PreSonus Forums

"PreSonus Support's focus is now on providing information through our support portal, knowledge base and our Answers-based help pages and through social media." (Alex Tinsley, May 5, 2017 in "Announcements")

It was obvious that the changes had nothing to do with maintenance. PreSonus simply wanted to get rid of the forums, the last link in "Blog/Community" was taken away. From now on nobody will get to know in the PreSonus web site that there is or used to be a forum.

For those who missed it.

viewtopic.php?f=179&t=25407

jpettit wroteFor those who missed it.

viewtopic.php?f=179&t=25407

A quote from part of the info at this link: "Over the past few years, customer use of social media has increased, shifting our participation to FaceBook groups and away from the forum" * Edited to add context: I forgot to insert this quote, originally.

Why does everything have to revolve around Facebook? Facebook is like a social engineering program, designed to get the world to revolve around....Facebook. Facebook is designed to get people addicted to Facebook, and they are one of the companies that are data mining everyone's brain. I enjoy the forums, and one of the reasons why is that they are not run by Facebook.

Thank You.We'll said.That's why we intend to keep the Forums here and not on Facebook. With your and others strong contributions here we will be just fine. Thanks for your valued input.

Skip

Thanks Skip! From a perpetual newbie, that likes to help brand-new newbies!

Agree and yes I know you quoted the article.
Others may have mssied it.
Like the video that says "this is a community driven forum".

"We are not going to do away with our forum because it still serves a purpose for those that don't like Social Media sites and still like to socialize." (Alex Tinsley, Oct. 16, 2015 in "Announcements")

I do understand that "the" forum was not only Studio One and Fader Port, so let me remind you of the division called "Live Sound", dealing with StudioLive mixers and loudspeakers. I was writing for this forum and I can say that the aspect of "socializing" was never important. The people writing/answering questions there were competent and able and ready to help. And yes, we also thought of being helpful for PreSonus as a company by helping users. We always felt responsibility for both sides.

Now the forums are not needed any longer for "socializing", so PreSonus had to chop them off. In PreSonus' sight it is consequent to eliminate all links to the forums, but this means that noone can find the forums (the links are not missing, so why should someone look for them?) and consequently no traffic/no new questions will dry out the forums very soon. Will we still remember the forums after this year's summer holidays...?

No, the forums have no future any more and I don't see any community, which could and would we willing to "drive" something that is officially dead already. Nobody "will be fine" here any longer and I would not count on "strong contributions" in the future, because not only the forums got disconnected, but also the people writing here and trying to support the connection between the (often unhappy) users and the company. To people like me the quote above and many sentences published yesterday is nothing than pure cynism. There is a lot to read "between the lines", especially if you have a year-long history with this company and its many inconsistencies.

I wish all the best to PreSonus. If they can serve their clients better with "support portal, knowledge base, our answers-based help pages and through social media", it's fine with me. As a consequence for me now the time has come to stop writing for "Answers". The two posts yesterday (written before the announcement of the disconnection of the forums) were definitely my last posts. I would be ready to continue writing in "Live Sound", but the forum will dry out and from now on the criticism of veteran's socializing would indeed have some truth. Just think of Mackie's former forum and the now also dying private continuation. A forum needs the dialog between the users and the company, like it used to be.

PreSonus once described their forum like this: "Share tips, techniques, and questions with other PreSonus users and with our staff!" Let's see how things get better from next week on.

I appreciated the response by Skip initially.
Then the next day, the remaining access to the forum from the Presonus main page are gone.

First, the link at the top of the main page disappears. But at least you could scroll down to Presonus Blog and get here. Then THAT path stops working.
And even clicking on "Community" won't get you here.
We're told that Presonus is "...just doing some housekeeping" on the site. Which makes no sense. We're led to believe that Presonus is serious about keeping the forums going, but obviously is selling out to the big social media giants.

Look, Presonus, you just changed direction in a very significant way. You fooled me for a minute, but now I realize that you fully, consciously, purposefully intend to let the forums wither away.

Here's the deal;

Take a look at the StudioLive III forum. All you see is people complaining about this and that not working properly (the majority of which is user error by the way). If you're a manufacturer of said audio equipment, and your newest, hottest device is getting bad press on a forum that you as a company provide; wouldn't it make sense to do damage control by making that forum harder to get to?

As a consumer, I research everything before I buy it. I own an original 16.4.2, a 16.4.2ai, and an RML32ai. I really really really want to purchase a Series III 24. Do you know why I haven't? The forum!!! Everybody in the forum is talking about problems with the new Series III systems. Everybody is talking about the lack of info on the upcoming stage boxes. Everybody is moaning and complaining, about the RM's not being compatible with the series III stuff. Everybody is complaining that the RM never lived up to the things that were promised.

Just think like a business owner for bit. What would you do? You would do damage control. That's not to say that the forums don't serve a purpose. These issues that people post about, do get the ear of Presonus, and I do believe that they use them to try and better their products. However having a forum such as this, readily available and accessible to potential customers, is quite honestly a very stupid move. Nobody is going to buy your product, if they browse your forum and see everybody complaining. It's just smart business guys.

Boo! And just as a practical matter from a user standpoint, there is really no substitute for the ease of searching and "cleanness" and organization of a forum. One of my reasons for going with Studio One a couple of years ago was because of this forum. I challenge anyone to go o a FB "support" page and look up previous conversations or even "search" for something useful. Especially a FB Group with a lot of users... useless and frustrating.

Sing4LTS wroteHere's the deal;
Just think like a business owner for bit. What would you do? You would do damage control. That's not to say that the forums don't serve a purpose. These issues that people post about, do get the ear of Presonus, and I do believe that they use them to try and better their products. However having a forum such as this, readily available and accessible to potential customers, is quite honestly a very stupid move. Nobody is going to buy your product, if they browse your forum and see everybody complaining. It's just smart business guys.

's

Yes, it's smart business to lie to your customers who are paying your salaries. I get it.
You are correct though, it's obvious to me they dont want ANY negative anything about products that are not working properly or their software that has issues.

I won't be buying another thing from Presonus, Im done here

Did anyone notice that Microsoft removed Control Panel from their menu in the Creator Update?

Sing4LTS wroteHere's the deal;

Take a look at the StudioLive III forum. All you see is people complaining about this and that not working properly (the majority of which is user error by the way). If you're a manufacturer of said audio equipment, and your newest, hottest device is getting bad press on a forum that you as a company provide; wouldn't it make sense to do damage control by making that forum harder to get to? ....

Now they will complain even more on....the rest of the internet. If people aren't happy (user error or not), they will make it known. Now they will also complain that a dedicated , community is being undermined, on Facebook, Youtube, Vimeo, Twitter....everywhere, in forums that won't be moderated like they are here.

jpettit wroteDid anyone notice that Microsoft removed Control Panel from their menu in the Creator Update?

No, but that doesn't sound too cool, either. I did notice on Windows 8, when searching for files, you can't make searches as specific as before. You used to be able to easily search by date created, date last modified, and other criteria. Now it's much harder to find stuff on your own computer. NOT COOL.

So the forum is dead. The logical only reason to make no mention of it on the main site. I will miss the banter, the conversations about recording techniques, the threads of topics. I learned a lot. If you read down through the Answers, which replaced it, it is nothing like this. Read through a few hundred if you need to. Nothing like this. Plus its a tad ugly with too much wasted real estate. Where will the "Made is S1" go. I enjoyed some of the music that appeared.
I don't know if they are really trying to silence, but who knows, i can believe it.
What about a bug post, then a senior member saying, Confirmed and/or reported. Where will that go.
RIP to the community, community no more. Sterile is the new community.

@Jeff, on Creators and still have Control Panel but I'm using the Classic Shell program.

I can assure you all the forums are not dead. You all can think that if you like but things are happening right now to hopefully make it better. We will be working hard to keep it relevant.

Hello Johhny,

I feel better that you in particular are letting us know that, because of your deep involvement with Studio One. Things didn't look good, because the most obvious link disappeared (on the home page), and then the next link (under Presonus Blog) went away a day or two later. I definitely have no intention of spreading false/unfounded info...it's just that I have witnessed many good companies (in a huge variety of industries) "fix" things that aren't broke. That's what it looked like to me. But since you chimed in, I have more than mere faith that the forums will be O.K. Now I have evidence.

As the video says.
The forum has always been a community driven forum.

It is as strong and will remains as strong as the community.

sirmonkey wroteHello Johhny,

I feel better that you in particular are letting us know that, because of your deep involvement with Studio One. Things didn't look good, because the most obvious link disappeared (on the home page), and then the next link (under Presonus Blog) went away a day or two later. I definitely have no intention of spreading false/unfounded info...it's just that I have witnessed many good companies (in a huge variety of industries) "fix" things that aren't broke. That's what it looked like to me. But since you chimed in, I have more than mere faith that the forums will be O.K. Now I have evidence.

Well I think I can say publicly that myself and and several other I trust implicitly, are pretty much taking things over to a certain degree and I have a lot of ideas for this place.

I hope everyone will have patience with us while we figure things out.