Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

What is your point..? Perhaps they are desperate. Direct product vs product comparisons are routinely prepared for the sales reps to use. These are mainly to inform the reps who aren't technical enough to do their own comparisons, and can actually prevent hyperbolic claims made by over enthusiastic sales types. making public comparisons is less frequent as it telegraphs weakness and actually promotes the competitors.

I wouldn't want to compete against X32 without moving faders. I suspect that is not a bullet point in the comparison.

JR

PS: While I was still at peavey a competitor did a magazine ad with a direct comparison between one of their rack mount EQs and one of PV's printing an inaccurate higher noise spec in the ad. Of course they pulled that ad immediately after we put them on notice thet they were wrong, but the readership probably believed the inaccurate information. I suspect they even believed they were better, I doubt they thought they could get away with overt deception, while I have no explanation for how they could be so wrong, other than knowing the mentality of sales pukes who believe their own BS.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

I remember reading the tale of two mixers, maybe the first edition, and the obvious thing was that the author didn't have a clue. Some of the comparisons were obviously intentionally misleading, where other comparisons were simply misleading because the author didn't know how to do it correctly on the X32. The Presonus boards have some rather obvious strengths and features where it beats the X32, but in my opinion it gets lost in all the meaningless dribble.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

John Roberts said:
What is your point..? Perhaps they are desperate. Direct product vs product comparisons are routinely prepared for the sales reps to use. These are mainly to inform the reps who aren't technical enough to do their own comparisons, and can actually prevent hyperbolic claims made by over enthusiastic sales types. making public comparisons is less frequent as it telegraphs weakness and actually promotes the competitors.

I wouldn't want to compete against X32 without moving faders. I suspect that is not a bullet point in the comparison.

JR

PS: While I was still at peavey a competitor did a magazine ad with a direct comparison between one of their rack mount EQs and one of PV's printing an inaccurate higher noise spec in the ad. Of course they pulled that ad immediately after we put them on notice thet they were wrong, but the readership probably believed the inaccurate information. I suspect they even believed they were better, I doubt they thought they could get away with overt deception, while I have no explanation for how they could be so wrong, other than knowing the mentality of sales pukes who believe their own BS.
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Most of the SL claims to fame are based on the inclusion of entry level software packages. All well and fine but instead of signing agreements with software manufacturers they would have been miles ahead of the game if that same money were spent on moving faders. The SL boards are what many of us said they were when first introduced. Entry level analog boards with a digital interface primarily designed for use as a recording device.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

The tales of two mixers is an old document so it's quite outdated, but the other one seems new.

However this new document still contains a couple of comparison errors. Why bother with such a document if they can't get it right?

Does other vendors produce similar documents and are they equally bad?
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Bob Leonard said:
Most of the SL claims to fame are based on the inclusion of entry level software packages. All well and fine but instead of signing agreements with software manufacturers they would have been miles ahead of the game if that same money were spent on moving faders. The SL boards are what many of us said they were when first introduced. Entry level analog boards with a digital interface primarily designed for use as a recording device.
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I don't know Bob, I would say the SL's claim to fame is it's ease of use, good sound, great iPad app, excellent recording, and reliability. Like you I am a user/fan of the Soundcraft Expression, but my SL still gets a lot of use because it is just so darn easy to use, has never let me down, and satisfies the requirements of most gigs. Let's separate the product from the sleazy marketing! They are certainly not alone in that department.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Robert Lofgren said:
The tales of two mixers is an old document so it's quite outdated, but the other one seems new.

However this new document still contains a couple of comparison errors. Why bother with such a document if they can't get it right?

Does other vendors produce similar documents and are they equally bad?
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I can't speak for what all vendors do, but it is not unusual to give specific product comparison guidance to sales reps to help them do their jobs. At Peavey they even had organized seminars where they would bring dealers and salesmen into the training facility for a week of classes and instruction.

it is never a long term winning strategy to be deceptive, but it is simple self interest to accentuate the positives and downplay the negatives.

The SL looks to me like an easy to learn mixer because it resembles the traditional analog routing and architecture.

The lack of moving faders is a major obstacle in direct comparisons. (but I have made this observation before).

Since I think control surfaces will go away completely eventually, maybe they need to leap frog ahead to that and bypass the hardware interface entirely.

Of course maybe I'm wrong... I am likely early.

JR
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

John Roberts said:
I doubt they thought they could get away with overt deception, while I have no explanation for how they could be so wrong, other than knowing the mentality of sales pukes who believe their own BS.
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Any publication, group or resource with a wide user base is ripe for such abuse with little (or in some cases no) negative consequence for the abuser. It is all too easy (and comparatively cheap) to throw daggers at a competitor through misinformation.


Back to the OP's post.... I do recall the original Presonus article on this issue. I am not a fan of the way that it is presented, and speculate that it exists primarily because the once successful Studiolive line sales figures are now bleeding severely from the pretty significant competition that it once did not have to contend with. There is certainly more sales spin in those documents than I care for.... I am glad to not have a career in sales....
 
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Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

John Roberts said:
Since I think control surfaces will go away completely eventually, maybe they need to leap frog ahead to that and bypass the hardware interface entirely.
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I also believe that the traditional surface will go away. Either by ipad-similar solutions or integrated tactile interface on the actual console depending on workflow.

I also think that the gui will evovle into something more adapted rather than the mostly traditional gui that we have today that more or less emulates real hardware.

I'd like to see game developers building some optimized hui for our beloved consoles. Maybe line6 is on to something with their approach?


The presonus document have severe errors like the x32 only having 4 geq's when it actually have up to 16. That the ai already have thunderbolt/dante and that you have to leave the faders to do aux mixes and then some... They even still tell you that they have an auto setting on their compressor when it's actually only a fixed value.

I have no problems with emphasis on their own product features but showing erroneous info for the ones who doesn't know better is just wrong.

Today I learnt that at least one function that exist on their old studiolives (digital routing post-dsp) isn't working and is currently disabled. This isn't documented anywhere and users find out the hard way.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Jeff Babcock said:
Any publication, group or resource with a wide user base is ripe for such abuse with little (or in some cases no) negative consequence for the abuser. It is all too easy (and comparatively cheap) to throw daggers at a competitor through misinformation.
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I stand by my opinion that it is counter productive to lie and mislead your sales personnel. They will inevitably learn the truth in the field at some dealership completely trashing their sales presentation. Worse than making them ineffective, they will no longer trust your future information.

I know some sales types are overly enthusiastic and innocently overstate the FAB of their products, but lying about the competition can easily come back to bite you. Especially now with the WWW information highway.
Back to the OP's post.... I do recall the original Presonus article on this issue. I am not a fan of the way that it is presented, and speculate that it exists primarily because the once successful Studiolive line sales figures are now bleeding severely from the pretty significant competition that it once did not have to contend with. There is certainly more sales spin in those documents than I care for.... I am glad to not have a career in sales....
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I'm glad to not be competing against X-32 these days, I feel their pain. While somebody will rise to the challenge eventually.

JR
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

I saw the original "Tale of Two Mixers" when it first came out and was dismayed at the tone and amazed at the waste of time and energy to produce a pamphlet that degraded both the accused and the accuser.

I'll give the devil his due regarding the development and marketing of the X32, but if I have any criticism it would be retrospective. There were a lot of shenanigans and reverse-engineering rip-offs on the way to the X32.

I can't forget/forgive those.
 
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Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

John Roberts said:
What is your point..? Perhaps they are desperate. Direct product vs product comparisons are routinely prepared for the sales reps to use. These are mainly to inform the reps who aren't technical enough to do their own comparisons, and can actually prevent hyperbolic claims made by over enthusiastic sales types. making public comparisons is less frequent as it telegraphs weakness and actually promotes the competitors.
Click to expand...

Robert Lofgren said:
The presonus document have severe errors like the x32 only having 4 geq's when it actually have up to 16.

I have no problems with emphasis on their own product features but showing erroneous info for the ones who doesn't know better is just wrong.
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I would agree with JR that it is common practice for manufactures to provide direct comparisons for their sales reps. It wasn't so much the product comparisons that bothered me rather than the misleading information inside, as Robert & others have pointed out here.
What I find annoying about this type of approach is that they are taking a defensive stance by misleading people about the competition's benefits, rather than promoting their potential strengths such as recording software integration and mixing apps.
John Roberts said:
Since I think control surfaces will go away completely eventually, maybe they need to leap frog ahead to that and bypass the hardware interface entirely.
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The idea of control surfaces going away is an interesting one. I know I have started to feel comfortable mixing entire shows on iPad, having the flexibility to move throughout the venue. It is also a system with less opportunities for failure, especially in the case that multiple tablets can be used together at the same time. Interesting trend to watch, for sure.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Bob Coultier said:
The idea of control surfaces going away is an interesting one. I know I have started to feel comfortable mixing entire shows on iPad, having the flexibility to move throughout the venue. It is also a system with less opportunities for failure, especially in the case that multiple tablets can be used together at the same time. Interesting trend to watch, for sure.
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As a (Neo-) Luddite street musician, the idea of the entire sound system going away always interests me...at least where practical. For your coffee houses and "folk clubs", small bars, art fairs and any concerts with audiences of 250 or fewer, I'd prefer to go "old-school" and just provide a joyful noise without the hassle of setting up and running sound.

Too bad there's not a $5 coin. I'd go back to playing on the street...(damned inflation).
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Dear Guys,

Upon inspection of the two Presonus documents, the following items are inaccurate in the comparison to the X32.


  • It is strange that Presonus would “update” the product facts for their new AI series StudioLive consoles but not the facts related to the X32. There are many inaccuracies and out-of-date information.
  • Presonus claims throughout the book that software for multitrack recording is an "extra cost" for X32. This is obviously not true since we began shipping with Tracktion 4 in May 2013.
  • Presonus uses the old names for our remote apps (XControl & XiControl). They also claim that XiControl, (meaning X32-Mix) has limited features, and our XControl app, (meaning X32-Edit) is Windows only, both false statements. See page 1-2 and 11-14. All comparisons to our iPad app are based on much older versions.
  • Presonus claims we have no iPhone mix app, and purchasing P16 is the only option, false as we have the X32-Q iPhone app. See page 9-10
  • Presonus claims we have no way of monitoring all inputs at once for clipping, because of layers. This can be done on X32 with the Meters page, as well as the mini meters on the iPhone app. See Page 47-48.
Under Cons for the X32 in the "Product Notification Document", there are the following errors/misconceptions:

  • Presonus Claim: Must leave main faders to access aux mixes: This is not true, as sends on faders is only one way to change aux mixes. You can do this using dedicated bus send encoders on full X32 or using the screen encoders when viewing a channel sends screen.
  • Presonus Claim: Digital Returns only in banks of 8. This is incorrect as the X32 can map the Aux in channels, allowing you to bring in 2, 4, or 6 digital ins.
  • Presonus Claim: Only 4 GEQ bands for output inserts. Not true as by default, we use 4 slots for GEQ, providing 8 channels of GEQ (enough for Main LR and 6 mixes). If one needs more, they can use the other 4 slots to get up to 16 GEQs when using all 8 slots.
  • Presonus Claim: Wireless and networked control requires router - This is not true for X32-Edit, which can run with a direct Ethernet connection to computer.
  • Presonus Claim: No software integration for virtual sound check or track sync - We do of course offer free software for these applications.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

It's kind of funny that the cons listed for the other mixers are in some cases features completely absent from the Presonus. The touch screens aren't good enough, but the Presonus doesn't even have a touch screen. The SI doesn't have scribble strips available, but neither does the Presonus.

Yes, it's a marketing piece to make their equipment look like a better choice. Maybe in some instances it could be, but in my opinion, those are few and far between.
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

I'm shocked.... :-) They are not in a very good market position so probably a little desperate, the screed also sounds uninformed. I have privately slammed competition before, but I didn't have to invent things to complain about, I found real problems in the products I pinged.

Consumers have access to so much information these days that even unintentional deception is sure to blow back on you.

JR
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Until SL gets recall-able gains and motorized faders (and a slew more mix buses), I think they should refrain from throwing rocks in their glass house ;)
 
Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

My 2 cents on Presonus's position in the market is this. From January of 2009 until what, maybe middle of 2012, they had no real competition. The only other mainstream product at near the same price point was the latest iteration of the Yamaha O1V. I was surprised that for over 3 years virtually nothing came along to compete. It allowed a company, one with no experience with live mixers, to come in dominate the small format mixer segment. My guess is part of this was perfect timing. They'd done all their R&D and tooling just before the recession. By the time the mixer hit the streets companies were strapping in and not really innovating much beyond adding powered speakers to their fleets.

Fast forward 5 years since release and there is fierce competition from the likes of A&H, Soundcraft, Behringer, Line 6, and Mackie with offerings $1000 - $3500. Most of this has really popped up within the last year. Presonus has chosen the Yamaha 01V route and kept the format of the mixer basically unchanged, but added additional bells and whistles. This is pretty much what they've done from the start. When I first bought my SL 16.4.2 in Jan of 09 there was no ipad mixing, no smaart, etc. I still think the format of the SL is very good as far as providing the benefits of digital features with most of the tactile comfort of analog. It's learnable in just a few minutes and a wise choice as a bridge to digital, particularly for install situations where multiple users have to master the board. It was extremely innovative when it came to market and that sizzle lasted for a lot longer than I thought it would. It's simply not the sexiest thing anymore and, in its current form, they can't get that edge back as the features are capped by the physical controls of the mixer itself. Many of the new players can pile on functionality via built in touch screens and tablets.

In March of this year I bought an DL1608, originally as a backup, but haven't used my SL since. The only thing I truly miss from the Presonus is the multi-tracking, which I absolutely loved. It basically paid for the mixer in that the demos were cut from live shows saving time and money versus going to a studio or buying stuff you'd not need otherwise to record a demo. It also really taught me how to mix as I could sit down in my own home and relive the show as the tech instead of the lead singer. I could experiment with compression and especially EQ and really came to understand what I'm doing when crafting a mix.
 
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Re: Presonus Shady Marketing Activities

Sean Zurbrick said:
My 2 cents on Presonus's position in the market is this. From January of 2009 until what, maybe middle of 2012, they had no real competition. The only other mainstream product at near the same price point was the latest iteration of the Yamaha O1V. I was surprised that for over 3 years virtually nothing came along to compete. It allowed a company, one with no experience with live mixers, to come in dominate the small format mixer segment. My guess is part of this was perfect timing. They'd done all their R&D and tooling just before the recession. By the time the mixer hit the streets companies were strapping in and not really innovating much beyond adding powered speakers to their fleets.

Fast forward 5 years since release and there is fierce competition from the likes of A&H, Soundcraft, Behringer, Line 6, and Mackie with offerings $1000 - $3500. Most of this has really popped up within the last year. Presonus has chosen the Yamaha 01V route and kept the format of the mixer basically unchanged, but added additional bells and whistles. This is pretty much what they've done from the start. When I first bought my SL 16.4.2 in Jan of 09 there was no ipad mixing, no smaart, etc. I still think the format of the SL is very good as far as providing the benefits of digital features with most of the tactile comfort of analog. It's learnable in just a few minutes and a wise choice as a bridge to digital, particularly for install situations where multiple users have to master the board. It was extremely innovative when it came to market and that sizzle lasted for a lot longer than I thought it would. It's simply not the sexiest thing anymore and, in its current form, they can't get that edge back as the features are capped by the physical controls of the mixer itself. Many of the new players can pile on functionality via built in touch screens and tablets.

In March of this year I bought an SL1608, originally as a backup, but haven't used my SL since. The only thing I truly miss from the Presonus is the multi-tracking, which I absolutely loved. It basically paid for the mixer in that the demos were cut from live shows saving time and money versus going to a studio or buying stuff you'd not need otherwise to record a demo. It also really taught me how to mix as I could sit down in my own home and relive the show as the tech instead of the lead singer. I could experiment with compression and especially EQ and really came to understand what I'm doing when crafting a mix.
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Sean, I believe you meant the DL1608 ;) Perhaps a Freudian slip?

I agree with your assessment..... although it is difficult for me to understand what Mackie was thinking when they didn't make the head amps recall-able.

I think that Presonus 16.4.2 is going to face competition from below in the <$1000.00 mixers like the DL1608, and iX16 (iPad mixers). From above, they are up against digilog mixers like the Expression Si, X32 Producer, and Qu-16. Both the 24 and 32 AI are going to be pressed by the X32 and Expression Si.

There are precious few use cases where one would decide to purchase a StudioLive (I think the 16.0.2 still has a niche though).

Perhaps all they have left is misleading marketing material?
 
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