Allen Dove Software - need your help

[Guest]

Hello,</p>

I have to voice an Allen Protege organ. As far as I understood the *Allen Dove Software* is necessary to do so. Does somebody own this software ?
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Many thanks for your attention !</p>


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[nullogik]

Re: Allen Dove Software - need your help



AFAIK, when you order it from Allen as an owner rather than tech, they produce a version specific to your model of organ. I would assume (as I'm not a tech) that there is a "master" version which the dealers have which will enable to voice all the models in the range - otherwise the tech would have to lug around like dozens of CDs.
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You also have to sign a waiver to basically accept that if you mess the whole thing up it is not Allen's responsibility and that you will be charged for a technician to come out and rectify the situation. The software isn't cheap I hear that it costs $250-$300, though it be more as those prices are a few years old.</p>

Someone else will probably be able to confirm on here, but I think the Sound Matrix library CD is only available to dealers. It would make sense as Allen wouldn't want their samples falling into the wrong hands!
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[Clarion]

Re: Allen Dove Software - need your help



[quote user="nullogik"] The software isn't cheap I hear that it costs $250-$300, though it be more as those prices are a few years old.[/quote]</P>


Wow! After already havingpaid up to 2X the price for one of these off-the-shelf mass-produced cookie-cutter offerrings, compared to an (arguably)superior custom built organ; I find it amazing that after advertising the flexibility of their products, thet have the gall to nickel-and-dime youforthe additional cost of making the organ actually live up the the mfg's claims!!</P>


A parallelscenario would be to order and new car, and when the dealer calls you to tell you that your newcar has now been delivered; only to arrive at the dealer, to discover that your new car has no wheels. And then the dealer casuallysays "whoops"?? You didn't have the foresight to order wheels???!!!''</P>


Although it may be unfair to compare an Allen offering a twice the price and half the service; to Phoenix at half the price and twice the service; I can't get over the differencebetween the two manufacturers. While Allen attempts to squeeze out a few extra bucks at every opportunity from their clients; myexperience with Phoenix has bee the exact opposite. Keeping in mind that myPhoenix only cost about half of an off-the-shelf Allen; voicing and installation was personal, and done by their best.</P>


As for all the detailed note-by-note voicing offered by Phoenix, the software is merely part of the package. In fact, while Phoenix was at my home setting up my new installation, they not only gratuitously installed the Phoenix software on my laptop computer,butalsospent timeshowing me how to use the software!! In all fairness, Phoenix also has a "if you screw up your organ with this software . . ." clause. But for sure, that's only to protect themselves from the most dedicated of imbeciles!!It's so very easy to backtrack and set a Phoenix to any one of it'sprevious configurations!</P>

[circa1949]

Re: Allen Dove Software - need your help



Ok Clairon, we get the picture, you like Phoenix.</p>

First of all, "mass-produced cookie-cutter offerrings" is not quite correct. Nothing in the organ world is mass-produced in the way the term is generally meant. No factory is cranking out organs on an assembly line that processes 1000s a day. Every one has some aspect that is made by hand. Arguable, the very latest chapel series might be called mass-produced, because they are cutting cost (and being open about it) by using imported keyboards that ARE mass produced. Those keyboards are a true commodity item that would elsewhere end up in synthesizers. What can be mass produced, is. Of course Allen has wave soldering machines...so does Phoenix or they get someone to do the work for them. Nobody sits there with a mini-soldering iron attaching every SMT chip! In this respect, the 2 brands are not that dissimilar, it just so happens that every Phoenix gets a custom stoplist or finish or whatnot. As for the value of each line, I can't speak to that. It's possible Phoenix is a better value, I just don't know. Allen has been around longer and has a reputation of supporting every organ they ever made. Few companies in any field can make that claim. I hope for the people buying Allens now that they are around in 15 years if something goes wrong, and I hope the same for people buying Phoenix now. This comes back to the thing Arie and I were discussing about the older Allen digitals versus the newer ones: the newer technology is going to be harder to get external support for if the company fails. (although, I would actually think with the Allen digitals that the MOS parts are probably far more obscure than the ADC parts. Digital tech. in the 70s was just too exotic to be very widespread. With my ADC Allen, I have brought one of the sound boards to my computer and looked up every single chip on it. I was able to find all of them listed somewhere, they could either be ordered from stock or backordered with lead-times up to 10 weeks, or there were updated versions of the parts available.) With the latest organs, the issues aren't strictly speaking going to be parts availability - although it's possible Allen, Rodgers and/or Phoenix use custom chips manufacturered by someone...but...1) an SMT board is that much harder to fix than a through-hole one, and 2) they depend more on software for their function, if you lost FLASH memory to a power surge, for example, you might never be able to get the circuitry running again if the manufacturer couldn't fix it.
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HOWEVER, I will actually agree with you that Allen seems to be nickel-and-diming, if they really do charge that much for DOVE. I can understand a cost for the media - let's say 20 bucks - and the waiver about performance. But really, they are just selling you something to adjust something you've already bought from them, presumably at a profit. It doesn't cost any more to give you something the dealers already have, assuming they don't have to provide telephone support. And I'm assuming that they don't.</p>

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