Ik Multimedia Support – The Art Of Fail – Do not buy used synthesizers from IK Multimedia.
Our Uno Synth Pro came from Japan and looked like a new, unused one.
We all know that this model, despite the prefix Pro, has a number of problems that the developers could not / did not want to solve:
- noise from mini usb wires. In all adequate synthesizers of different price ranges, there is a standard square USB – which protects both from the background and the connector itself is much higher quality than micro/ mini
- the synthesizer periodically sticks, the notes sound endlessly, and you have to reboot it.
- the editor does not work completely correctly.
When downloading patches via the editor, the editor does not show an adequate current volume value for the oscillators.
For many patches, it just stands at the maximum, while you can hear by ear that this is not the case.
If you save a preset with a sequence through an editor, the sequence is lost and not saved.
The sequence is saved only if we save it on the synthesizer itself.
Many of these symptoms are quite basic and should be adequately implemented in synthesizer’s Lower price category (usually it is) – look at Modal Cobalt 5s, For example, the sequencer works perfectly, Editor, high-quality connection of the USB And no noise.
Also, Uno pro does not have Win7 support and in order for the synthesizer to work in principle, you need to register on the site, after which you can download the update driver and the editor – these facts make it even less towards Pro.
Nevertheless, we, as preset developers, are learning to take each synthesizer as it is and try to get The maximum of it is in that state of Stability of the work in which it is.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be impossible.
Our copy worked for 2 weeks after arrival, and then problems began:
It turned on, off, made a terrible noise, which is why it can only be used in midi.
The modulation wheel stopped working and got stuck in the MAX position – all sounds sounded with max, all sounds were played with maximum vibrato and filter.
The last 4 keys on the right have stopped working and sounding, and if you press them, the sound sticks, and you need to restart the synthesizer.
And the strangest thing is that on each patch we hear a click sound – if the bpm is set to 100 bpm – you will hear the pulsation of these 100 bpm in each sound, as if you have a
side-chain set up.
And it’s not his native metronome to record.
With all these symptoms, we turned to the official support of the company in Italy with a request to help.
To begin with, let’s say that the company intentionally removed the support team’s email from the site – you won’t find it on the site, the support section leads to the FAQ and that’s it.
The company is either not interested and spits on the support of its users, or they do not have enough staff in the support team, or they have too many mistakes and they are already tired of emails.
Choose the option yourself. We wrote the first letter via a shared email, where there was no form support and waited for 10 days – silence.
In the letter, we described specific hardware problems that are not related to either the firmware or the flaw of the tool itself – there is really something wrong with our Uno.
Then we went to Google and, using a third-party link, we still found a hidden section of their site where there is a support email and wrote a second time.
Here it is: https://www.ikmultimedia.com/contact-support/sw/
The second answer came very quickly, where it was said: You have created 2 support tickets and now there will be confusion, close one support ticket.
And then the answer:
Have you tried installing the latest firmware?
It was funny because before that
We described our problem in detail and explained that it is not related to the firmware.
And this suggests that the support team either does not read the letters, or does not have minimal experience and competence – perhaps because the engine for Uno Pro was made by a third-party company, and not IK Multimedia.
That is, the chain may be as follows: if you still miraculously signed up to IK multimedia, then your letter comes to a person who cannot be competent beyond the firmware and sends your problem to the developer in a third-party company.
Then we were asked to make a video with a demonstration of the problem and send it to them.
We shot a detailed video and sent it.
Then – silence.
We wrote to them again and again – to which we received an answer that they had not received any videos and in general, your case is not guaranteed, fuck off.
To which we politely told them that their level of support did not match the level of the company and asked for the last opportunity:
Give the coordinates of the companies that repair their equipment in our region.
To which the answer came: we don’t know, have a nice day.
After this attitude, this article and this video appeared.
We ourselves are sitting in the support of our small company and we know how tedious it can be – but we have never allowed ourselves such an attitude towards users and customers.
We fell in love with the company’s first synthesizer Uno synth & made high-quality sounds for this instrument, which definitely brought an increase in sales of the instrument from the company.
But when we ourselves turned out to be customers of the company and their product Uno Pro – obviously raw, not finalized and buggy – we were simply ignored.
And we are not silent about this – do not buy Uno pro on the secondary market, if you still decide, then only a new one, so that wonderful people from Italy can be presented with warranty service.
All of us primarily work for musicians and try to make their lives easier.
Therefore, we consider such an attitude of IK Multimedia.
