SKnote - a word of caution (reason why - story inside)

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I really thought a long time on how to handle this. And I thought that things resolve by itself. Sadly they didn't. And as of last day's events, I can't hold in anymore. To some this might be "another unadjusted" company hate thread, or so called "couch CEO" shenanigans.

But please hear me out on this - give me a chance to address this without being "edited" in the official "support board" or mass-defended by obviously happy users. Give it a chance to talk about it objectively, in a calm and collective manner.





The story actually starts a couple of months back - and this one is only the tip of the iceberg. At least to me it is. Others might have a different experience.



Quintino Sardo, CEO of SKnote, announced the release of StripBus v3 last late spring. The usual occurred, hype built up, interesting members responded, asked questions and the likes. What then happened, was nothing new for this company. The CEO vanished from KVR - it turned radio silence.

While this is not bad if a developer hides in his programming cave for a while, this "silence" lasted for months. The last life sign from the CEO on this board, was in July 2014, and it kept on until end of November, right after v3's "true release" was announced on GearSlutz.

Again - not necessarily a problem per se.... if the sub board on KVR Audio wouldn't be declared as "official support board", and if the company would respond to support inquiries. No matter through which channel - some people already started reports that this was not the case.




What actually went down, was that the CEO stuck to announcements on Facebook and GearSlutz exclusively, but completely ignored his existing userbase and own support forum on KVR Audio. At some point, some of us users finally snapped due to the constant radio silence, which resulted in me calling Quintino Sardo out on the fellow music board (GearSlutz).

This can be read here:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-c ... st10554764
(throught he first 40 entries, or 2-3 pages).

Keep in mind, this thread was edited to "keep the peace", so a lot of comments, especially the defaming ones were deleted. Just to sum it up, the CEO basically said, that he "moved on to a better place" and considers "KVR audio as some sort of diary, with the wrong focus for his needs" and that he "wanted to close the support section on KVR audio anyway". He recently even went as far and wrote a PSA about "why the current delay is happening" - while stating that these are "recent issues", and not old/ongoing ones. I am talking about the so called user account in this case - which has been announced for months (in public, longer to me though private mails), and was also said to work behind the scenes several times - yet is only now in extensive testing.

However, the early discussion on GearSlutz resulted in certain negative responses from GS users (read: possible future customers), and also myself - a current user of the SKnote arsenal. Then again, it did have an impact... Quintino Sardo came back to his own support forum.

What happened after that, was (IMO) not acceptable however.



Mister Sardo came back into his own board as if "nothing ever happened". He then started to heavily push his threads into certain directions. Mainly: ignoring questions and the issue at hand (lack of support), and insisted that "everything is working fine at his company", that "tests are in progress" and "users should be hooked up with licenses". Yet you heard nothing of the so called "testers" and "hundreds of users that got sent out licenses". The much requested (and heavily criticized, due to lack of a) user account was also addressed. Which seemed to have a huge negative impact for the company - yet they started after all to create/activate the new user account system. Apparently to a huge disappreciation - as it takes away time for something else. Again, something that was allegedly working for months already.

Parallel to that, selective editing of threads happened only to have "positive" comments/feedback. While ignoring "support inquiries" (on purpose or not), and insisting that what the company is doing, is "efficient" and "the right way to go".




How these ongoing issues were addressed (moving/deleting, ignoring questions at hand, etc), didn't swing with certain users yet again. Including one of the KVR Audio mods (which is a SKnote user himself). On top of that, the whole topic (hypernym) turned into a full out slugfest -- the company (or the CEO rather) against users, and happy users against obviously disappointed ones.

You can follow the so called "moaning removal" here - the praise remains in the original threads:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 9&t=424924




During that discussion, I once more reminded Quintino Sardo, that I (among others) merely want to be treated with respect as both paying customer, and as former beta tester. I pointed out that my former support inquiries were just as ignored, and that I never really got updates to the software I am using / wanted to use. The endresult for me was, that I got software from a company lying around, that I could never really appreciate like all other people.

Even if I didn't have severe bugs - I just wanted to be up to date with more recent versions (see footnote below!). By that, I don't mean Strip v3 - I am fully away that it wasn't even out at that time - and this is not the point of this particular issue. My only solution to use "updated versions" would have been to access grey-zone releases. And trust me, I really(!) considered that this time around!


The whole situation went up and down several times, up until the point where Mr Sardo insisted that I "don't even have a certain version of a plugin - this is crazy!". And that my support inquiries were merely only "feature requests". It turned out, that he later meant that I should have been up to date already (again, see footnote below). He also mentioned in a side comment, that "beta testers" are not as important, or even as high valued compared legit paying customers. At least this is what I got out of it - and I wasn't happy about it either as I invested my spare time for testing and writing reports/feedback.

Maybe it's due to a language barrier. I don't know. He is Italian, I am German. But still... my English isn't so bad that I can not properly address (my) issues.




Either way - to me these comments were the final straw.

At this point, it was not about he new plugin and the radio silence revolving around it. I only wanted questions being answered (which the developer constantly evaded) and being updated in terms of my licenses.

I am sometimes way beside me, the real world (outside the internet) is a busy realm - often pull all nighters. Sometimes drastic updates happen in a matter of days, and you only have time for maintenance every half year or so. I lost track at some point - which was all to clear for me last summer while I tried to get up to date with all plugins I have at my disposal, not only those from SKnote. On that behalf, I was also never really informed of newer licenses - I always had to find that out, and request download links myself. In one mail, I was even asked/recommended to "sign up to the KVR RSS News feed" to be up do date! Something that other companies do as part of their customer care (the classic newsletter).

Then again, I did inform myself, and I did request updates. Though granted, not in an aggressive manner as in "every week", and maybe not clear enough (though I did ask for a/the user account since early 2012!). I did find backup mails however, where i clearly said "please update me on my status and let me get access to the latest files". I still wait for that to happen.




But to get back on topic with the current occurrence:

The CEO basically insulted his userbase on GS, abandoned his customers for weeks (months), and then came back to KVR Audio to act like some sort of god (again - personal impression). Which escalated, as it's usually the case on KVR. My response to this was a mail that i sent in on 2nd December 2014.

Summed up: I had enough - I wanted to get rid of my licenses.

In this mail, I requested once more - just like the months/years before - to collect all licenses that are attached to my email address. I wanted to be informed of "what I actually have" (again, paying customer, beta tester, lost track on licenses, etc), so that I can then put all of that material into the Market Place and on my Twitter Account - as free giveaway.

Since I don't think that I will unveil any "company secrets", and I don't fear any repercussions of possible set backs (they happened already - I will get to that in a minute), here is what I wrote to the official support mail address:
mail to support on 02-12-2014 wrote:Hello,


due to recent events over on KVR Audio, and the constant finger pointing towards me respectively (or) us users that are sick of SKnote's current shenanigans, I decided to contact you in person.


My former requests to get updates to all of my licenses, and maybe even get a listing of what I actually have written down to my name always resulted in radio silence or "wait until the user account is open".

Recent events showed me that I am just not valued as customer and former beta tester anymore. So I want to give up my user "account" and give it away for free.

I don't want any money for the plugins. I just want to get rid of them and stop doing business with you until I feel "valued" again. Let somebody else being happy during those "Happy holidays".



According to you, half of my licenses are NFR due to beta testing. Since I'm not selling the plugins, giving them away for free would actually not result in any issues (in my opinion) and I can start from scratch in a couple of years. Once you figured out how not to be ignorant and put yourself into a constant better light why (edit, typo: should be "while") lying into out faces, how to handle your customers and user accounts.


IIRC, I had licenses to the following plugins:

- GTS-39
- Roundtone
- StripBus
- XTrim
- C165a VCA
- Cuttertone
- Verbtone and Necklace (at least betas of it)

I don't know what else should be in my "user account" - and I don't care at this point anymore.

Just sort out what I actually have (then inform me), prepare the account and I'll contact you who will be the new user. I will do a draw through Twitter and KVR Audio's Marketplace.



Thank you - and the best of luck for the future.

Best,
<signature>
I still wait for a suitable response to this mail. And I did make my frustration some air with a separate thread, to not further "disturb the peace". As can be found here:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 9&t=426655




Since that mail, all my consecutive posts were considered "spam" / "off topic", and were removed by the SKnote staff. And since nobody really wrote "Mod Edit" or something like that, I don't know who did it. In the end, my comments looked like as if I changed them. This only added more to the frustration, and I of course commented on that. To no avail - the posts were deleted either way.

Due to me "re-posting" my questions and request to get in touch with me to sort this out, this also resulted in a "ban warning". I then reported Quintino Sardo through the KVR board report system, as my questions were far from being "ban worthy" and slowly turning into (dare I even say it) cyber-bulling - I only wanted an answer, my issues being resolved.

The actual ban warning can be read here - i could save the thread posts before they vanished again.
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 9#p5966969

A couple of hours later, I was informed of the "board bot", that the request was deleted, without further notice. So I got in touch with the admins/active mods, and actually got an apology. They read the issue, they were about to discuss it - then it was deleted without further notice.




Frustrated as I was, I then continued to respond to threads and (re)asked questions in the "Testing the new user area" thread in the SKNote sub board. Who has access to it, how is it working, and who is close to the L range in terms of surnames (my surname starts with L) - to find out if I am maybe being ignored on purpose or if there is a system behind "selective testers". It took me 3 tries to get a suitable response, and it sadly confirmed my fears. The answers still remain, but all my questions and all comments resolving around that were once more being deleted.

Monday (22-12-2014) seemed to have been the final reason for SKnote to completely lock me out of the official support board (and support in general). Quintino Sardo's last post in the StripBus v3 thread was this:
quintosardo wrote:Once the area is trustable and ready all the products will be uploaded. Currently checking missing emails and setting details for new legal rules which start to be applicable fom jan 1st :evil:
My response was, that they (the company) could (still) handle support inquiries through mail in the meantime, and that mine has been pending for 21 days at this point. I even requested to "please answer my mail" days before that - over and over.

What happened within minutes of my response was surprising the least, as I didn't know that this was even possible on selected KVR boards: I was stripped of user rights(!).

As of 22-12-2014, roughly 4pm (GMT+1), I can not start a new topic, I can not post a reply (quick or regular), I can not quote in the SKnote sub board. All I can do is read and edit existing posts of mine.

I am ultimately locked out as legit paying customer.




I then got in touch with KVR Mods again, to inform them of this, and prepared my 4th and final mail to the support:
Sirs,


since you've taken my writing rights in the official "support board" and still refuse to answer my support inquiry - the 4th and final mail.


I am a paying customer, and I was beta testing for you to my expense (time involved) - have a right for customer support.

I expect a resolve of the issue during the course of this day, Monday 22nd December 2014. It's been 3 weeks since my original inquiry, and I am wondering what more time was wasted for actually "silencing" me rather than get this sorted in the first place.

<signature>
As of 2am GMT+1, I yet again did not get any response. At this point, i don't expect that I will even get one.

Which is why I'm sitting here and write this post - which took me a while to write to keep it as objective and calm as possible.






Now some of you might say "I didn't have that experience with SKnote" (among other things) - and all I can say is that "you may be right". You might not been treated like that. You might not even feel like being treated bad. But to me, this is more than a giant sized red warning flag at this point. I feel like being taken for a ride.

And while this is not as history-worthy like Crysonic (read the backlogs), it is severe enough to address this to the public. So all I am giving you, is a huge warning. Nothing more, nothing less.

Personally - I don't like to be treated like sh*t if I involve time and money into a company, and are then defamed and/or refused of support on top of that if I call the company out for their shenanigans. Neither should you IMO. This is just not how you treat your customers - it is not "good business". Take the criticism, use it to your advantage, improve on it.

The sad thing is however - once the "current updates" finally roll in for the users, people will be pleased and all will be well. But the damage was done either way. At least for me it is. And it will take a lot(!) of trust to get me back as customer.

You can only take in so much....





TL;DR:
I warn former and possible future customers of the company SKnote - to take a closer (first) look at how the company works and treats their customers. Feedback from other users is important - and censoring the comments just to be taken in a better light, is not okay IMO. Neither is a lack/refusal of support.

To me, the company stepped too far over the line. I was stuck with old versions, I was/still am stuck in terms of support. Now I'm being refused of it. And I can't get rid of software I can't use effectively.

Please be cautious. :tu:





Footnote:
I did find old backups of plugins from prior of my last backup HDD crash (early 2014). However, they are all 32bit (I currently run 32bit and 64bit in parallel still, with emphasis on x64), and the last files listed on my HDD are from 2012. I actually did find Roundtone v3.0.0.0 among the files. But I remember that it got at least one maintenance update, and I never got maintenance updates or even x64 versions beyond this point (my GTS-39 for example is still from 2011!). Even after requesting updates.
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Damn, I wish I could type as much as you. :o

.-.
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Alienware i7 R3 loaded with billions of DAWS and plugins.

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Just stop buying his plugins and drop it. Your dedication to ruining this respectable developers name is getting woefully tired.

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Just like the Borg ones?

Megh. I can see compy's point. :shrug:
Barry
If a billion people believe a stupid thing it is still a stupid thing

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Maybe Charlie and Quinto should get together and form a support group.
"I got a car battery and two jumper cables that argue different."
Rust Cohle

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twoifbysea wrote:Just stop buying his plugins and drop it.
This is not about "buying new plugins" - this is about user treatment.

My last plugin purchase at this company was actually years ago. And around that time, some pattern already shined through. But I gave them the benefit of doubt, and I was distracted with work anyway.


twoifbysea wrote:Your dedication to ruining this respectable developers name is getting woefully tired.
Sorry to disappoint you, but the developer did the damage himself already.

I think I made it pretty clear that he (the CEO) ultimately abandoned his userbase with his vanishing and comment that he "moved on to GS". At some point he even blamed it on me, that he "Now will close the support section" - just because I said "sorry, but you can't just vanish and talk things down like that - these are your customers". Just a couple of hours later, he comes back to KVR as if nothing ever happened, as if his patronizing comments on GS never existed, and then acted like "Here I am - of you have issues? Well, sucks to be you".

You might get tired of my so called "dedication to ruin this respectable developers name".

But do you know what a respectable developer is? Or what I think that it is? A developer that takes care of his customers, is listening to them, and tries to sort out issues without much further questions asked. No matter how pissed the user in question actually is.

This is where my English barrier sets in, I can't formulate this (out) any further.



Then again, I could give some very excellent examples about this whole topic - in direct comparison another company from Italy: Hornet Audio.

I requested an update of Hornet AutoGain the other day, since I realized "wait, there is a more recent version, and I never got an update mail - let's try it, see what's new. So I didn't hesitate and contacted the developers through their support contact script. Within a couple of hours, I got access to an update. However the wrong one. Instead of the standard version, I got access to the pro version. And on top of that, an apology that I wasn't informed so far as my mail address seemed to have not been on the mailing list up until this point.

I wrote them back that I appreciate their effort and that it's absolutely no problem that I wasn't informed so far, but they sadly addressed me the wrong license. Honest as I am, I also told them that I did not load it. They thanked me for my honesty and addressed me the correct license.

We traded 4 mails - and my inquiry was resolved within less than 24 hours.
I still wait for a suitable response from SKnote on that behalf.



It started as minor annoyance towards the users that the developer simply vanished. It then turned into a nuisance since there really wasn't any response at all to support inquiries (not only from me). The endresult can be retraced in my post above.

But you're right - I'm dedicated to ruin that company's reputation.
You definitely fully understood my post.


egbert wrote:Maybe Charlie and Quinto should get together and form a support group.
The main difference between those two companies:
Steinberg tried to sort out addressed issues with me. They dedicated their time to at least take a closer look, they apologized for the inconvenience, and they kept me informed to a certain extend. That the end result wasn't all roses, lies on a whole different ballpark.

SKnote on the other hand, ignored the addressed issues completely. And again, not only mine. But I was once again the most prominent "loud minority" - the troublemaker. So I must be wrong. :shrug:




I will leave it at that for the time being.
In the end, you (the current/former/future user) have to make up your own mind about this.
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Perhaps Quinto's new website will reduce the workload and support burden which resulted from the previous unwieldy system of emailing individual versions to each licensee. If that is the case, it should be much easier to get updates and support might be easier to manage.

I notice that Studio Devil has been very quiet on the software front since the hardware side kicked in and Quinto is juggling both departments too - these guys probably have too many things going to complete everything they promise/hope to release in a timely fashion.
"I got a car battery and two jumper cables that argue different."
Rust Cohle

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This has been going on for years, I will never buy from this company again.
Duh

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@Compyfox, the hornet guy is amazing.. So punctual with emails. Once i was curious about buying some of his products, and we had more or less a realtime email convo back and forth and there was never a delay waiting for a reply. he answered everything, he even let me buy something i had had a problem with to see if the full non demo would have the same problem, and if so would replace with something else or refund. Really cool guy. Fair with upgrade prices too, for example to the new 45 euro comp it's something like 14 euros for me owning the previous much more "basic" version.

I read your whole post on Quinto, and i have to say i have never been a fan of his plugins. I exercised the return policy on almost everything from him, and sold the others. Even 2 years ago, his unpredictable email support used to annoy me.

From what you said, the best thing to do is just forget the guy ever existed, forget about giving away your licenses, just let it go and forget he even exists. Believe me i am taking this sort of advice myself the last year and it helps. i don't get too hung up on things i have no control over (cause really, whether he replies to you or not, you have no control over his actions). I have learned the all too hard way, that when complaining about being slighted by a dev (and i maintain to this day my complaints with a certain dev were 100% justified), it only leads to anger from members and making enemies. It's pointless.

So my honest advice as a friend is just let it go, i know you feel obligated to do the "right thing" but in the end it doesn't matter, nothing we do here ever really does... wake up tomorrow and forget Sknote ever had a part in your life whatsoever. And presto, you will feel instantly much better :)

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Literally tl;dr

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I bought SKnote's Stagespace a month ago; haven't received a thing; no serial number, key file, full version download link; nothing.

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Wow compytime, you have a lot of free time!

I agree with TheoM and samsam, if you don't like it, forget it!

Having bought something (perfectly working and incredibly successful) for 9.99$ three years ago and something (perfectly working and incredibly successful) for 19.99$ (taxes included) don't make you a CEO, give up, you cannot be the CEO here.

Be careful with twisting and bending things and pestering the net with your lament, somebody different than me could have sued you. I'm not interested in these things, luckily.

P.S. I love and respect KvR, our base and an infinite source of information, once you gather it through a sea of compyfreetime self-referenced and often out of topic background noise. You'll see several proofs of this really soon.


Plugins are fun and are tools for making music. Also are an interesting world of development, experimentation and discussion. Today they let us all have an inside view of audio development which some time ago was just impossible to have.
There are Amazon style companies, you talk to a machine. There are artisanal companies, you speak with people. With a human pace, of course.
Somebody like TheoM prefers the first kind, timing rules. Somebody loves the second one.
They are all available. Isn't it a fantastic world? :harp:

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enough good developers out there to be able to avoid nonsense like this

it's a shame, stripbus was on my list :shrug:

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dformd wrote:I bought SKnote's Stagespace a month ago; haven't received a thing; no serial number, key file, full version download link; nothing.
Are you joking? And why didn't you send an email?

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el-bo (formerly ebow) wrote:enough good developers out there to be able to avoid nonsense like this

it's a shame, stripbus was on my list :shrug:
Be careful with your references :P

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