Guy,

I didn´t want to insinuate anything, it was just that your post gave the impression we charge money for our support and that you should know from your personal experience that, of course, we don´t, as Herb points out as well. Not even for not-yet-registered users...[[;)]]

We´ll investigate in this $ 260,- thing - I really wonder where this comes from... [*-)]

No hard feelings?

Best, Marnix

Marnix,

Well this would be a relief if that was an isolated case, we couldn't believe our ears when we couldn't get a technician on line unless we'd (he) put out $260.00. Because when I do purchase my own stuff I'll need regular assistance.

No hard feelings at all. [:D]

But I'd like to know something?

Is my initiation over yet? [[;)]]

@Another User said:

ps If possible I'd like to not get ... involved in this, unless you really need to.

I hope we will be able to find out what happened without compromising anybody, but we take this issue quite seriously! Do you by chance know who he was talking to?

But perhaps we should follow Dietz´ advice and continue this conversation via email!

Best, Marnix

PS: Oh yes, and please do not hesitate to contact me if you need help with our products! I´ll see if I can make you a bargain...(just kidding!!!) [[[;)]]]

quote: Ghandi

P.S. - I'm so tempted to change my username now [:)][/quote]

Oh please do it or even better why don't you call yourself mahatma that would be ever better. javascript:emoticon('[:P]')

If anybody was thinking about it, I reject the usename: "Mussolini". [:D]

[:D]

We try to be very careful as far as bans are concerned.

If only for bad taste, usernames like "Adolf", "Eichmann" or "Arian" would have to be changed.

"George W." or "Berlusconi" on the other hand would be frowned upon, but will probably have to be accepted, since you never know who decides to scan message boards like ours...

Before you all rush and edit your profiles, please bear in mind that we still just start to know who you guys are and names like "The member formerly known as Doe" (MFKAD) tend to be confusing! [[;)]]

Stay good, Marnix

Does that mean Adolphe Sax is out? [:P]

@Guy said:

Does that mean Adolphe Sax is out? [:P]

Yeah, of course, 'cos Adolphe is offensive and Sax looks like a miss-spelling.

DG

Looks like everyone forgives everyone, and we're all good friends, hooray for that [:D]

This is my way of having the last word ..... [6] [[:|]]

I need to make an important correction here. It accured to me that it was not the VSL people we had on line but "APPLE COMPUTERS", and THEY were the ones charging $260.00 My sincere apologies to the VSL staff for that error. I think the people who are following this thread will now see that VSL maintains their EXCELLENT reputation. I have also added a footnote on the original post clearing VSL. I only witnessed the conversation and it was related to RAM problems we've been having with Logic/VSL, so I somehow thought it was VSL support team. I know I'm about to strike out on this thread, so I hope we can move on..

This thread has been a nightmare! [:'(]

ps DG, Don't worry i was only kidding about using the name of our sax inventor, Adolphe Sax. [[;)]]

@Guy said:

I need to make an important correction here. It accured to me that it was not the VSL people we had on line but "APPLE COMPUTERS", and THEY were the ones charging $260.00

And people wonder why I say I will never buy a Mac ever again [8-)]

DG

Well personally, I will never buy a PC again, just FYI, Mac support have always been great with me - you have to buy the 3 year warrantee though that's a pre-requisite for any new purchase - after that you have 3 years of phone support and they've always been excellent. 90 days free phone without the extended warrantee.

Miklos.

although logic should address 16 gigs of RAM!

mpower88,

Had you been in the same situation (as was the case of my musical supervisor) and had not taken the 3 year warrantee, they ask you $260.00 if you want the answer to your question. I know that's their policy, but can't they keep a record of this, seeing this is the ONLY time you've ever called beyond the 90 days. So miklos, imagine you're in production, you bought 2 G5s from them and absolutely needed just one bit of information and they wouldn't give it to you unless... How would you feel about them?

Guy

@mpower88 said:

Well personally, I will never buy a PC again, just FYI, Mac support have always been great with me - you have to buy the 3 year warrantee though that's a pre-requisite for any new purchase - after that you have 3 years of phone support and they've always been excellent. 90 days free phone without the extended warrantee.

Miklos.

My beef is not with the machine, although I did send my G5 back, as having finally got rid of Concorde flying over my house, the sound of the Mac going about its daily business was almost as bad! Whilst I can quite understand that people want to run a particular sort of machine, maybe because of the operating system or the programs that are written to run on it, for me there was no advantage in using a Mac, except to be compatible with the major studios, who all seem to run Mac. However, once I'd given SloTools the elbow, there was no longer any point in running a machine that was twice as expensive and slower than my PC, when I was intending to use a cross-platform program.

No, my beef is with Apple. When they were supposed to deliver the G5 I was given multiple dates, none of which were adhered to. I was lied to by the bods in the office about this on many occasions, and was not only treated very badly, but accused of lying about what I'd been told. Unfortunately for them they had put it in writing, so I could easily prove my case. I never got an apology of any sort.

So you see, if the Mac was a better machine for me, I would think twice, but as it's not, it is a no-brainer for me to use PC.

DG

Guy: I know what you're saying, that does s88k, however if you're running a major production and you just bought two G5's you should get the insurance that goes with it - that's what I would do. A lot of shops throw it in for nothing (that's the deal I got with the machine I bought this time) or do it cheaper than the quoted price which is honestly a bit much. It increases your resale value a lot too if you plan to ditch them even two years later, much better to say "one year warrante left" than nothing at all - big difference in sale price. I suppose my policy is to automatically buy the warrantee I don't buy a machine without it, the one time I did I was sorry. But no arguments in actual fact - regarding what you said - in your shoes, yes, I would be peed off.

dg: apple were hopeless with there original G5 timetable but it was mostly due to ibm not being on schedule with the chips or so I heard, it's just part of a long story that lead to apple going with intel after finally having enough of IBM not giving them any respect. My G5 runs at Maximum nearly all day and I just have it sitting in the corner, isn't noisy at all, it's a 2.0 not even a liquid cooled machine fans never go more than about 30% usually hang around minimum (10% or so?) and that's only when it's a hot day and I didn't have any air con in the room. Usually room temp is 24 degrees C. I used PC's for many years and sunk so much money into em eventually I just said "never again". Although it's true, macs are expensive, if you look at the design of the hardware alone in a G5, at the time they came out, PC's couldn't compete.

End of the day, it's not important as you say you have to get the right machine for you - i did too [H] Apple here in Australia are very good to my experience except on price [[:|]] that's why I buy from resellers never direct and I always get good service from them. [:P] Last time I bought a demo model with the screen that was going out (but to me looks better - the plastic 23 inch cinema) all up for $1600 off retail plus I got the applecare thrown in cheap but quality ram and an extra drive for quite cheap (way cheaper than apples web site). *not a scratch on it or the screen - not even a dead pixel*
Miklos.

@mpower88 said:

Although it's true, macs are expensive, if you look at the design of the hardware alone in a G5, at the time they came out, PC's couldn't compete.

Miklos.

I think that it's good we can have this discussion without it turning into the usual Mac/Pc war.

FWIW I would have agreed with you about 5 years ago, but things have changed so much in the PC world, especially since XP, that the supposed superiority of Macs is now just a myth. The only reason to get one these days is the software, be it the operating system or programs that only run on Mac. It will be very interesting to see what happens when the new breed of Intel Macs are released, as comparisons should be much more accurate. It's just a shame that you will have to buy from Apple in order to get OSX, which sort of puts up the price of the OS by 1000% compared with XP, unless they drastically reduce the price of a Mac.

DG

I heard that PC's are faster now if you compare but I'm loyal, and I'm even more anti microsoft, and I'm a logic user. I've seen that PC's are very good now, I still don't like them. I know apple are a big corp too but I just don't like the mentality after seeing the number 2 of MS on stage a couple of years ago cahorting around screaming about their bottom line so over zealously and practically maniacally until he had to lean on his mic stand to prevent himself for having a heart attack it took him a full five minutes to get his breath back and he really looked visibly unwell though he still tried to go "yeaH' YEAH" a few more unwise times. I thought "I don't want to buy from a company that's run by someone like that". I wish I had the quicktime so I could give you a link it was almost funny if it wasn't just too much trajedy all at once. I felt sorry for the guy.

Regardless, your opinions are respected here... but I must say (with respect and certainly don't want to be PC vs MAC how boring am I doing that? please tell me and I will retract relevant portions) I haven't used xp, I just hate the name right away, and it looks c**p to my macintosh adjusted eyes call me prejudiced I guess. I'm not against pc's but I am against pc companies, the way they package market and handle things and also I'm against microsoft. If there were a PC manufacturer who made it's own OS and designed it's own boxes I buy from them but hey: that's apple! so there you go. speed wise, yeah it's pretty uncool that Mac's don't at least equal PC's and they have lagged price/speed compatibility wise but we mac freaks are a loyal bunch and we'll stick it thougth for a few clock cycles less for what is around the corner and for 1000% markup on the OS I don't just get the best OS out there (IMO) but also the best designed box, that might not come up to speed on an equivalent priced PC the overall I prefer the package. I'm expecting and hoping that the intel change will be great for apple customers once the first 3 months are over, I think the whole price point issue will go away as we'll have competing processors, better system design, OSX and although it will probably still be more expensive comparatively, apples will be hugely more competitive. I've had my G5 running for 3 days straight day and night encoding H264 quicktimes with final cut pro at night and running Logic/VSL maxed out during the day without a reboot and no crashes (ok logic crashed once but I'd saved). Honest question: can you do that these days with a PC (I'm really asking I don't know).

Wow what an excellent time waster and avoidance of work this has been! thanks! I feel refreshed and ready for more music!

Cheers,
Miklos.

@mpower88 said:

I know apple are a big corp too but I just don't like the mentality after seeing the number 2 of MS on stage a couple of years ago cahorting around screaming about their bottom line so over zealously and practically maniacally until he had to lean on his mic stand to prevent himself for having a heart attack it took him a full five minutes to get his breath back and he really looked visibly unwell though he still tried to go "yeaH' YEAH" a few more unwise times. I thought "I don't want to buy from a company that's run by someone like that". I wish I had the quicktime so I could give you a link it was almost funny if it wasn't just too much trajedy all at once. I felt sorry for the guy.
Cheers,
Miklos.

Hmmmm. I can see that you're a lot more complicated than I first suspected Miklos.

[:D]

@mpower88 said:

I've had my G5 running for 3 days straight day and night encoding H264 quicktimes with final cut pro at night and running Logic/VSL maxed out during the day without a reboot and no crashes (ok logic crashed once but I'd saved). Honest question: can you do that these days with a PC (I'm really asking I don't know).

Wow what an excellent time waster and avoidance of work this has been! thanks! I feel refreshed and ready for more music!

Cheers,
Miklos.

Oh, don't think that I like MS any more than you do. However, as Bill Gates also owns a large portion of Apple there doesn't seem to be any choice. I'm afraid that I'm one of those people who thinks of a pooter as a tool and once Nuendo is open I couldn't give a rats arse what OS I am running [:D]

As far as crashes, my DAW has yet to do so (been running it for about 15 months now), my laptop is fine as long as I don't run the updated K2 and my GS machines only ever crashed when I updated the art files and didn't change the temp directory. Now I've changed this I can comfortably say that they don't crash, although I've only been running them for 6 months.

Oh, and FYO this discussion doesn't come under the heading of time wasting, it's professional, investigative development. That way I feel justified in paying myself double time for a Sunday [:D]

DG