PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

This is the way the stores are going. I had an excellent store called "Washington Music Center", and then the owner retired and his son took over and turned it into a similar store to the Guitar Center. Yes sometimes the people who sell the gear are idiots but that does not mean you write them off. You don't make any money in that location if you do that.

Problem is smart staff cost money which means higher prices.
People go in and find out all about it.
Leave shop saying "Thank you very much, I'll think about it".
Buy product in discount store full of morons.

Moral of the story.
CW have to improve pre-sales on the web so customers can find out directly.

lol

Thomas

imho this knowledge of the 'average seller' is a bit overestimated.
You may know (almost) nothing about a product, but still you can successfully sell it if you are open minded, responsive and give the customer a kind of safe feeling '...we've dudes to fix it...', 'return it if it doesn't work...' etc.
Rarely to find today, and first of all for 2 reasons: eBay and large mail order stores.

All stores I talked with were afraid to stock anything due to the regular supa-dupa offers.
It's hard to say 'no' at half the price...

And I must admit (as one who defends the local store as far as it goes) I did order a couple of item by Thomann today and was pretty impressed.
You can click that stuff together faster than one can earn the money - and no annoyances whatsoever... I even accepted the ads because they didn't force me

Imho Creamware did stick with the classical shop-concepts (for good reason, as we all know) just too long.
No fault imho as one couldn't expect such a radical change of customer attitude with a rather expensive and sales-intense item in such a short time.

Same applies to the 'interactive training stuff'.
Keep it simple, it's all yet too complicated what makes up a PCee.
To be impressive the pictures don't have to move but be on the point. That's difficult enough.
To compete with game directors is a bit too far imho. Remember: the audience has high expectations

my 2 cents, Tom

ps: and don't let this brainstorming look like CWA's staff were a bunch of beginners, not knowing what to do or where to start

Okay, here's my stab at constructive marketing advice...

Having been a field representative for a number of products over the years, the basic rules are this:

First: smack your potential customer over the head with some benign query like: "Are you ready to move your music to the next level?" (i.e. grab their attention. ...I know this may sound a little demeaning at first, but we're talking marketing here so bear with me)

Second: Ask them what they want: "Are you looking for something to bring together all of your external hardware, giving you flexible processing power for the richest sounding Synths, FX, while making available the most precise tools for Mixing and Mastering without forcing you to ditch the software you already have?" (i.e. pique their interest)

Third: Show them what you got:

...now this is where I think we could do a lot of good. If the major complaint is that SFP is too difficult to manage or too hard to grasp, then that's the first thing they have to come to terms with, so I suggest that the website is designed to mimic the SFP routing and Live Bar as a means of navigating the site.

Obviously the first thing we want people to see is a splash screen offering a tutorial on how to browse the site and make the most of the resources on offer, but in short, it could be incredibly cool to have all the major product pages be input modules on the left side of the page, all the support, links, and contact pages be output modules on the right, and have a mixer module in the middle which everything connects to labelled as "your musical future" or something like that.

Alternatively, one could have a modified live bar with all the categories (products, concepts, downloads, demos, etc) and when you look at a plugin(pack) you would see the appropriate modules load in the router view.

Either way, one could initiate the modules which would open a flash window of the plugin. Each knob, slider, and button would then have a decscriptor and certain functions like the filter would output an MP3 demo of how it sounds. In flash you could stream an audio file of reasonable quality without extraordinary bandwidth requirements.

Cool little details could be added like having the DSP loader operate in place of the Flash loader progress bar, the bypass button could be used to mute a plugin module, etc.

But this way, just to navigate the site, people are used to the interface, and won't be scratching their heads once they finally fire it up.

Now it's time for a shameless plug, one of my good buddies is an awesome flash/web designer and has done awesome pages for other friends (with hope I'll have enough material to merit a webpage of my own). Check out my friends' electronic band he did the site for:

http://www.graylabel.net/index2.html

I think, this type of multimedia interaction would really present CWA as having a competive image. If you all at CWA like the page, send me an email and I can put you in contact with him.

There's more brewing, but I can't seem to get it all to simmer up in one blast so let me know what yall think of this, and maybe more will reach my fingertips.

Sam

Oh... and the 4th and final marketing step is calm their fears. There are a ton of ways to do this, but ideally this step is not left to the end, but sprinkled throughout the whole gammut of info.

Sam

I realy like some of dehuzar's suggestions here. Loading a plug-in and get the description would be great. Maybe to keep it simple, all the standard effects could go in one click - or no?

And yes, the output module should be named: your musical future. I realy like that one.

I can not realy overview, however, how it would turn out in reality. With a realy good designer I think it would be top notch. With a bad/mediocore designer, it will be awfull - scaring people away.



Another thing. I am getting alergic to companies emphasizing the PRO word too much. It gives me assosiations toward Behringer "state of the art preamps" and other wanna be High-end gear. High end gear doesn't realy need the PRO word that much.

(I think a lot of Behringer stuff is good for the money. But REALY - we are talking Creamware Audio here!)

your idea is pretty cool Sam - your buddy's design made my eyes ache, no kidding

in particular:
it is a waste of space
unlogic with it's menu paradigm and the windows popping up at strange places
the shoveling cards efx has no relation to content
the scrollbar had to be labeled to be found at all
it looks stylish with graph over function
but most important: it doesn't represent the band at all (imho)

I hope you see this (and may transmit to your friend) as something constructive.

It is my personal taste and by no way representative, but I really appreciate you brought exactly that example:
such design costs a fortune and has almost the opposite effect of what was intended

for a funky layout how about this one:
http://www.lupinofficial.com/
one of the few web design I found convincing - forget about the subject for a moment

cheers, Tom

I'll pass it on... though IMHO -and not to detract from your critique, but I felt about the same about the link you posted. Maybe it's just a prejudice against that particular style, but I found it gaudy and obnoxious. But that may just be the show it represents.

Dunno if you listened to the music, but I think the vibe of graylabel site fits well with the tunes. But I know them so there's an obvious bias.

Anyway.

I brought it up more to illustrate the type of motion, life, and interactivity that can be breathed into a presentation. Simple point and click for websites, especially one that's supposed to encourage creative flow, is not very inspiring.

Though it's functional, CW's site is very bereft of life and style. Very functional for those who are already in the game, but not particularly inviting.

Sam

My only input here is that Flash is expensive and its not the most universal format. There is support in most modern browsers and OS's but to be honest while its nice for a band or media site to impress you with flash, it often gets in the way of finding specific information, especially on products.

For example:
http://www.pioneerprodj.com/

Obviously this had time and money put into it, and its flashy enough to catch your average Dj, but when dealing with flash there really are no standards set for page controls or general layout. Designs usually feel cramped and for people with slower pc's or slower lines it can be very off-putting.

In fact even http://www.waves.com/ has a use of flash that I think detracts from the site design rather than adding to it.

A website is much like your office. It needs to be an expression of both form and function. Style often gets in the way of ergonimics unless done subtly. While I do find sites like http://www.amazon.com/ rather bland, you can do a lot with CSS and the design will degrade gracefully for older generation browsers and platforms.

The best example excellent CSS design that I can think of happens to be a site specifically about CSS:

http://www.csszengarden.com/

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/0 ... css&page=0

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/0 ... css&page=0

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/0 ... css&page=1

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/0 ... css&page=1

http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=/0 ... css&page=1


etc..

Sam, your original idea to put the software components into some function on the website is a very usable approach imho.

I didn't refer to that link because of it's particular look, but an example where a website meets expectations.

it represents a comic - it has flashy colors
the comic is an 'action' one - so the animation is fast
it has some references to 60s style - accordingly cheezy music
graphic effects for interation feedback do not distract attention from the topics.

I found this a (possibly) usable blueprint if software modules replace actors and the menu topics deal with various aspects of audio (etc).

Imho it is important too have a consistent plot for a website, a graphic style may be found later.
Tnx for some further how-to-not-do-it, Valis you're absolutely right with the 'graphic stands in the way' statement.

cheers, Tom

Incidentally that wasn't really intended to be condemnation of Sam's idea for a navigation interface, rather to prove the point that too cumbersome an interface to get to the basic set of data isn't necessarily the best thing.

I would be of the opinion that Sam's idea would be that its probably best used for a section of the site devoted to 'in depth exploration' of what SFP and Scope have to offer. Definately far more innovative than waiting on some obnoxious quicktime tutorial to load.

I fully agree - and on Sam's idea
my irony referred to the 'graphic heroes' designing all that self-adoring stuff.
I know that it's difficult to find the proper hook for a site and always easier to condemn others failure than to come up with an own (smart) design - but hell, those call themselves 'professional'...

cheers, Tom

Much as I dislike NI, they do Flash well. So do the FL Studio crowd and to a lesser degree Propellorheads. Good demos, sound clips and examples. The main point being that they actually *have* some interactive elements to explain the equipment.

Flash is definitely the way to go IMHO. And it doesn't have to be expensive. Wizzing, twirling, rotating things are just window dressing that a lot of Flash designers feel compelled to put in.

Most of it is rubbish imho.

Good Flash is excellent for demoing screen functions, audio, GUI interaction etc

On 2004-02-04 01:34, Spirit wrote:
Good Flash is excellent for demoing screen functions, audio, GUI interaction etc

yes, I learned that yesterday, from the one who's finishing my website.
he showed me the possibilities of flash in the way you present mp3's to stream (little player with song title bar flickering during bufferloadtime, next/last song buttons, etc., and other stuff.
And indeed he 'hates' typical' Flash show offs...

_________________
Let There Be Music!



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: hubird on 2004-02-04 21:33 ]</font>

Make a firewire Pulsar with good I/O and sync. Oh and heaps of DSP power with good plugin's.

That would sell, scrap Noah it's a joke.

Actually, marketing the Scope cards is not that hard in my opinion. The biggest problem at this time is that they try to sell it to a complete musician market. A common business strategie is to focus on a niche market. This is exactly what Creamware should do marketing wise.

They need to position theirselves as 'a must have' for a specific market. My advise is to market the Scope product as 'The Analog System Solution'
They have some very strong emulations of classic analog synths like the minimax, prodessey and pro one. Make a package with a pulsar ii card and these 3 synths included and they will position theirselves very strong on the analog market.

Let's face it. due to the polyphony fact of the synths, they can never compete to the possibilities of the modern softsynths. Current computer setups are fast enough to create very good sounds with lot's of polyphony. So competition is useless.

There is no competition yet for Creamware's analog synth solutions.

I really believe that if you market it this way, they will get their 'free' marketing boost in the magazines and on the (at this day very importent) internet pages.

off course, this is just a basic idea yet and it will need to be worked out to a complete business plan before succeeding. But if they try to market it the way they do now, they have to face the fact that the product can't stand the current competition anymore based on the fact that the computers are fast enough to do a lot of things creamware cards can do, and most of the time better.

Let me clarify that remark:
Mixdown:
if you need to mix down a song in the early days there was no match if you used the scope mixer. Nowadays i remixes all my projects in cubase sx itself. There is simply no need to do it in scope anymore.

Effects:
The effects of creamware are very good, however there are a lot of effects available on the market that can do the same. So it's not a differentiatior anymore.

Synths:
Polyphony on the creamware cards is a joke compared to current standards. There is almost no'one that takes it for granted that you can use just a few notes from a synth. With the current processing power of the computer, people will not be appealled by this limitations. The analog market is different, they are used to synths which can produce only 1 note polyphony and they are focused on emulations which are great.

Flexibility:
The flexibility on the SFP package is great, however from cubase sx 2.01 on you can route what ever you want in cubase itself. with any card you like. so, this will be strong competition also.

Pricing:
if you look at the above statements you will see immediatly that you really need to differentiate yourself to justify the price of a creamware card. Check the prices of other cards in the same league (like the UAD) and you will notice the price difference. It's not wise to ignore the pricing effect anymore. Face it, the structure of the card is a couple of years old. There are new cards with redicolous prices on the way (EMU X sampler for instance). Even if it's not fair to compair such cards, bear in mind that most people do. So if you don't offer something special you will definitly loose the challenge to win the customer.

Conclusion:
Let me state that i'm not negative about the creamware cards. I love my pulsar II card and want to continue using it for years. But the points that i use in my story above is just reality they are facing. I think they can make a succesfull product of the scope package, however they really need to restructure their complete approach of the market. They need to go through the complete business management cycle like SWOT, Strategie, Actionplans, etc...

If they continue the old way, my hopes are not that high for the longer term.

Hope this helps a little pointing them in a different direction. (not nescessarely my direction off course).



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Quifster on 2004-02-05 08:10 ]</font>

Thank you, Merci, Danke, Kiitos for this thread... I already found numerous real good ideas and impulses, let's see what we can do about it. Frank

Workshops all around the world made by power users of the product, through a long period of time.

There are quite a few power users in almost every part of the world with more than enough knowledge of the platform to get SFP clearly explained to potential new clients. This would be done in the biggest music shops of a particular town, for a week, two hours per day, from Monday to Friday, explaining everything from ground “0” so people can understand the concept comprehensibly.

Those users known by Creamware Audio, members of the Z community by years already, could be the ones involved in this special occasion. Think about people that have been working with any of the cards for more than 3 years already, they will know, in their own words, how to explain it. Musicians are very strange people, so you don’t necessarily need very well intellectually formed representatives of your products. Musicians like musicians… and there is nobody better suited for this job, than a musician. We understand each other just looking into each other eyes, while those well learned people may sometimes be very heavy to our taste, so no worries about luck of preparations to explain the platform. This will also allow many languages to get involved, languages you have never targeted yet, without travelling.

Shops should not be paid for these expositions by CWA. It will be enough making clear to them that you are actually doing some advertisement to their interest, to promote your products; so in every town where you plan to do this exposition, you should always include some good advertisements about their shop presenting your products.

The only thing the shop will have to do, is getting ready a place for a few people to come and sit down for a period of two hours, every day, for 5 days, and sticking a few posters of it, a couple of weeks before the event takes place.

Creamware Audio would pay a little fee to those willing to take the step, seen it as a challenge for themselves, a little job to be paid, and a way to help their own platform to come to life.

What they will use for it? Something they all know very well, their own system… Perhaps shops could handle a screen so people don’t need to go with the whole thing, as well as a couple of good speakers, if they can.

No guaranties will be offered by anybody to anybody for any reason, i.e., CWA will not give to the performer any guaranty for moving their systems, nor the performer to CWA about selling anything or hold any responsibility for the assistance of potential clients. No compromise will exist, but the exposition itself, done with a “stable, working system”, tried beforehand by the owner, using a sequencer and some plug-ins to build a song using MIDI and audio till burning a CD to show the whole process to those involved in the discovery of your products.

Here there may be many points to adjust, but this is the rough idea. I believe that a great campaign like this, making lots of noise in different magazines, radio and the net, could motivate people to get to know the platform and experimenting a little bit the power of it, through the incomparable enthusiasm of experienced users.

Some disorderly bumping, busy, half a dozen CWA devices to win !
Sorry about some rehash of what has been said by others or me.

I’am glad CWA will overhaul their site in late march, I guess it will be a version 1.0 or under and I hope they will keep constantly improving and frequently updating it : they should bring as much attention to it as their coding efforts.

I also think when the site will be fully grown and packed with infos, FAQs, audio demos and links to more, that they could sell themselves the cards and bypass the shops, lowest same price for all, CWA gains the low margin of the best price shop + makes the cards very attractive.

Like was suggested in an another thread, simplify the names and subcategories that can led to some confusion : Scope 3,6,15.

Nice idea to " get out ", too much DSP cards not enough PCI slots, a box with firewire/USB2, some additionnal cost though but after the box is bought ...

Concerning the site, something like : http://www.tcelectronic.com/ or http://www.izotope.com/ what I like in both are the handy menus ( same as the routing window ) direct access ! and the new menus must have all the devices on the platform.

Menus like synths – VA’s-CWA-list ... ZARG- list ...
Etc ... up to freebies, well just everything released.

Quite impressive lists : compressors, reverbs ... I’d be curious to know how many outsiders are aware of all the devices here -> more mentions of CWA in threads about DSP cards & effects, for now it’s only Powercore and UAD-1.

And for news, 2 columns : CWA and all the third parties or maybe 3 to divide third party into free and not free.

For site content, I propose splicing the big 30 MB manual to have enable easier access to the effects packages, mixers ... etc and collecting the maximum questions asked & answered here and CWA forums, it takes lots of times but it could be made progressively, in the end WAY less time spent in support & various questions.

I agree that " non flashy " Flash is excellent : http://www.whitenoiseaudio.com/smallhelp.html you could make exe files of them, infos per sections, per controls, showing the workflow.

You can change the PDF manuals to flash exe anyday here ! direct access again ! and give as much infos as possible always like delay times, envelopes times, LFO rates and waveforms, sometimes the info is here, sometimes not.

Also provide a chart of DSP use for all devices plus more for synths ( voices : 1,2 ... ) so that before purchasing one can estimate what can be run and don’t be too loud about the powerful sharcs, the next generation obviously yes !

Bugfixes and updates to show that a given product isn’t abandonned, when sales drop, it should show that it’s about time for refreshment and maybe some minor cosmetics enhancements to make the GUIs less stock ( Vectron ) old ( Six Strings ) but no need for flames like Inferno.

Interpole : 98 euros for one filter, Ohmforce 30 filters if you count the various 6dB, 12 dB ... for 149 euros + massive routing and modulations, that can’t be done with a low DSP use but at least make an effort to produce a filterbank that doesn't look like easy money done with the Mini filter.

Emulations : go beyond 1 :1 or a little more, Ohmforce again with their Moog will put all parameters on dedicated LFOs + special ADSRs + midi, again maybe hard to do on SFP but " push the envelope " as well.

I wondered what if Prodyssey’s LFO went above 20 Hz, if it had more waveforms, if the resonance could be modulated, how the filter of the first Odyssey model sounds like.

Some of the latest native VA’s are getting better soundwise and can get only better since CWA can’t go above near perfection, they can only wait for the native developpers to climb the ladder ; on the other hand if CWA and third parties makes unique devices, true classics that exist only on the platform will put more attention I think than Moog’s wars also it's good to know that the best VA's and emulations are more likely to be found here.

The DP and SDK, now that I’ve learnt the DP could be run in less than 15 DSP boards, I hope you’ll give the keys even to the low cards owners so that they could assess if they are good enough to dive in before buying a Scope SRB, no doubt that if they are hooked they will make the move to buy more DSP.

And a permanent dedicated menu on the frontpage about DP / SDK, insist on the challenge, that should bring attention.

I think CWA is not meant to be a niche market since it can appeal to those who want good sounding devices ( like me ) and those who are seeking complex routing solutions, I hope you’ll make a PDF or flash with something like 20 + screenshots to show all the potential.

More examples projects with the install CD, all the recent third parties demos and freebies to get hot plugged right at the beginning, the new wave of freebies that will rise when people will have assimilated the DP will be a big plus.

If the install goes right and no hardware conflict, it’s a piece of cake to get started BUT you must make a totally fool proof step by step manual : all the screens and answers to dialog boxes, the basic projects, GUI presentation, troubleshooting ... etc.

Cubase SX2 comes with a getting started manual, I use SX2 maybe at 20 %, when I'll need more I'll dig the fat PDF." SX is more complex than Fruityloops, let's keep a low profile ! " you think they do this at Steinberg ?

The manuals could be thinned : for instance in the effects package, at the beginning tell what dry / wet controls do and not repeat it 20 times, only detail when there’s a difference.

That’s all for today !


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: decimator on 2004-03-15 20:46 ]</font>