[QLab] MOTU Interfaces - Do they work these days? (was Fire wire interface)

[Andy Leviss]

On Sun, Aug 10, 2008 at 4:31 PM, Leon Rothenberg <leonr at earthlink.net> wrote:
> I have a feeling on the next show that
> what will be available to me will be MOTU products, probably an 828. Someone
> mentioned the driver wonkiness is gone, besides the Ultralite discussed
> here, can anyone corroborate that the MOTU problems discussed about 6 months
> ago seem to have passed with new drivers, up-to-date Leopard, new firmware,
> etc?

My personal shows right now are designed on a 1st gen 828. I haven't
had issues yet, knock on wood.

That said, it'll be a cold day in Hell with the Devil giving out free
sleigh rides before I give them another penny willingly. While I
haven't run into Mac driver issues (which is what, clearly, applies
for QLab), I've run into lots on Windows, and their customer support
is useless when you can get ahold of them, which is rare. They have
only a couple trunk lines going to their support phone number, so most
days, you'll get either a busy signal or a line that rings ceaselessly
with no answer for hours at a time.

If you give up and try their website's e-mail form, they promise a
response within a day or two. Last time, first contact took around a
week. I'd hoped they'd improved from years ago (2003, when I bought
said 828) when their first two responses took 3.5 and 2.5 weeks each
(it may have been the other way around, but that's a bit moot), and
when they made out like they were doing me a HUGE favor for honoring
the 30 DAY warranty (yes, 30 DAYS) because I was now past 30 days.
They didn't take it too well when I pointed out that I had documented
proof that I had contacted them well within the 30 days, but THEY took
until after the 20 days to get back to me.

Then there's the feature on the MIDI Express XT that, at least until a
couple months ago, they were actively advertising, but that hasn't
been available since OS 9/Win 98. They told me the feature was taken
out of the current control software, and they were very sorry I'd
bought numerous of that model based on that one feature, but that I
could either buy a newer, more expensive model to regain the feature,
or find an older computer to program it on. And then, when I managed
to get 98 running, the 98 version of the software couldn't talk to my
XT. I finally got a co-worker's borrowed PowerBook to do what I
needed. Thanks, MOTU.

So, while their driver issues may be gone, at least on OS X (I can't
speak either way, other than that my experience has been alright), the
company is absolutely horrible with regards to customer support and
honest advertising. I mean come on, they TOOK A FEATURE AWAY FROM ME
YEARS AFTER I BOUGHT THE PRODUCT SPECIFICALLY FOR THAT FEATURE!!!!!!!!

If the piece is already purchased and you need to use it, you'll
probably be alright. If it's a new purchase, please, do anything you
can to keep these inconsiderate jerks from getting your money.

My two cents,
Andy