[Thomas W. Bethe]

I purchased Sound Designer II system from Digidesign about a month before they decided to pull the plug on the unit. One day I owned a Digidesign product and the next day is was a legacy product with no support. I called Digi and talked to a tech rep and he put me through to the national sales manager who, I guess, had been fielding a lot of calls from pissed consumers. He told me to buy a Pro Tools system and all my problems would be solved. I asked him if there was some type of trade in program seeing as I had just purchased SDII for a lot of money and it was now an orphan and he said no. I asked if I could get a discount on a Pro Tools system and he said no. He then told me that eventually Pro Tools would "rule the recording and post production world" and I should get on the bandwagon soon. He also told me that there were studios in California that were turning over $3500 per week with their ProTools rigs and I should not complain when the company drops a product that has reached " the end of its life cycle" After that phone call I never had a Digidesign piece of equipment in my studio after I sold off the SDII.

Nothing with Digidesign surprises me. They are too smug and too big and some one soon is going to come out with a product that is going to revolutionize the industry and they are going to be left holding the bag. As far as I am concerned it cannot happen too soon.