First of all if anybody don't want to read any more about regelwerk here in
this forum just write a mail and this will be my last about that topic here.
Otherwise I take it as you are keen on knowing what is the matter ;)

It's a good and thorough explanation about the story "behind the scenes" at
doepfer from Florian Anwander. I suppose I have long figured out that
something like this was the case, but no the less I have to disagree
slightly with the approach and also plea for a future upgrade.

I know that Dieter once replied to me that an upgrade would be costly and
that probably none would pay for it. I also believe that I wrote that I
would pay a reasonable price for such an upgrade. With reasonable I mean
price for new parts and work to have it installed. As for further research
work to find the solution I think we have paid for it buy paying the
overprice we had for units that didn't quite live up to what we expected
from them.

Further more I think that not fixing things like theese drags the name of
the firm down as "not reliable" which in it self reflects the sales. After
discovering these things I have myself tried to sell the unit. I have had
around ten serious inquiries from people wanting to buy it, but every single
one has either turned away as I had declared that patterns can't be chained
and it doesn't act as a MIDI-CV. If these things were indeed present in the
unit I have no doubt I would have gotten half the suggested retail price
that I consider fair for a mint condition unit. Considering this I can
understand why sales are slow, people know these flaw and are willing to pay
around 200-300 pounds for it as it is now. So these things are not only
important to us owners but perhaps even more so to potential customers.

I don't know if it is good or bad that others have had the same experiences
with shaltwerk, but it is nice to know that I am not the only one who has
been pushing for this and as one statistic said at work for every mail
recieved in complaint there is always many more that just didn't dare to
write theirs.

Finally I think it is bad marketing strategy to release another flawed unit
to make up for a previous flop... it just adds to the disreputation. Follow
the example of kurzweil and Waldorf that rectifies their errors and
maintains a good name and good sales.

signed in full as usual
/Andreas

PS! Bakis please do add the full email to the others. I would like to
discuss this further with other users of regelwerk and shaltwerk.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Florian Anwander" < Florian.Anwander@... >
To: < Doepfer_a100@yahoogroups.com >
Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: 1 Re: Schaltwerk


> Hi RM
>
> first of all: please sign with a real name. This is a requirement in the
> usenet and should be good taste in a forum like this too. (Btw: If I would
> be D. Döpfer, I would not care for a post of someone, who does not stand
> for his name. But I don't speak for Doepfer).
>
> So now to the topic: I am one of the first Schaltwerk users and Betatester
> (mine is that old, that is has no CV interface). Chris Assall (the
software
> engineer at Doepfer) received a four pages of bugreport for the
Schaltwerk.
> We talked a five hours about it. The result was: the processor is on the
> end of his power. So this is the truth as you stated.
>
>
>
> The following is MY PERSONAL OPINION - nothing I know from Doepfer.
>
> The Schaltwerk was assumingly an economic disaster: Originally developped
> as an addition to the MAQ for Kraftwerk (and with a lot less features),
> they decided to make a complete product out of it. Then there were a lot
of
> unnexpected problems (hardware and software). The developement time
> exceeded any reasonable amount. So they had to make it quite expensive.
> This caused, that sales did not run.
> They tried to get some value return, by creating the Regelwerk (which we
> can describe as the original idea: combination of Schaltwerk and MAQ).
> It sold better and did not cost that much, since half of the development
> was done already for the Schaltwerk. So it had a little better, but not
> very good cash return.
>
> So they had to invest energy, time and money into products, which give
> better sales. And they had to do this immediately, since the sales from
> other products (Keyboards, MS404, basic A100) had reached their max count
> of possible sales. So they developped lowbudget versions of a faderbox.
> This took all their manpower.
>
> For such a small enterprise like Doepfer an unsuccessful product like the
> Schaltwerk can be a killer problem. This would cause nine people becoming
> unemployed. So I can accept that they invest in better selling products
> instead of bugfixing of older products, which do not return any buck.
>
> So far these are my private theories.
>
>
>
> In fact I know that the bugfixes are still on the to do list at Doepfer.
> Chris Assall called me last year, whether I had further complaints. So I
> know it is deferred, but not kicked out.
>
>
> Florian
>
> --
> Florian Anwander |ConSol* HP-Support
> Tel. +49.89.45841-133 |Consulting&Solutions Software GmbH
> Fax +49.89.45841-139 |Franziskanerstr. 38, D-81669 München
> email: florian.anwander@... | http://www.consol.de
>
>
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