go for it.
Open Letter for Gear Manufacturers
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TapeOpLarry
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Open Letter for Gear Manufacturers
Larry Crane, Editor/Founder Tape Op Magazine
please visit www.tapeop.com for contact information
(do not send private messages via this board!)
www.larry-crane.com
please visit www.tapeop.com for contact information
(do not send private messages via this board!)
www.larry-crane.com
why do i have to call your company and beg for another license when i use your plug-in on my desktop AND my laptop?
why do i have to use an iLok to use a DEMO of your software for 14 days?
why do i have to pay for software upgrades when i spent $500, $1000, or even several thousand on your software/hardware/etc in the first place?
why do you put your phantom power switches ON THE BACK OF THE RACKED UNIT!?!?
why do i have to use an iLok to use a DEMO of your software for 14 days?
why do i have to pay for software upgrades when i spent $500, $1000, or even several thousand on your software/hardware/etc in the first place?
why do you put your phantom power switches ON THE BACK OF THE RACKED UNIT!?!?
that devil bastard protools
Re: Open Letter for Gear Manufacturers
YES!
Also, make headphone cords that easily detach from the headphones so they can easily be replaced when they invariably die from being stepped on while being worn. BRRRZP! ...shit!
Also, make headphone cords that easily detach from the headphones so they can easily be replaced when they invariably die from being stepped on while being worn. BRRRZP! ...shit!
TapeOpLarry wrote:No more 1/8" plugs with 1/4" adapters on headphone cables!
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Family Hoof
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cgarges
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Why do you put ANY switches on the back of the racked unit: phantom, link, mic/line, on/off?jca83 wrote:why do you put your phantom power switches ON THE BACK OF THE RACKED UNIT!?!?
Why do you almost get a product so right that it completely kills everything else on the market that does the same thing, but then leave off one KEY point that makes it a total pain?
Why do you create your own terminology for functions that have existed for years on other pieces of equipment?
Will any of the points anyone's listed so far make a difference? (Larry's list is so spot-on it makes me want to cry.)
Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC
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joel hamilton
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joel hamilton
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Posted: Wed 06.10.04, 8:00 am Post subject: An open letter to gear manufacturers from an end user.
An open letter to manufacturers....
This is a mission statement from a person who uses recording equipment every single day to make a living. I will speak for myself, and myself only because this is a public forum, and that has already garnered me a quote in an international magazine where I am supposedly speaking for "the tapeop forum" which is untrue.If you take offense to any of this, please email me directly, or call me on my cell phone number posted on my website below. This is a state of the union address to let these manufacturers know what we really want, and use. This will be worth more than the money these companies spend on market research, as it comes directly from the users! This is a chance to have all these companies hear what features/price point/ expectations, and so forth we have for the gear we use!
Dear manufacturers of stuff I use,
I dont need yet another re-branded chinese condenser. I need a single condenser that sounds really good on a variety of sources, and doesnt cost more than 1000 dollars new.
A special section for Digidesign...:,
Please make the filters built into your converter hardware tuneable by the end user! With My Studer A827, I can set each channel to do things my way, with PTHD3, I have factory defaults, or soft clip, or 2 buttons for output trims.... I would love to have the option to set my high and lowpass filters myself. Yes this enables people to make horrible noises with your equipment, just like any other piece of gear in the studio, but it also enables engineers to get a character they like from your proprietary hardware!!!! While we are at it.. Why not offer support for ASIO and other brands of conversion!>?!? Pro Tools is truly a professional platform, so why wont it talk to other hardware!? Pro tools should be willing and able to do anything a professional engineer asks it to do, without insanely shaky workarounds. Stability should be paramount!
Mic pre manufacturers:
Why do the larger manufacturers (the ones you see in the sweetwater catalog.. ya know?) almost always miss the boat!??? They add knobs, they add features... The sound quality stays about the same as an ART Tube MP, but there are 346 more buttons, lights, uselessly small VU's, and de-essers.... Why is the Sytek stuff so popular?? One knob (per channel) with phase, Phantom, and mute. AND THEY SOUND GOOD! Oh... right... it has to sound good! I thought the kids wanted a mic pre that would make them breakfast and shoot sparks at their pals! Why do certain companies feel the need to build on an already shaky mic pre? Start with a fairly suspect signal path and add 3 million features (miles of PCB) and charge way too much for it?
I would love to see a two channel mic pre that sounds GREAT, not GOOD, but GREAT, using good components and great pots and knobs, with nothing else. Just GREAT, clean, mic amplification. The challenge should be to make this happen for under 300 dollars a channel, not to see how many useless switches and bells and whistles can be crammed into a 4U behemoth.... Make the damn thing one rack space high as well!!! Unless it has tubes in it, chill out on the "retro giant knobs" shit... We dont all have 300 space racks, or space in the 300 space racks anyway...
Consoles under 5k???
Why not, in this world of Digi002's and home DAW systems, and even in project studios, and basements of the world, where people are collecting mic pre's for each instrument OUTBOARD mic pre's for everything... Why oh why is there not a simple, reliable, well built console for mixing. I dont even care about the pre's. Where is a kick ass EQ and fader? Period. With a kick ass mix buss. Maybe even a discrete mix bus, with hybrid channels, modular... Can this be done? I dare someone to make a 24 channel, 8 buss console made for great summing, and great EQ, with patch points other than "insert" and without a million little bells and whistles... I dont need 8 aux sends. I need 4, maybe. If the 4 aux KNOBS were really good and I could count on them for years to come I would choose that over a shittlly made, 128 by 64 by 4 by 2 console... whatever. I feel like this challenge could be met by a few of the current "project console" manufacturers. Are there enough of us that know what to listen for? is that the problem???
Please add to this list. People are listening. We have seen the results, as I mentioned at the top....
_________________
An open letter to manufacturers....
This is a mission statement from a person who uses recording equipment every single day to make a living. I will speak for myself, and myself only because this is a public forum, and that has already garnered me a quote in an international magazine where I am supposedly speaking for "the tapeop forum" which is untrue.If you take offense to any of this, please email me directly, or call me on my cell phone number posted on my website below. This is a state of the union address to let these manufacturers know what we really want, and use. This will be worth more than the money these companies spend on market research, as it comes directly from the users! This is a chance to have all these companies hear what features/price point/ expectations, and so forth we have for the gear we use!
Dear manufacturers of stuff I use,
I dont need yet another re-branded chinese condenser. I need a single condenser that sounds really good on a variety of sources, and doesnt cost more than 1000 dollars new.
A special section for Digidesign...:,
Please make the filters built into your converter hardware tuneable by the end user! With My Studer A827, I can set each channel to do things my way, with PTHD3, I have factory defaults, or soft clip, or 2 buttons for output trims.... I would love to have the option to set my high and lowpass filters myself. Yes this enables people to make horrible noises with your equipment, just like any other piece of gear in the studio, but it also enables engineers to get a character they like from your proprietary hardware!!!! While we are at it.. Why not offer support for ASIO and other brands of conversion!>?!? Pro Tools is truly a professional platform, so why wont it talk to other hardware!? Pro tools should be willing and able to do anything a professional engineer asks it to do, without insanely shaky workarounds. Stability should be paramount!
Mic pre manufacturers:
Why do the larger manufacturers (the ones you see in the sweetwater catalog.. ya know?) almost always miss the boat!??? They add knobs, they add features... The sound quality stays about the same as an ART Tube MP, but there are 346 more buttons, lights, uselessly small VU's, and de-essers.... Why is the Sytek stuff so popular?? One knob (per channel) with phase, Phantom, and mute. AND THEY SOUND GOOD! Oh... right... it has to sound good! I thought the kids wanted a mic pre that would make them breakfast and shoot sparks at their pals! Why do certain companies feel the need to build on an already shaky mic pre? Start with a fairly suspect signal path and add 3 million features (miles of PCB) and charge way too much for it?
I would love to see a two channel mic pre that sounds GREAT, not GOOD, but GREAT, using good components and great pots and knobs, with nothing else. Just GREAT, clean, mic amplification. The challenge should be to make this happen for under 300 dollars a channel, not to see how many useless switches and bells and whistles can be crammed into a 4U behemoth.... Make the damn thing one rack space high as well!!! Unless it has tubes in it, chill out on the "retro giant knobs" shit... We dont all have 300 space racks, or space in the 300 space racks anyway...
Consoles under 5k???
Why not, in this world of Digi002's and home DAW systems, and even in project studios, and basements of the world, where people are collecting mic pre's for each instrument OUTBOARD mic pre's for everything... Why oh why is there not a simple, reliable, well built console for mixing. I dont even care about the pre's. Where is a kick ass EQ and fader? Period. With a kick ass mix buss. Maybe even a discrete mix bus, with hybrid channels, modular... Can this be done? I dare someone to make a 24 channel, 8 buss console made for great summing, and great EQ, with patch points other than "insert" and without a million little bells and whistles... I dont need 8 aux sends. I need 4, maybe. If the 4 aux KNOBS were really good and I could count on them for years to come I would choose that over a shittlly made, 128 by 64 by 4 by 2 console... whatever. I feel like this challenge could be met by a few of the current "project console" manufacturers. Are there enough of us that know what to listen for? is that the problem???
Please add to this list. People are listening. We have seen the results, as I mentioned at the top....
_________________
Re: Open Letter for Gear Manufacturers
Yeah Sennheiser! That one drives me crazy. No controls on the back of rack gear either! Put those phantom power and other controls on the front pleeeeez.TapeOpLarry wrote:I've been formulating a list of complaints for gear manufacturers. These are just a few off the top of my head. Add to it if you wanna!
No more curly headphone cables!
Last edited by Coco on Mon Nov 07, 2005 9:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
I know enough to know that I don't know what I am doing.
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joelpatterson
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Why can't you give me two good channels instead of 8 shitty channels or two channels with so much in the signal path it sounds like a tansistor radio by the time it's output.
Why can't you make a tube pre amp that actually uses the tube for more than just an orange light to let me know that I'm "supposed" to hear a "tubelike" sound...
E
Why can't you make a tube pre amp that actually uses the tube for more than just an orange light to let me know that I'm "supposed" to hear a "tubelike" sound...
E
"I raged against the machine and all this money came out!" Bart Simpson
Not sure how often this happens, but here is another I thought of...
When designing a two channel rack item, the left and right sections on the face panel should be identical L-R, not 'reversed' with a center-working-out design. Unbelievably frustrating when I move from my Aphex 107 (correctly L-R) to my ART TPS (moronically, center-out).
When designing a two channel rack item, the left and right sections on the face panel should be identical L-R, not 'reversed' with a center-working-out design. Unbelievably frustrating when I move from my Aphex 107 (correctly L-R) to my ART TPS (moronically, center-out).
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joel hamilton
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EH 12Ay7 did this, then people plugged out of the 1/4" IC buffered circuit and said "its noisy, and not that cool."Leopold wrote:Why can't you give me two good channels instead of 8 shitty channels or two channels with so much in the signal path it sounds like a tansistor radio by the time it's output.
Why can't you make a tube pre amp that actually uses the tube for more than just an orange light to let me know that I'm "supposed" to hear a "tubelike" sound...
E
That little box has a simple, elegant signal path. All tube. Real. Great, affordable.
Totally amazing. that is why I love the thing, it DOES give you a simple little package with GREAT tone, rather than 10 million sweepable de-esser impedance selectors...
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