[sdiy] dave smith *instruments*

[James Elliott]

>Um, how do I say this nicely, BS!! :)

>Dave Smith's new stuff is hardly unreliable and cheap. He's actually one
>of the current designers who got things *right*. He's very accessible
>(hell he's answered email himself the few times I wrote the company) and I
>think his stuff is built extraordinarily well. I have an early desktop
>evolver and it's never had ANY issue including the encoders. I've gigged
>with it and used/abused it in a number of studio and live circumstances
>where I would not trust any delicate piece. He's also offered FREE
>upgrades to the OS along the way.


Well, I have to say that I respectfully disagree with your statement. For one, I have a polyevolver which had faulty push buttons on one of the boards right out of the box. Yes, he sent me a replacement board which 'resolved' the problem... My friend has a polyevolver which had a faulty "Union Jack" display right out of the box, he was told to send it in for repairs. About 1/2 of the encoders on my polyevolver are now faulty after only four years of owning it - yes he gave me a free 2ml bottle of deoxit in the attempt to make it functional again - and about 1/4 of the encoders on my friend's are bad after about one year. Also, the polyevolver is full of DOCUMENTED bugs & false promises that have been reported to DSI many times (check the DSI yahoo group), and he REFUSES to do anything about them, stating that the polyevolver is a finished product and that there will be no more OS updates (and before the peanut gallery chimes in, no, I am not referring to
 'user issues' with editing & saving in 'combo' mode). Yes, he does answer emails directly, yes he does normally respond in a timely fashion, and yes he does try to address quality control issues. However, that doesn't make all of his product reliable; that simply shows that customer service is responsive. And for the record, the desktop and polyevolvers use different encoders...

Regarding the 'free' upgrades, well if you look on his website you actually have to pay for OS upgrades on the older model desktop and poly-rack evolvers.

I love the sounds I squeeze out of my PEK, however the encoders piss me off to no end. I find it appalling that he charges $400 for the 'Pot Upgrade Kit' when every person I've talked to are only considering it to simply get rid of the crappy encoders.

-Jim (Just Sayin') Elliott