Quad Cortex Mini

[paisleywookiee]

I'd call that fairly fucked. A batch of 1000 units (just to pull a number out of my ass) missing the headphone jack is a collosal fucking mistake that should never have happened, in all honesty. I'm sure Cliff was absolutely raging at the dumb fuck who made that mistake.

Offering them anyway is a way to ensure you recoup the cost of BOM. Whether that is an ethical way of dealing with it or not, that's in the eye of the beholder.

A lot of other companies who did a similar mistake would recall the units, or otherwise ensure that the end user never experienced the issue.

Between the two... I'm picking waiting 5 years to be able to load a plugin, versus a hardware problem that AS A USER I CAN NEVER FUCKING FIX!

Of course it was a big mistake. But offering them anyway, whilst fully disclosing that fact (which they did; I received the email) isn't remotely unethical. Had they shipped them with it missing, THAT would have been unethical. But as it happened, I didn't even lose my place in line. As soon as the corrected units shipped very shortly after, I got mine with the jack. It wasn't 5 years.

I still don't agree that it equates in any way with NDSP over-promising and under-delivering for half a decade.

 

[JiveTurkey]

Playing through headphones is an abominable experience so they were actually doing us early adopters a favor

 

[Orvillain]

Of course it was a big mistake. But offering them anyway, whilst fully disclosing that fact (which they did; I received the email) isn't remotely unethical. Had they shipped them with it missing, THAT would have been unethical. But as it happened, I didn't even lose my place in line. As soon as the corrected units shipped very shortly after, I got mine with the jack. It wasn't 5 years.

I still don't agree that it equates in any way with NDSP over-promising and under-delivering for half a decade.

I think that making a hardware mistake like that, and then offering the units up at a cheaper price as a kind of mea culpa, could certainly be seen in just as an unethical light as anything NDSP have done.

Elektron released the Digitakt II a year or so ago, and loads of the units have had bad screens. Not all of them, but enough where it is a noticeable complaint within the user base. Elektron are receiving them back and replacing the screens completely free of charge. That is ethical.

But taking pre-orders, fucking up the hardware, and then going "hey guys... sorry we made a mistake... you wanna buy it anyway? We'll give you a reduced price!" could definitely be seen as being unethical; the argument is perfectly sound.

And it is 1:1 analagous with the NDSP complains about over-promising and under-delivering. But I'd even go further; NDSP didn't fuck anything up. They just took longer to deliver. If you paid for that FM3 without a headphone jack, then you bought a unit with a baked in factory failure; with zero recourse to addressing it. So for me, that puts NDSP on top.

But... and this is the crucial thing... and I really want you guys to take this in - I'm not judging Fractal for that. I'm not holding their feet to the fire. I'm not crucifying them every chance I get. Maybe I'd feel different if I was one of the pre-orderers, but I wasn't. Ultimately, I just take it in stride, and don't harbour 5 years of ill will.

 

[Orvillain]

Also, since we're in shots fired territory... where are the Fractal developer updates? Where are the "here's what is coming in the next few months" blog posts?

Fucking nowhere. That's where.

And that's fine. That's how they choose to do business. I prefer the NDSP and Line6 approach.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I think that making a hardware mistake like that, and then offering the units up at a cheaper price as a kind of mea culpa, could certainly be seen in just as an unethical light as anything NDSP have done.

Elektron released the Digitakt II a year or so ago, and loads of the units have had bad screens. Not all of them, but enough where it is a noticeable complaint within the user base. Elektron are receiving them back and replacing the screens completely free of charge. That is ethical.

But taking pre-orders, fucking up the hardware, and then going "hey guys... sorry we made a mistake... you wanna buy it anyway? We'll give you a reduced price!" could definitely be seen as being unethical; the argument is perfectly sound.

And it is 1:1 analagous with the NDSP complains about over-promising and under-delivering. But I'd even go further; NDSP didn't fuck anything up. They just took longer to deliver. If you paid for that FM3 without a headphone jack, then you bought a unit with a baked in factory failure; with zero recourse to addressing it. So for me, that puts NDSP on top.

But... and this is the crucial thing... and I really want you guys to take this in - I'm not judging Fractal for that. I'm not holding their feet to the fire. I'm not crucifying them every chance I get. Maybe I'd feel different if I was one of the pre-orderers, but I wasn't. Ultimately, I just take it in stride, and don't harbour 5 years of ill will.

Again, I don't remotely see how being open about the issue and not exchanging money is at all the same as taking people's money, saying plugins were incoming "soon". I guess we'll have to disagree to agree on this.

2020/03/20 Received "We've got jackless () FM3's for $50 off". I declined.
2020/05/19 Ordered FM3 with headphone jack.

 

[paisleywookiee]

Also, since we're in shots fired territory... where are the Fractal developer updates? Where are the "here's what is coming in the next few months" blog posts?

Fucking nowhere. That's where.

And that's fine. That's how they choose to do business. I prefer the NDSP and Line6 approach.

That's how they've operated for two decades though. It's like getting mad at Apple because you can't install MacOS on a whitebox machine (usually). You know this going in, and either decide it's okay for you, or it isn't. For me personally, it'd be more infuriating for a company to say "give us $1700, and within a year, you'll be able to run the plugins you already own on the device!" and then not deliver for years.

 

[Orvillain]

For me personally, it'd be more infuriating for a company to say "give us $1700, and within a year, you'll be able to run the plugins you already own on the device!" and then not deliver for years.

Yeah I get you.

I'm just saying it isn't the objective outrage-generator that you and Drew think it is. It just isn't. A lot of people didn't care, rightly or wrongly.

I was one of the guys who cared. But now I've got the primary plugins, the others can come as and when, and I mostly won't give a toss. I haven't even brought anything in their summer sale yet, because I just don't see any need to. It finally does all the tones I want out of the box, without the plugin support anyway.

Again, while I'm firing shots.... the earliest commentary I ever made on the Helix reverbs was around 2016/2017 when I first got the thing. It's now 2026 and we still have cack reverbs.

This stuff is heavily subjective.

 

[paisleywookiee]

I'm just saying it isn't the objective outrage-generator that you and Drew think it is. It just isn't. A lot of people didn't care, rightly or wrongly.

I'm not saying those issues are currently a rage generator, and I don't think the QC is currently a turd. But I'm glad I wasn't one of the people entrenched in their plugins, wanting them on a hardware device. I can definitely understand that rage.

Again, while I'm firing shots.... the earliest commentary I ever made on the Helix reverbs was around 2016/2017 when I first got the thing. It's now 2026 and we still have cack reverbs.

I don't disagree. The newer "Dynamic" or whatever reverbs are better, but they're not FAS/Strymon/Source Audio level, by any means.

 

[JiveTurkey]

I think in this particular space, you can get entrenched in opinion on this stuff and it's hard to get out. Myself very much hypocritically duly noted.

 

[Orvillain]

I think in this particular space, you can get entrenched in opinion on this stuff and it's hard to get out. Myself very much hypocritically duly noted.

For reals.

And it took me 3 goes at owning the fucking thing before I was forced to change my tune.

So far as I know, a bunch of the haters have never even tried it.

 

[JiveTurkey]

So far as I know, a bunch of the haters have never even tried it.

 

[DrewJD82]

But acting like a jilted lover 5 years later, when the product is actually in a really good spot, and goes toe-to-toe with any other unit on the market? Seems weird to me is all. Like a stubborn refusal to grow

Because I’m not talking about the QC, for the 500th fucking time.

All the shit ya listed is why I think NDSP sucks (and not the QC, 501x). The QC changed, NDSP has not, the content just finally meets customer expectations, which took them 5 years to do and it’s still not finished. Hell, up until last week customers still thought they were going to get all the plugins ported over. The fact that the tech world is full of bullshitting is irrelevant to me, dishonesty should never be part of a business model or excused for any reason and I’ll gladly and proudly die on that hill.

I think the QC is a great device, now. (502x)

I’ve heard tons of great tones coming from the QC. (503x)

I would own a QC if NDSP didn’t make it. (504x)

I have no problem with the QC or people who love and own them. (505x)

Neural DSP sucks.

 

[Orvillain]

Neural DSP sucks.

uuu suucccckkkkk

PS: Still nothing specific.

 

[Jarick]

IMO

The only real reason to relitigate company issues is to draw conclusions for how products will be supported going forward. There’s not some score card of transgressions that makes one product better than another.

So for me anything NDSP releases, take it with a grain of salt unless it’s present and working on release. And Fractal, assume if it’s not the flagship it will take several months to get updates that were released for the big dog.

Also given the latest announcement from NDSP on plugin support, I wouldn’t rely on those in the hardware unit. Who’s to say the John Pettrucci contract doesn’t run out and then those get pulled in a future hardware update.

 

[dean701]

I want to go back to the FM3 headphoneless topic.
FAS designs the board, sends it off for production and then it comes back with no headphone output.
Was the original document that was sent including a jack or was it built to spec as prescribed? (then design 2 sent off)
If you crack the shell open, are the electronics already there, just no jack?

I'm not cracking at FAS as it was an even a smaller company back then

 

[DrewJD82]

uuu suucccckkkkk

PS: Still nothing specific.

Dude I’m so not rehashing all that shit, especially when you wrote it out in your own post for me. They’re not dealbreakers for you, they are for me. Those actions can’t even exist in the profession I’m in, but it’d be humorous to see a tenant take ownership of a space and we’re like “Oh we’ll get your doorknobs soon” and then spend 5 years installing them while they see us finishing other tenant spaces.

 

[Jarick]

I’m not sure what exactly happened but those of us who were on the waitlist were offered the FM3 without a headphone jack at a discount or to stay in our spots for the next ones. It seems to be a supplier issue and not Fractal plain forgetting to include a headphone jack.

I wouldn’t really count the FM3 launch against Fractal. They fixed the hardware on the next run a few months later and have had a very clean track record of hardware over 20 years.

 

[MirrorProfiles]

NDSP plugins are fucking great, never any major issues out of the box and rarely need more than a 1.0.1 or 1.0.2 to fix any remaining bugs. Apple Silicone took quite a while and PCOM is another discussion. But I think a lot of their trust with users comes from how good the plugins are.

Compare Neural’s plugins and support to what Line 6 have done with Metallurgy. And even as much as I like Fractal Icons - the experience is nowhere near as slick, from the marketing, demos, website, available information, interface, and most importantly that it has that Fractal approach of never feeling “done”. You always feel like something might be prone to breaking or being wrong, or changing in sound in the future. It needs rounds of fixes and updates just based on how they choose to operate.

I really do find it somewhat baffling how some people get so triggered by NDSP when so much of what they do is just par for the course in music gear and software.

 

[DrewJD82]

I want to go back to the FM3 headphoneless topic.
FAS designs the board, sends it off for production and then it comes back with no headphone output.
Was the original document that was sent including a jack or was it built to spec as prescribed? (then design 2 sent off)
If you crack the shell open, are the electronics already there, just no jack?

I'm not cracking at FAS as it was an even a smaller company back then

I’m actually curious about that too. I was around back then but don’t remember reading about anyone opening one up.

 

[paisleywookiee]

NDSP plugins are fucking great

Unless.......one thinks they sound mediocre.