Ableton Forum

I love Live 7 (even with its problems) and I'd really like to upgrade to Ableton Suite. But I've quickly come to realise that software development isn't Ableton's achilles heel.

Perhaps this poll will shed some light on the situation. Please - no Ableton co-horts, friends, employees or sicophants. Just honest answers.

I really want to know where to spend my music money and I'm a bit disappointed with Ableton Supprt to say the least..

Any thoughts appreciated (should this post last that long).

I voted very good. They have always responded to my e-mails and enquiries in a timely manner, even the edu upgrade from L6 to L7 Suite download at a crazy time when everyone on the planet wanted it took only 4 business days to process.

I have e-mailed them twice about bugs and got a response within 2 business days on both times and they acknowleged receiving my educational verification within 2 days and apologised that it might take an extra day or two to process the order.

I find them respectful too and they don't want to strike back at you and give you robotic customer generated responses unlike Steinberg. If you want to see poor customer service that then look no further than Hamburg HQ for Steinberg, rude, snotty responses where they love to argue, deny things, take an eternity or ignore you completely. And in terms of stability and bugs look at the cubase.net forum, it's like a disaster zone and they lock threads and ban you if you criticize too loud.

never really bothered 'em too much, but always got serials quick, no hassles, and the couple of times i think i might have e-mailed 'em, i got a response soon...

I've had nothing but awesome support from them. Usually within the same day and it's always worked out great.

leedsquietman wrote:If you want to see poor customer service that then look no further than Hamburg HQ for Steinberg, rude, snotty responses where they love to argue, deny things, take an eternity or ignore you completely. And in terms of stability and bugs look at the cubase.net forum, it's like a disaster zone and they lock threads and ban you if you criticize too loud.

I totally agree with you about steinberg even tho i still use cubase.
As for the Abes I have always been treated kindly and they have always responded to my emails in a timely manner.

the only ting i can see is that this software is gaining users so fast they're probably having a hard time keeping up.

D K wrote:the only ting i can see is that this software is gaining users so fast they're probably having a hard time keeping up.

Like with the Live 7 updates? That's the first time I've seen the Abe's take so long to get things sorted for most people, otherwise their support is excellent.

I just contacted them a couple of times... and everything was as I expected to be: clear, fast, nice..
Anyway, I normally try not to ask anyone anything that can not answer/give me...
But human being tend to make mistakes, so if one day I feel they're not being as I expect from them, I could close one eye a couple of times, take a deep breath, and wait for the good move...

Native Instruments, for example, had burn their chances...

Tarekith wrote:

D K wrote:the only ting i can see is that this software is gaining users so fast they're probably having a hard time keeping up.

Like with the Live 7 updates? That's the first time I've seen the Abe's take so long to get things sorted for most people, otherwise their support is excellent.

nah, i meant like the posts of folks waiting for delivery and serial numbers.
but you do have a point about the updates, well made!

I voted Very Good.
Except the 'black hole season' started before Christmas 2007, when they probably took a big rest after rushing Live 7 oout of the door,
their answers were always very fast.
Moreover they seem to listen the customer base when it comes to new features adoption. Don't expect this to be the rule though. If your request matches their (hidden) Statement of Direction you will be pleased to find your requested feature in an update or in the next version.
They are also very kind and relaxed on Sales & Activation matters, give you suggestions and help. I had a problem with every Live 6 update. Every time I activated I have to activate a second time shortly after the first. They had all this requests on their server and understood that i could have been an issue with my setup. I had root activated on MacOS X and that caused the problem. Fixed. Furthermore they reset my activation count to 1. I have never had such a good, fair and passionate service.

- Best
- Pasha

any problems i've had have been dealt with either same day or next morning.

good stuff.

Voted excellent. Never had to wait more than a day for an answer, except the day after they released live 7, but they then answered me on a sunday

My activation reset request took only 1 hour or so, then they replied that it was done.

I only experienced the "black hole season" yet, but found the Beta testing phase very encouraging. Generally I find each and everyone in their team that I had dealt with to be friendly and down-to-earth. They sometimes do not answer direct questions on the forum, but that's an experience I made with many different support teams. My guess is that often they simply overlook these under all the mountains of questions they're receiving. I currently do not like the mechanics of how bug-reports are dealt with and will wait how the most fundamental bugs in Live 7 are dealt with after they had to rush out 7 in time for christmas-sales. So I do not poll yet, because my experience is still too limited.

They're usually excellent, they had a bit of a bad patch around the Live 7 launch which was unfortunate.

In an era when personalized customer service is a lost art, Ableton stands head and shoulders above the pack.

In particular, I'd like to single out Sara Brubaker and Olaf Bohn for their outstanding service. Based on their timely responses and their willingness to work with me - in essence, taking ownership of a customer service issue, I elected to upgrade to the boxed Live 7 Suite.