Ableton Support

mdk · Post by **mdk** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 12:53 pm

anytime ive contacted them (since back before live 5 was launched) they have always been really quick, helpful and courteous.

whatever it was, upgrade issues, renewing my activation, troubleshooting. always 1st class.

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:23 pm

And I'd like to say thanks to Amaury, he is an intelligent guy who tries to provide you with suggestions and answers in a respectful, non condescending way and if that doesn't work, he stays calm and makes you feel like the team are looking for an alternative solution. And the sales team are also very professional.

As for feature requests - with such a small programming team compared to emagic/apple. steinberg and cakewalk etc, they do their best. I mean, Cubase users have asked for flexible routing and sidechaining for about almost 10 years and it only just arrived, ironically both of these major features came in an UPDATE (Cubase 4.1) - the downside - this update has been very unstable and Steinberg have even gone as far as to say they will only support it if the user reformats their Hard Drive and reinstalls Windows !!

(on PC) The Mac version isn't doing a whole lot better either. I think we need to acknowledge that Ableton need an annual release with fewer features to cope financially and logistically and for those who have a difficult time accepting this, only upgrade every second year or find another platform. (remember that Logic 8 and Cubase 4 both took 3 years to be released and they added in less than what Ableton did between Live 5 and Live 7)

Responding to bugs on the forum - Ableton acknowledge that they might not respond to bugs posted in the forum but if you e-mail them then they will usually respond in a timely manner. The fact that they even occasionally do try to answer bugs on the forum is to their credit compared to other companies (digidesign and steinberg especially)

heavensdaw · Post by **heavensdaw** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:39 pm

leedsquietman wrote:And I'd like to say thanks to Amaury, he is an intelligent guy who tries to provide you with suggestions and answers in a respectful, non condescending way and if that doesn't work, he stays calm and makes you feel like the team are looking for an alternative solution. And the sales team are also very professional.

As for feature requests - with such a small programming team compared to emagic/apple. steinberg and cakewalk etc, they do their best. I mean, Cubase users have asked for flexible routing and sidechaining for about almost 10 years and it only just arrived, ironically both of these major features came in an UPDATE (Cubase 4.1) - the downside - this update has been very unstable and Steinberg have even gone as far as to say they will only support it if the user reformats their Hard Drive and reinstalls Windows !! (on PC) The Mac version isn't doing a whole lot better either. I think we need to acknowledge that Ableton need an annual release with fewer features to cope financially and logistically and for those who have a difficult time accepting this, only upgrade every second year or find another platform. (remember that Logic 8 and Cubase 4 both took 3 years to be released and they added in less than what Ableton did between Live 5 and Live 7)

Responding to bugs on the forum - Ableton acknowledge that they might not respond to bugs posted in the forum but if you e-mail them then they will usually respond in a timely manner. The fact that they even occasionally do try to answer bugs on the forum is to their credit compared to other companies (digidesign and steinberg especially)

SPOT ON!!

Hd

Precision · Post by **Precision** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 1:52 pm

I think Ableton have absolutely outstanding support - so I voted 'excellent'

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:08 pm

There's no doubt about it, ableton support & staff are some of the most courteous people I've ever encountered in any profession.

Is that what support is really all about?
Is support just about serials & extra unlocks ?

I tend to judge support on tangible results, like fixing problems with the software.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 2:42 pm

b0unce wrote: I tend to judge support on tangible results, like fixing problems with the software.

Yes and i am satisfyed with that as well.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 3:26 pm

looking at that chart it looks pretty good for the support team.

It would be interesting to try similar polls on Propellerheads /Cubase /Logic / Sonar / NI forums and see how they compare.

I think Ableton are doing pretty well, anyone involved in computing knows how troublesome supporting a wide range of technology is. Not to mention the people that use it!

leedsquietman · Post by **leedsquietman** » Mon Jan 14, 2008 11:31 pm

I can tell you right now that this type of thread was run on Cubase.net recently and less than half of the responders gave them a good review. It was something like 10% excellent, 29% good, 22% average, 18% poor, 21% very poor. I remember that the good and excellent and poor and very poor matched up equally.

Stuff like being repeatedly promised an update to Cubase 3.1.2 for months only to say 'it has been cancelled due to Cubase 4', dropping support of DX plugins without any mention until the product hit the shelves, totally unstable first release 4.0.1, (4.0.3. did rectify many of the problems), Cubase 4.1 offers over 50 enhancements for free, including sidechaning and free routing - except the program crashes many users computers and is unusable, Steinberg's response is reformat your Hard Drive and reinstall windows from scratch or the new update is not supported.

Locking threads (the stuff we get away with on here is unbelievable, anything not related to music gets locked, stuff even mentioning cracked software gets locked and deleted) , banning users (I know at least 5 people banned from the forum in the last 3 months) and condescending replies on the forum. Releasing baloney software such as Sequel, while keeping Nuendo 4 on hold, and then taking out Cubase 4's new plugins and synths and charging Nuendo users (who already pay a fortune) an extra 300 dollars for the Cubase 4 synths and plugins - and showing no remorse about it - 'Nuendo is post production software, if you want the features of Cubase which is a pre production software, then a premium is acceptable' just insane stuff.

I'm not saying Ableton are perfect, they learned some hard lessons about supply and demand and not having a good backup plan on rush releasing Live 7 but compared to Steinberg they are the King Of The Hill.

Angstrom · Post by **Angstrom** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:43 am

I think if Ableton support was a presidential candidate they seem to be looking at an 85% approval rating according to this poll.

jazzmattezz · Post by **jazzmattezz** » Tue Jan 15, 2008 1:12 pm

i voted 'very good'

you just have to call them by phone and you get a very kind support. I'm german, if I have to call them I do it in the morning, because I ALWAYS reach someone (I think the americans sleep in that time

. so my tip is to call them by phone, if you need help.

Ableton Support

What is your experience with Ableton Support?