Thread January 9, 2016 editorial: comments

How Supportive is Your Tech Support?

These days, being a recording musician requires not only musical and recording chops, you also need to be a tech wizard. Our systems are based around software, and typically we have a DAW from one company and plug-ins from others, and possibly drivers for our audio interface from yet another company. And that’s not to mention an operating system from another company, still (unless you’re using Apple Logic, in which case both DAW and OS are from the same developer). All these various pieces of code — digital “moving parts,” as it were — have to work in tandem, which, as you surely have experienced, doesn’t always happen.

When the code isn’t getting along, you get system crashes, which can be really disruptive, and can cause you to lose work unless you’re OCD about saving (speaking of preventing data loss, check out the story we published this week on backing up your data). When things get really bad, you might not even be able to get your session to load, or even your DAW to open. By necessity, we’ve all learned various ways to cope in these situations. We trash preferences, we restart the DAW or even the computer, we scour the internet for tips on how to fix our problem, and when things really get bad, we might even try reinstalling software. 

But sometimes, none of those steps work, and we have to turn to a software manufacturer’s tech support department. And here, we find very large differences from one company to the next. Some offer phone support, where you can reach a tech agent immediately. Others make you initiate your support request by email. The latter is annoying, because if you’re in the middle of a session, you don’t want to have to wait 24 hours to get a response. It’s understandable when it’s a small developer, but larger companies should all offer phone support.

And then there those developers that charge for tech support. As a Pro Tools user, I have to deal with one of those companies: Avid. As I’ve chronicled in previous columns, I recently decided to stick with Pro Tools, even after Avid imposed its subscription and annual upgrade fee model, because I’m very comfortable with the software and I really like the way it’s structured for recording, editing, and mixing. I caved in and paid the annual upgrade fee after Avid cut it in half for those willing to forego tech support. I figured that since I’ve usually been able to solve tech problems by doing research online, I could get by without paying for support. Well, I was wrong.

I’ve been having a problem with Pro Tools crashing every time I close out of a session, and no matter what I’ve tried, nothing fixes it. I’ve gotten to the point where I have to re-open Pro Tools virtually every time I open a session. So, I finally bit the bullet and ponied up the extra $99 for an annual support plan. I figured, at least if I’m paying for support, they’ll be very responsive. Wrong again.

I called the tech support line and, low and behold, it sounds as if Avid’s tech support has been outsourced to a country somewhere in Asia. This is the kind of thing I might expect from say, Hewlett Packard or Epson, but not a DAW developer. But Avid is a large, publicly traded company, so I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised. I’m happy that people are getting jobs in whatever country the tech support is located, but I would rather see those jobs stay here in the U.S. But I digress.

So I call tech support, and the guy on the other end takes my information and tells me that the “next available” tech support agent will call me back. Five hours later, I haven’t heard a thing, so I decide to call back. This time the person who answers is a tech support agent, and, to be fair, he spends a lot of time trying to diagnose the problem, and seems pretty knowledgeable. He speculates that it’s due to the drivers from my audio interface not being up to date. He says to try updating the drivers and to email him directly if the problem persists. So I update the drivers, but the problem persists. So I email him, and attach a crash log and a screenshot of the message that pops up when the crashes occur. That was two days ago, and I still haven’t gotten a response. For this I paid $99? 

What have your tech support experiences been like?