how much is it?

yes Daniel, so you said in your email! Perhaps i can get 2 bcfs working with it instead! maybe

You will need to discuss this with your retailer... Not much we can do from here, sorry. All that counts is the serial number.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

yes "relationship" being the appropriate word!!:censored

Just for clarification, my UFX was not bought from retailer's stock - I placed an order and it was delivered to the retailer from distributor's stock a day or two later. 

But I agree that if it is in retailer's stock you have the opportunity (but only since last week!) to check the serial number and reject the unit - or accept it if a satisfactory reduced price can be negotiated.   But if the price of the modification is not known, isn't it a bit hard to know what sort of price reduction for haggle for?   

If you are buying mail order/internet (same in the past six months), it is a "pig in a poke" (traditional English expression) - you don't/didn't have the opportunity to check the serial number before delivery.  Based on RME's stated position to date, it is like a lottery ... it is up to chance (and has been over the past six months) whether you get a current unit as one would expect, or an older unit that you then have to spend more money if you want an ARC. 

I would regard this as RME (or as has been pointed out, its distributors) badly managing this change.  From the response above, it appears RME has not even finalised the specification for the change, and when it does, it will be up to individual distributors to decide what to charge for it.   This whole situation does not seem very well controlled.

Again, I would not presume to tell RME what it should do.   But I would feel a lot better about the situation if RME took the opportunity at this late stage to review the approach (possibly as suggested in my previous post), and arrange with its distributors to implement it in a uniform manner, as a respected customer-focussed international company might be expected to do.

I agree fully with this.  Those of us (like myself) who bought a UFX many months ago and prior to the ARC announcement can't complain.  But RME's handling of the situation since the ARC was announced has not been good.  RME should have informed customers sooner which serial numbers were compatible with the ARC, and better yet updated the packaging (even a sticker would work) to reflect the new hardware so there was no question what version a customer was buying.  In addition, I find it hard to believe RME still does not have a cost estimate for the upgrade.

I applaud RME's effort to improve the UFX by adding capabilities such as the ARC, but this transition could have been handled much better.

+1

How can we solve the problem localy with our distributor if RME didn't provide them with any information???

Well, honestly the UFX has been sold out all the time and we could not produce enough to satisfy the requests. We therefore had no reason to think that today you can still buy a new, originally packed and sealed unit that was produced more than half a year ago. That said we ourselves are more than astonished that one or the other distributor seems to sell only the units standing in front of the shelf, never grabbing into the back...seems to be the only explanation...

Then the unit would have had the new remote PCB from the start. Simple as that.

I can assure you that a Remote with LED-equipped buttons, which needs a powered connection from the interface, was not planned before or soon after the release of the UFX. The Basic Remote or to this date the existing ADI-8 QS remote was planned from the start and works without any modification.

The planning and conception of the ARC and especially the partnership with TotalMix was based on customer feedback and new developments over a long time. It needs massive new developments in TotalMix, with long discussions of customer feedback and later including much more remote controllable features. I remember that we one year ago still discussed the number of buttons (4 or more?) and the new design of the BRC and the main concept for the ARC.

We even presented the Basic Remote Control in late march in Frankfurt. A finished plan or a final decision for a release of the very ambitious ARC was not done. Later developments improved the concept and a final decision for the production and a small change of the UFX was made. Luckily a modification of the early UFX models is possible.

I think this not only insults the team, which tries to constantly improve an already great product, like RME did with nearly every product before, to keep it up-to-date over a long life time. It shows also no respect for the UFX, which won the best Recording hardware award of the international press without the Advanced Remote and even without the Direct USB Recording feature, which also was still in testing to this moment.
As I explained above, there is no base for your imputes. We don't kept the ARC concept for new products, but tried to include it in the already existing UFX. This needs a lot of dedication and work from the developers and I see no reason not to respond in plain language to your twisted theory about our intentions.

I agree, his attitude don't mirrors the concept of product makers have to sit up and beg before the customer. But this is not a sales forum, it is a discussion board, where customers get a direct connection to the developers. It's based on partnership, where ideas and feedback were shared. This is not the rule in the world of modern customer treatment, with a sophisticated marketing fog and the illusion that customers are master of the dog. It's maybe a surprise in our streamlined advertising world, but there are still people in companies, which not only live for the work but like to discuss it directly with the users without a mask.

Btw. MC is the director of the board and co-founder of RME - and I don't know a lot other companies, where the director and master of the show is kindly enough to service the companies products by himself and presents his "attitude" directly to customers. Maybe I'am wrong, but sometimes such an attitude is more important than one hundred subservient words form the marketing department, because it gives you the guarantee the company is not lying to you.

best regards
Knut

While I do not resile from my criticism of RME's management of the UFX change, I am disappointed that the discussion is transformed into a criticism of people.  The old saying of "Play the ball, not the man" is worth remembering.

It is useful to hear directly from RME about the development process.  I understand that the final form of the ARC was still being discussed around Christmas time, but obviously the UFX manufacturing change was put in place last June.

I have some sympathy with the position of a company that introduces an improvement in a product and then has to decide whether to announce it immediately (with effective serial number) and then experience a sales hold-off while those who want the benefit of the improvement keep their hands in their pockets until the improved model makes its way through the distribution chain.  And what about all the units of the previous model sitting in stock?  The alternative of not providing such information means the cost and risk is passed on to a small group of customers, rather than being borne by the company as a whole.

Many other companies have faced this situation, and I think some of them have handled it much better than RME in this particular case.   But it doesn't diminish significantly my respect for RME as a company overall and what it produces.  And as this forum gives an opportunity for direct feedback to the company, it also gives it an opportunity to consider how it might improve its performance in this particular instance.

Hello,

I am going to purchase Fireface UFX within the next few weeks. I think the whole situation is a bit confusing. Am I supposed to ask an online shop to check UFX serial number for me before the purchase? Is it printed on the box or only on the unit itself? Or should I order the UFX and return and order again and return until I got the "new" model?

I actually do not have the need for Advanced Remote. But I would like to purchase Basic Remote. Now, will this BRC work with "new" UFX units compatible with ARC? How to buy one? On RME website, it says that BRC is not available as separate product, but only as service part. Which means exactly what? That it will not be available at retailers / shops? Should I order one via my local distributor (I guess it is Synthax UK) or how?

That's why I said "confusing"...

I do not want to end up with brand new UFX which is incompatible with ARC and without the possibility to purchase BRC. I've checked the online shops and there is not a single shop offering BRC (Thomann had it in its inventory but removed it yesterday).

Kind Regards,

Mac

As written above, the final decision about the ARC for the UFX needed some time and we got no final shipping date until shortly. Its not only the Remote Control, but also the countless changes in TotalMix. It was just work-in-progress until now.

With the high demand of the UFX the way through the distribution chain should be finished eight months before the ARC shipment! The UFX was sold as it was produced. Only one customer complained that he bought an unmodificated model in the last time. We even announced the ARC in september last year (with many forum posts about the features) and stopped (!) the announced BRC to avoid people buying it and we come up with a better model later. This was a half year before the ARC ships! A half year!
This was the earliest time we got some info about the estimated shipping date.

best regards
Knut

Ok, thanks for clearing that up - so basically what you're saying is the hardware modification required by the early (& somewhat unlucky) adopters will be provided at cost with proof of purchase of the ARC?

I think that's pretty fair :-)

I don´t agree with you at all. Trust goes both ways. Yes it all inconvenient but the only way to avoid this would be not offering the UFX remote option at all, to make it look better.
Doing the upgrade for free would for certain dig a very deep hole in the margin of this machine. Would you like them to raise the price on the ARC so it can cover a "free" upgrade? And a bankrupt RME is no solution either.
Last week there was someone who was upset that his UC would not get FX while the cheaper babyface had it. He was upset in the same manner as you.

The UFX being a pro machine, I am sure RME customers can decide if the upgrade costs, plus the downtime, if it is their main machine, are worth it to get a remote. The downtime would be much more of a problem then the added costs to me.
Just my HHO

No, sorry, that is not what I said... The local price of the modification will be the same regardless of the date of purchase, unless of course local distributors offer rebates for currently unsold unmodified stock (pure speculation on my part, nothing official here).

What I said was that for those who have been using their unmodified UFX for some time now, and are willing to pay the price of the ARC unit itself, the modest extra expense for a modification that will add functionality to existing hardware is not likely to be a dealbreaker. I was thinking of comparing this to e.g new CPUs in old mainboards, but forum member neirbod summed it up nicely in this Gearslutz post.

I am sure you will find many examples where new functionality simply can not be added to previous hardware versions of a product. As an example from our own history, only ADI-2 units upwards of a certain hardware revision allow volume control of the rear line outputs with the front volume knob.

Some old cars can be retrofitted with catalytic converters, some can't. My old Toyota couldn't, so eventually I sold it... The UFX is different... :-)

Vinark made a good point about the cost of downtime (in the absence of a backup solution) vs. the actual cost of the mod.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

I absolutely agree with you, but when will it be possible to provide your distributors with the upgrade information?
As a new user of an old revision card I can demand the exchange only, and, in my case, the new delivery in several months.
If they told me the price and the possibility of the upgrade locally, I would probably stay with an old revision now with an upgrade in future. Or even better, they could promise me the free upgrade and take care of all expanses themselves.
But now they cannot promise me anything because of lack of info.

That's factually a really poor comparison - a revision in the motoring industry of that level is called a "facelift", this happens in the premium brands (BMW, Mercedes, Audi, MINI etc) at around the 5 year mark of an existing model & generally the greater public are aware the facelift is coming a year or more before it happens. As for the cost of swapping processors on a Windoze machine (which I'm told isn't an inexpensive exercise) - I've never seen an RME interface attached to a PC nor have I seen a PC being used on a stage or in a studio in the last 10 years (other than PA system control) so I'm pretty sure that "comparison" is fairly irrelevant for a large percentage of users.

The UFX is what a year into it's life-cycle?
You guys could have simply come up with a plan of "here's the ARC, it costs £x.00 (or TBA) & a PCB upgrade for the early, incompatible models will be provided at cost + shipping charges once the ARC purchase is made".

Instead you're arguing with your customers (who are the reason you exist as a company let's not forget) about the reasons why they should just be happy to pay more money & make their UFX "better" & more "valuable"...

Oh & re "downtime" - again who are you talking to?
Anyone that relies on this equipment to make a (decent) living is not going to be working in a "single unit" environment unless they fancy career suicide ----- "ohhhh sorry everyone, my 1 x audio interface just broke......session over, please come back in 10 days when it's fixed" ---- yeah.....ok..

Ok, so you've now gone from comparing the ARC as akin to a car manufacturer changing major components (which is what you did - although I doubt you understand your own statement) to now deciding it's nothing like that but is in fact a little PCB modification done in a couple of minutes??

Great!! - it's small & it takes "minutes" - so provide customers of older UFX's with this "little" remote board, changed in "minutes" (so surely able to be fitted by an end-user) free of charge if an ARC is purchased!! - that would be a great idea & good customer service from RME, who decided to make a fairly substantial change to the UFX literally months into production..

Everyone wins.. :-)

No - if you compare the principle, not the timespans involved. Things move faster in computer related fields.

Obviously, and with all due respect, this is complete balderdash... No need to even go into detail, ye aulde urban myth saying only Macs can and must be used for professional audio purposes is so nineties... :roll In fact it's beginning to smell rather odd by now.
Apple's upgrade policy is no different these days. Your iPad is a year old, and they give you the iPad 2. Any chance of upgrading the old one to a new CPU?
Remember, Apple invented the iPod with the non-exchangeable battery... :-O

But this is more or less what is happening. The modification is not meant as a means to generate turnover, as I've said here before. You seem to assume the price of the mod will run into hundreds of Euros or whatever... This is not the case.

Well, no one has to do so. The UFX is an amazing product even without the ARC. Not everybody will want or need one. Many users may be happy without, or with existing third-party MIDI controllers. And yes, of course the ARC is an additional feature, and it does make the UFX better. Additional features sometimes cost money, and so does the actual ARC hardware. It's entirely a matter of choice, though.

You know, you'd be surprised how many "professional" studio owners do work exactly like that. "No I can't send in my Waterface 650, otherwise I'd have to close my studio... What, a backup solution? No, why?". And probably, the audio device won't be the only SPOF in some of these studios.
As if to prove my point, here's a quote from a mail I received literally minutes ago: "I can't be out of an interface for the time it takes to ship and return."

Again, I'm afraid you are looking at the wrong aspects of the analogy.

Not possible for warranty reasons. And to conclude from the fact that the exchange does not take an hour that it can be easily carried out by the end user is premature.

There is no change to the UFX as such, if you will. No UFX will stop working without the modification.

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Just to state the obvious - a well-built PC does not require any more "tinkering" or "maintaining" than a Mac... And as just one example from our list of users, Kraftwerk do their stage shows on PC laptops. Are they up to your exclusive definition of "professional"...?

Regards
Daniel Fuchs
RME

Before that happens, I just want to mention that in the US our current warehouse and dealer stock of UFX is all up to date (unless the dealer sits on old stock). We also have an increase in price for these units now compared to the initial price for UFX. As Daniel mentioned, the new internal hardware does not come for free.

We don't have final pricing yet, but have had discussions about offering a special bundle price to users who need the modification, where the total cost will be less than getting the modification and then buying the ARC through retail channels. Of course, we don't plan to charge more for the mod than it costs us for parts and labor.

I hope this helps.

Regards,
Jeff Petersen
Synthax Inc

I've just received the modification details from Synthax Inc., the US RME distributor, to post them here. As Jeff already wrote above there will be something like a bundle price for the ARC + modification:

Customers with an unmodificated UFX buy the ARC and the modification directly from the distributor. They pay for the modification (parts and labor) and the costs for sending the package back. The transmittal costs of the unmodificated UFX to Synthax USA are free.

Costs: suggested retail price for the ARC (249,-) + modification/return = 299 USD

Synthax US will try to get the modification and the return done in 48 hours.

This could be also the blueprint for all other RME distributors, but they have to respect their local conditions (esp. shipping costs and time), so these numbers can be different. I think this is a very agreeable offer for all customers with an unmodificated UFX.

best regards
Knut

Thanks for info!