Sweet Notes

Early Fall 1998

 

 

 

By Chuck and Brenda Surack

 

 

trating, but having to send

Owners, Sweetwater Sound

 

 

something back for repair is,

Nothing upsets customers, retailers

 

 

at best, a hassle you can do

 

 

without. So let’s all be glad

and manufacturers alike more than the

 

 

 

 

that manufacturers care

dreaded “vaporware” syndrome. We’ve

 

 

 

 

enough about their custom-

discussed it here before, but it’s worth talk-

 

 

 

 

ers to make darn sure that

ing about again since it’s something that

 

 

 

 

any product they release will

will more than likely always exist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

give them years and years of

Before we get into the entire subject,

 

 

 

 

trouble free service.

we want to give you the good news: Al-

 

 

 

 

 

most all of the most eagerly anticipated

 

 

On another topic, many

products ever designed are now shipping.

 

 

of you can look forward to re-

That’s right, if you’ve been hanging on,

 

 

ceiving a copy of our brand

waiting for your Mackie digital mixer,

 

 

spanking new, up-to-the-

Alesis M20, Event Electronics Layla,

 

 

minute “Welcome to

Roland VS-1680, or MOTU 2408 to arrive,

 

 

Sweetwater” video. Be-

your wait is over. These products are ship-

 

 

cause things have changed a

ping right now and we expect to get

 

 

lot around here a lot since

caught up with all our back orders within the next few weeks

 

our last video in 1994, we wanted to give customers a sense

 

or so (your order may even be at your doorstep right now).

 

of just how things have grown and how we operate on a day-

So why does this situation exist? There are several rea-

 

to-day basis so they can have a better understanding of all

sons. Maybe the one that gets overlooked the most is that

 

the many ways we go to extremes to take care of our custom-

manufacturers do not want to ship you a product that won’t

 

ers. Videos will be shipping soon. Let us know how you like it.

do what they’ve promised. They want it to work perfectly and

 

Which leads us to our next point (it’s nice when it works

continue performing for you for many years to come. That

 

out like that). We always, always want to hear from you. We

means they have to subject these products to an incredibly

 

want to know what you like, and what you feel we are doing

rigorous series of tests. If a tiny component fails — even a

 

right. But we also want to know if you’re unhappy or if you

single IC chip or power supply — it can send the item back

 

think there’s something we can do that will make dealing

to the drawing board. More

 

 

 

with Sweetwater an even bet-

typically, because manufac-

 

 

 

ter experience.

turers often buy certain parts

 

 

 

As most of you know, the

from other vendors, they have

 

 

 

majority of our customers

to wait until that vendor fixes

 

 

 

come back to us time and

the problem and gets them

 

 

 

time again when they need

parts that will work correctly.

 

 

 

something. But we are not

Meanwhile, because of

 

 

 

perfect quite yet: There are

advertising deadlines that are

 

 

 

about 130 people here now,

at least three to four months

 

 

 

and once in a while, one of

ahead of the anticipated re-

 

 

 

them is going to make a mis-

lease date of a certain piece

 

 

 

take — which is only hu-

of equipment, the marketing

 

 

 

man considering the hun-

people have to start doing art- Mackie’s Digital 8•Bus is one of the hottest products to

dreds of orders that get filled

work and placing ads, not

come along in years — and it’s shipping now!

on a typical day here. But in

knowing if a month down the road there might be a produc-

 

some cases this leads to misunderstandings with customers,

 

tion glitch. Because competition for musicians’ dollars is

 

who are also only human and therefore may get upset when

pretty fierce these days, no manufacturer can possibly wait

 

something goes wrong.

 

until all testing is complete and product is in the warehouse

 

We can say with absolute certainty that every single per-

before beginning to advertise. They cannot afford to have

 

son here at Sweetwater wants you to be happy with your new

thousands of mixers or recorders or whatever sitting around

 

purchase. We even want you to feel good if you call us and

for three or four months while waiting for the ads to start

 

get information about a certain item, and then choose not

appearing. Some companies could actually go bankrupt if

 

to purchase it from us. But the only way we can be sure that

that happened — yes, there is that much at stake.

 

you are completely satisfied is if you let us know.

So they look ahead and make a “best guess” estimate of

 

We read every single letter, fax or e-mail that arrives

when their latest, hottest item might start shipping. Then

 

here without exception. If there’s a problem, it gets solved

they place ads. They tell us and we tell you. And then we all

 

— immediately. If you’re totally ecstatic (and almost all of

keep our fingers crossed.

 

 

our customers are), we let everyone know during our regular

Because all of us want the best new gear, we just have to

 

weekly meetings. This feedback allows us to better serve ev-

be a little more patient once in a while. When that bright,

 

ery single customer, now and in the years to come.

shiny new digital wondertool shows up on your doorstep and

 

So take a couple of minutes, sit down and let us know

gets integrated into your studio, you want to be sure it’s go-

 

how we’re doing. Our philosophy has always been: “If you’re

ing to perform up to the manufacturers high standards.

 

not happy, we’re not happy.” That’s not some snappy adver-

Thanks to all the intensive testing, odds are good that it will.

 

tising slogan made up by some ad agency, it’s plain and

A short delay in getting what we want might be a little frus-

 

simple our way of doing business every day!

Page 5

Q:What's a direct box? Someone said I need one in my studio and I didn't want to appear dumb, but I don't know what it does.

A:With special thanks to the Sweetwater Web site guys, here is the official "Word Of The Day" defini- tion. Direct Box: Often abbreviated DI (for direct inser- tion), a device commonly used to convert high imped- ance, unbalanced signals from a stage instrument (like a guitar, bass or keyboard) into low impedance bal- anced signals. This puts the signal at the proper volt- age level for the mixer and prevents the instrument from becoming loaded down (with too low an imped- ance), which could cause tonal shifts and distortion. It also allows the signal to be transmitted over long lengths of cable. DIs are always used in live sound to get a signal from an instrument on stage out to the mixing board, which can be as much as 500 feet away. A simple direct box consists only of a small trans- former, but more sophisticated designs employ elec- tronic gain stages that resemble the input section of a modern instrument amp. They may also have some combination of ground lift switches, EQ switches, level matching switches, isolated line outputs, and more.

Q:Can I use any CD-ROM drive with my K2000 or do I need a certain brand? I see that they're really cheap in some of the big computer catalogs, but I don't want to waste time sending it back if it won't work.

A:We have found that most SCSI CD-ROM drives do work with the K2000. However, with the huge num- ber of drives out there we have only been able to test a random sampling. We did find that most NEC drives and most all brands of CD recorders do not work with the K2000 and the Kurzweil does not work with any IDE CD-ROMs. You want to make sure you have the most current OS (3.54) installed in your K2000 as it greatly expands the number of CD-ROM drives that work with it. Here at Sweetwater, we carry several very affordable drives from 4x to 24x speeds that are guar- anteed to work with the Kurzweil.

Q:Is there any way to connect more than six external SCSI devices to a Mac? I have the Mac at one end and my Roland sampler at the other, but I also have a scanner, two external hard drives, an internal hard drive, a CD-ROM drive and a Zip drive. I'd also like to add a tape back-up system and I don't want to keep swapping out cables. Help!

A:There are a couple of solutions to add more than seven SCSI devices to your Mac. Your best bet is to install an additional SCSI bus to your Mac via a third party PCI card. These cards give you at least seven more SCSI IDs. An additional benefit is that they are usually even faster at sending and receiving data than the in- ternal Mac bus. The other solution is a SCSI switcher box, but here you normally have to power cycle the computer to change which devices are active.

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