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New Wave Automation
- Thread starter oldiesstation
- Start date
Nothing in this world would ever make me use anything Arrakis again. They have the most rude support department I have ever dealt with.
I heard that!! I dealt with them on a harness for a board,wanted to tear my head off.This software has a bundle of features for a low price.We use Nexgen.I like to play with different software and processors in my spare time..
chriscollins said:
You're preaching to the choir, my friend. After being told by them a two month old console was no longer under warranty because I was the second owner I lost all respect for those crumbs. Add to this the "wonderful" experiences I had with their garbage 1200 series consoles and I would never touch any of their products again. Also, $30 for a cardboard end bell on an ARC-10 console and a $35 shipping fee on top of that? Yuck foo, Charlie!
Given a choice of using any Arrakis console, a Radio Shack mixer or shutting a station down I would first pick the Radio Shack mixer with my next choice would be shut the station down. I actually (and recently) turned down a freelance gig where they wanted to use an Arrakis console in their studio. I told them they'd have to find another engineer.
You would need to have your head fully examined if you're even considering any product from Arrakis - PERIOD!
There are plenty of low-cost automation systems in the sub-$1000 class that would be much better choices than their offering. Most of them have been discussed in detail in these forums.
I was stuck in a community college radio program a few short years ago and I just couldn't justify even attempting to utilize 'radio' software because it wasn't the language the tween-agers wanted to learn.
A 'cart wall' wasn't even kewl talkin'
I did have some luck with teaching them to use something that was simply an audio player (on steroids) with an interrupter player that could produce what'ever they wanted to interrupt their song list with....
A 'cart wall' wasn't even kewl talkin'
I did have some luck with teaching them to use something that was simply an audio player (on steroids) with an interrupter player that could produce what'ever they wanted to interrupt their song list with....
Arrakis! Eeeewwwww!!!
Anybody can turn over a new leaf. Or in this case, a new wave.
When everything was DOS, I liked the software of the Digilink II. It did a lot, and it made sense. Hardware was a bit difficult due to the giant cards plugged into the tiny little 386 motherboard. Digilink III was an attempt to do more, but was not as reliable. I twice tried to justify the Digilink Extreme, both times sent it back. If they only could have emulated the cool features of the old Digilink II...
I recently took delivery of a used 1200 10 S console. Aside from the fact that most of the VCAs were dead due to somebody looking at it wrong, I find it to ba a cute litle console. Also I found Ben as Arrakis to be helpful. But when it came to pricing, OMG, connectors were marked up 5-10 times, plus a "small parts handling charge" of $25.00. I bought from Newark and saved enough money to buy a Geico insurance policy.
When everything was DOS, I liked the software of the Digilink II. It did a lot, and it made sense. Hardware was a bit difficult due to the giant cards plugged into the tiny little 386 motherboard. Digilink III was an attempt to do more, but was not as reliable. I twice tried to justify the Digilink Extreme, both times sent it back. If they only could have emulated the cool features of the old Digilink II...
I recently took delivery of a used 1200 10 S console. Aside from the fact that most of the VCAs were dead due to somebody looking at it wrong, I find it to ba a cute litle console. Also I found Ben as Arrakis to be helpful. But when it came to pricing, OMG, connectors were marked up 5-10 times, plus a "small parts handling charge" of $25.00. I bought from Newark and saved enough money to buy a Geico insurance policy.
Bill,
I doubt they have turned over a new leaf, as you can see from the numerous responses.
Back in the day, I used Digilink as well. It was a solid satellite system. Everything after that has been horrible. The support is terrible and I have replaced every Arrakis console we had (which were equally bad) with AudioArts products... Which are a joy to work with.
That software looks like crap, which is what I would expect from them. If you care about your product working, I would use one of the other tested and established programs. I doubt many will test this, as I can't think of anyone off the top of my head that wants anything with the word Arrakis as part of it.
I doubt they have turned over a new leaf, as you can see from the numerous responses.
Back in the day, I used Digilink as well. It was a solid satellite system. Everything after that has been horrible. The support is terrible and I have replaced every Arrakis console we had (which were equally bad) with AudioArts products... Which are a joy to work with.
That software looks like crap, which is what I would expect from them. If you care about your product working, I would use one of the other tested and established programs. I doubt many will test this, as I can't think of anyone off the top of my head that wants anything with the word Arrakis as part of it.
@Bill W: I hope you didn't buy the VCA chips from Arrakis! Depending on the vintage of the 1200, they either use "obsolete" or "real obsolete" VCA chips, and will charge you the bend-over rate for each of them (two per stereo channel). Also, if one is foolish enough to make that thing their on-air board and a VCA blows guess what? You can't hot-swap the chip, so you'll have to power down the thing. Talk about a total POS console!
I will be the first one to admit that I should have personally learned after having the couple of Arrakis 1200 consoles used in my former webcast studios (acquired when I bought out some of the assets of a defunct web streaming company in Mass.). It wasn't until I bought a two-month old ARC-10 console for a station operator who was other their head that I truly found out how suck-o Arrakis really is as both a manufacturer and as a company in both tech support and customer service aspects! The very fact that their President couldn't even be bothered to reply to my letter expressing how disappointed I was with their treatment of my situation should spell it all out to most any observer.
The old adage of "burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me" tends to linger on in my mind. After replacing the ARC-10 with a real broadcast console the only thing I hear from everybody now is "why didn't you do that rom the start?"
There's really only one good place for any Arrakis product as far as I'm concerned, and that would be THE DUMPSTER!
I will be the first one to admit that I should have personally learned after having the couple of Arrakis 1200 consoles used in my former webcast studios (acquired when I bought out some of the assets of a defunct web streaming company in Mass.). It wasn't until I bought a two-month old ARC-10 console for a station operator who was other their head that I truly found out how suck-o Arrakis really is as both a manufacturer and as a company in both tech support and customer service aspects! The very fact that their President couldn't even be bothered to reply to my letter expressing how disappointed I was with their treatment of my situation should spell it all out to most any observer.
The old adage of "burn me once shame on you, burn me twice shame on me" tends to linger on in my mind. After replacing the ARC-10 with a real broadcast console the only thing I hear from everybody now is "why didn't you do that rom the start?"
There's really only one good place for any Arrakis product as far as I'm concerned, and that would be THE DUMPSTER!
Back to the "New Wave"...
$750 with some sort of music scheduler.
You can get Simian Lite for $500, which will probably do everything this will do except for music scheduling. More to the point, it's a widely used system in the industry. For broadcast use, that's valuable, as you are more likely to find new hires with some experience with the system. As well as the advantage of having many folks--like the ones on this message board, who can help solve problems that might appear.
The same can be said for the Prophet/RCS/whatever series of systems. Haven't priced them recently, at one time they had a low cost module as well, and a simple music scheduler. And again, the large industry user base means you aren't alone when you need an innovative solution to an oddball problem.
Always someone with a new and wonderful system, but I have enough to do without doing someone else's R & D work.
$750 with some sort of music scheduler.
You can get Simian Lite for $500, which will probably do everything this will do except for music scheduling. More to the point, it's a widely used system in the industry. For broadcast use, that's valuable, as you are more likely to find new hires with some experience with the system. As well as the advantage of having many folks--like the ones on this message board, who can help solve problems that might appear.
The same can be said for the Prophet/RCS/whatever series of systems. Haven't priced them recently, at one time they had a low cost module as well, and a simple music scheduler. And again, the large industry user base means you aren't alone when you need an innovative solution to an oddball problem.
Always someone with a new and wonderful system, but I have enough to do without doing someone else's R & D work.
TomT said:
I think Tom has a very good point here. The last thing I would want is to be the guinea pig for any product, especially Arrakis. New Wave looks so cheesy it could have been coded by some high school kid. Their page also say "on sale" - how much are they going to try to rape people for it with a "regular" price - or will it be on perpetual sale like their ARC-8 consoles?
I was never a fan of any of the BSI software as I've heard the horror stories with that as well, but at least they have a support team in place that actually works with their clients. I wonder if you have to wait 'til the high school kid gets out of class to get support for New Wave?
Simian Lite looks interesting and I would more than likely consider it before NewWave or DigiLink. I still have my favorite automation at the sub-$1000 level. I know one local non-comm FM using iTunes for their overnights - I would venture a guess even that's more reliable than New Wave.
If you need the integrated music scheduling, I *think* Station Playlist does that. Otherwise... Simian with Natural Log is probably the best bet. I have a Simian On-Air system I am trying to sell. It's built with AudioScience cards. I believe I have 1.8 on it. Pulled it out, when we bought the station I was doing contract work for and put it on Audiovault with the rest of my stations.
chriscollins said:
Yes, StationPlaylist does have integrated music scheduling. I'm using their "Pro" suite with the student station I manage and it seems to be pretty intuitive for the high school kids to pick up on.
I had a station I was involved with for a bit (before it sold) that was using Station PlayList. From what I could see it was pretty darn solid. Another thing you might consider is Player101 by Prophet (Nexgen people) IF you can live with it's limitations. My only complaint with Player101 is it WILL NOT send out closures. There's no upgrade for that either. In my case that was a huge PIA as my little project grew from just feeding one station to putting it up on the bird and wanting closures. Support is from the Prophet guys. You can pay for as much real support as you want. If you can afford it, I'd go that way.
J
JayDavis82
Guest
SO... let me sum up the responses from this thread...
No one here has tried the New Wave product and has 0 experience with it. Besides looking at screen shots and saying that it looks like "crap."
Bill Defelice and Chris Collins sound like they had a bad breakup with Arrakis and are now out to attack them at every chance they get. (I glanced around the boards and it looks like Bill posts as much as possible about how he hates Arrakis because he bought a used board and how it isn't under warranty...) It's time to move on guys. Stop dreaming about old girlfriends.
When was the last time that you guys worked with Arrakis support? It sounds like Bill had used product (I wouldn't buy a used BMW and expect BMW to fix it for free), but hasn't worked with anything new recently. It sounds like Chris worked with their old Digilink stuff.
Now here's some meat to the original post, since everyone here just wants to pout and whine about spilt milk:
-I am a current Xtreme user and I love the software. It took me a while to get used to it (as with most software) but I really like it now. I needed a lot of support at the start, and I thought they were great. They were punctual in their responses and they knew what they were talking about (unlike calling Microsoft support who just sits there and walks you through a written dialogue). I'm not sure who you guys spoke to, but I have only had good luck there. Maybe the support staff has changed since the last time you called there.
-I recently have tried using the New Wave as well. I think the new look is good and doesn't look like "crap." It is really easy to learn and does what it says it will do. It doesn't do satellite automation, but for $750 I guess you can't complain. It's designed to play music and for live stuff. I can see some radio stations liking it, and it looks great for internet streaming.
I don't mean to offend you Bill or Chris, and I am sorry if I have. I just don't like seeing posts from guys who don't have experience with the product and enjoy bad mouthing companies cause they had a bad experience.
Let me know if you guys have any questions about the New Wave, and I would love to answer it from an educated perspective.
No one here has tried the New Wave product and has 0 experience with it. Besides looking at screen shots and saying that it looks like "crap."
Bill Defelice and Chris Collins sound like they had a bad breakup with Arrakis and are now out to attack them at every chance they get. (I glanced around the boards and it looks like Bill posts as much as possible about how he hates Arrakis because he bought a used board and how it isn't under warranty...) It's time to move on guys. Stop dreaming about old girlfriends.
When was the last time that you guys worked with Arrakis support? It sounds like Bill had used product (I wouldn't buy a used BMW and expect BMW to fix it for free), but hasn't worked with anything new recently. It sounds like Chris worked with their old Digilink stuff.
Now here's some meat to the original post, since everyone here just wants to pout and whine about spilt milk:
-I am a current Xtreme user and I love the software. It took me a while to get used to it (as with most software) but I really like it now. I needed a lot of support at the start, and I thought they were great. They were punctual in their responses and they knew what they were talking about (unlike calling Microsoft support who just sits there and walks you through a written dialogue). I'm not sure who you guys spoke to, but I have only had good luck there. Maybe the support staff has changed since the last time you called there.
-I recently have tried using the New Wave as well. I think the new look is good and doesn't look like "crap." It is really easy to learn and does what it says it will do. It doesn't do satellite automation, but for $750 I guess you can't complain. It's designed to play music and for live stuff. I can see some radio stations liking it, and it looks great for internet streaming.
I don't mean to offend you Bill or Chris, and I am sorry if I have. I just don't like seeing posts from guys who don't have experience with the product and enjoy bad mouthing companies cause they had a bad experience.
Let me know if you guys have any questions about the New Wave, and I would love to answer it from an educated perspective.
The software is cheap, because they have structured the company to make money from support. Read the support information and per incidence cost. Factor that into your TCO.
That is an honest, uncolored opinion.
I have worked with BSI, BE, & RCS at multiple stations. I think all of them make a good product. In the budget range, I would recommend Simian. It is a mature product.
Don't trust anything bleeding edge/new to run your radio stations.
That is an honest, uncolored opinion.
I have worked with BSI, BE, & RCS at multiple stations. I think all of them make a good product. In the budget range, I would recommend Simian. It is a mature product.
Don't trust anything bleeding edge/new to run your radio stations.
G
Groove1670
Guest
Nexgen or StationPlaylist. Nuff Said. Lets move on. Nothing to see here.
OKCRadioGuy said:
That was actually my first choice as I liked the product as well as the support. Unfortunately there wasn't the budget at the time to swing it and the Digital Jukebox started to get quite unreliable. For a fairly quick turnover StationPlaylist Pro worked amazing well and it's quite stable.
JayDavis82 said:
@Jay: It looks like you really need to re-read my posts as you've openly glossed over important details. Sure, the board was "used" - it was TWO MONTHS old from when the ORIGINAL PURCHASER bought it DIRECTLY FROM ARRAKIS as the model was being introduced to the product line! The fact that Arrakis has such a draconian warranty policy to cancel the remainder of a product's warranty when the product becomes the property of a second owner is ludicrous! From your logic if, say your brother, bought a brand new car and two months later gave it to you, the manufacturer has every right to not honor the warranty? That's just as absurd! I don't even hold Harris with the same level of disdain I do with an outfit like Arrakis. I was quite even tempered when I authored the ARC-10 review for Radio World but I was sure to mention the warranty issue (and oddly enough Arrakis doesn't even reference the review - I guess they hope the truth would just go away).
And you state that I haven't worked with Arrakis support or their new products recently? I have dealt with Arrakis support within the last 12 months (as I ordered parts to liquidate both an ARC-10 and a 1200-15s) and have dealt with various Arrakis boards for freelance consults (and I have tubes of VCA chips to prove it!). Ever since getting the bitter taste of their support and services I think it's only fair to warn potential purchasers (some being those I work with) of what awaits them. They're more than welcome to either heed or ignore my advice. I know I care about those who opt for my services and I feel responsible to advise them so their funds are well spent.
So, to the point, New Wave *may* be promising, but remember this: Would you want to trust it to your mission-critical station operation? Given what I've dealt with from the manufacturer, I for one, would not!
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