I purchased a brand new Super 6 last week from a shop in here in the states, wonderful guys. Sadly it arrived with 2 bad faders and 1 area in the white screen-print where the background color was coming through, like a scratch but not a scratch sort of thing. Not good.
The shop that sold it to me is an authorized dealer for UDO, they have been extremely helpful and kind, they even went to great lengths to open 2 more units from there boxes to inspect them. Unfortunately, both also had similar issues! What is going on here?
I very much like this board and the sounds it makes but for $3,000.00 I’m shocked this has been allowed to occur. Clearly whomever is assembling these and whomever is doing the screen printing needs to be looked at very closely. There is a broken link in the chain at the manufacturing level.
I can tell this community is great and I am extremely impressed with the sound palette from this machine so far. I am hopeful I can find a board free from these issues, however its not looking good at the moment.
I asked the sales rep from the shop to contact George directly as I am sure he unaware of this and would want to know what is going on. I have seen this sort of thing spin out of control before, so if I can be of help to correct it now, so be it.
I was with Dreamworks for 11 years and before that Warner Bros as a production manager, so I imagine they will take this seriously.
I also had an issue that may have pointed toward QC but it was thankfully resolved quickly. I ordered my desktop version new from an American retailer, and the master volume knob was not functional.I filmed a video of the issue and sent it to the retailer and UDO support. The American distributor at GSF then reached out to me within a few hours via phone and email, and the UDO support rep diagnosed the issue after seeing the video, letting them know it needed to be replaced. I sent it back to the retailer and they shipped a new one within the week, and everything works beautifully. (Cheers to Mike at UDO, Trent at DM, and Geoff at GSF for resolving everything so quickly!).
Your situation sounds much more frustrating, but if you end up sticking with it through the frustration and getting a working board, I just wanted to say it is very much worth it, hands down the funnest and most unique, beautiful sounding polys I’ve ever played.
The dealer that you worked with might already be doing this, but I’d recommend opening a ticket, sending the issue with pics or video to UDO support and letting them know where you purchased from so that they are aware of any potential broken chain at the manufacturing level.
Very much appreciate the details of your experience, I am hopeful this will get resolved favorably and I can receive a proper board.
Its a small world because I too purchased from DM and dealt with Nels and Trent both have been very helpful. Nels mentioned GSF to me as well, so I assume someone will reach out to me, its already been a week back and forth trying to get it sorted out, but so far DM’s inventory of these upon inspection have had issues with the 2 they have opened and 1 that I received. The QC issues don’t seem to be isolated sadly.
What color and where is the screen printing defect?
I just placed an order for a Super 6. One reason being I heard that it was supposed to be too notch quality. Very nervous now about the screen printing.
For what it’s worth, I could see all the units in a single production run going bad if a tool broke or something. This has not been my experience with my instrument. The thing I always say is that with a Prophet Rev2 sitting right under it and a Moog Matriarch sitting right above, my family walks in and always wants to touch the Super6 - it is a cut above. Mine is the best built instrument I own. I hope the OP is able to get a unit as good as mine.
IIRC, these are built at the same factory in Germany as the Waldorf stuff, with UDO’s parts (I think the sliders are actual military surplus rated for like a 40 year life or something insane like that, for example). I’m going on memory of stuff I think George has said in various interviews, but it’s been a few years. I don’t want to put words into UDO’s mouth, but that’s how I think of my synth.
I started this thread ONLY due to the discovery of similar issues with multiple units that were encountered upon attempting an exchange with the UDO retailer. The other 2 boards that had similar defects, were not inspected by myself, they were inspected prior to shipment by the shop of which I purchased the initial unit.
Honestly I don’t have much faith at this point in the manufacturers QC given my experience so far. However, I liked the sound palette so much and its cross over like qualities of my JP6, I am sticking it out until Geoff finds me one that is free from the above mentioned issues.
If you remove the problems I encountered, it is perhaps the best board to be released in quite some time, and UDO should be congratulated for that. Also fair to mention, Geoff from UDO has been extremely helpful and assured me this will get resolved with a new keyboard that meets my expectations. UDO support has responded in a timely manner as well. Again, my sole effort here is to remedy whatever is causing this and move on.
Thank you for posting your experience. I believe they used to manufactured in Germany, and were inscribed as such. However, mine did not have the same nomenclature. Perhaps this is when things changed a bit.
I did read about and see an interview about the Super 6 being made in Germany. I believe the parts come from German and are assembled at UDOs lab.
My Blue Super 6 comes in next Thursday. If it’s anything less than flawless, it goes back. The market is too saturated and competitive to accept flaws and paint damage on a new unit.
I have no information on where the parts and pieces come from. I assumed it was still manufactured in Germany when I ordered it as well.
The screen-printing defects were honestly a smaller secondary concern, but here was there response as to why it may occur on units:
“In regards to the paint of your synthesizer, within the design of the synth we elected to use a traditional silk screen method which is undertaken manually by our suppliers HMT Ruffel. We chose this method over a digital print as we found it has a favourable unique, natural finish. Due to the human nature of this method, and especially when considered the complexity and scale of the design, any chasis may exhibit unavoidable subtle imperfections.”
I didnt care for that response to much, to me subtle imperfections are not ok if easily noticeable. But everyone has there opinion…
The fader tension inconsistency that was observed on all 3 keyboards in my case is what was more concerning to me. UDO’s reasoning for this was:
“As for the faders on the synthesizer, for longevity we elected to use a custom design travel potentiometer which implements a plastic insert as oppose to a grease based potentiomer which will wear out and degrade in due-time. While all the potentiometers on our synthesizers are strenuously tested within manufacturing for degree of travel torque and perfromance, occasionally in flight and transit the units can be exposed to extreme temperature conditions which in turn impacts the torque of the faders and can occasionaly put them outside of our tolerance, as you have shown in your video.”
I didn’t agree with this assessment either, as I was told by my retailer they received these from UDO roughly 3 months ago, which would put the travel time for the boards occurring within the summer months of this year. Perhaps the plane that carried these nearly crashed and flew through a fierce hurricane which then caused the faders to become un-torqued? This seemed quite silly to me as the keyboards are double boxed and supported with a dense shock foam on the inner box, but whatever.
Disappointing response. I thought quality was supposed to be UDOs thing. I understand shipping oversea adds factors, but I have had many Roland and Korg products that came from Asia and never heard that before. I’d call that damage in shipment and not normal.
They probably arrived by plane, cargo may be unheated. Temperature at 35,000ft is minus 60 celsius or for those that live in the USA minus 76 in some weird non SI unit;-)
You brought up a good point so I contacted FedEx, I wanted to ask about their cargo temperature guidelines for international shipments as an example. The rep said since the items in transit can vary so greatly in type things including bottles containing liquids which can break when the temperature drops below zero, because of this standard cargo holds across major carriers are almost always maintained above freezing; 7°C is typical according to the FedEx international rep I just spoke with. She said this applies to both pure cargo type aircraft and also mixed passenger/cargo airplanes used for travel. She confirmed it can get cold but nothing remotely close to the temperatures you mention.
Hi @Damien. As far as I understand it, your dealer is working closely with you, and Geoff is also helping you. Ben in our lab is working with Geoff, and you directly. I have been keeping in close contact with Ben who sits next to me and we met about this yesterday.
Everyone who can is working to make sure you have the best experience and that is what we do.
We do not offer support here but I have checked and our dedicated channel has been responding to you quickly every time.
We are ceaselessly vigilant on quality, with instruments made under my direct supervision in our own facility for this reason (I sit on the shop floor).
If you feel you are not being replied to quickly enough, or you are not happy with the resolution you can always mail me directly george@udo-audio.com.
Please respect that we work tirelessly for you and all our other customers. We have put a huge amount of time and love in bringing this instrument to you, and will happily find any resolution with you if you’re not completely happy.
I will be following your concern closely and out of kindness please respect our teams efforts on your behalf.
Thank you George I very much appreciate your thoughts and concerns regarding this.
My only intention here is resolving this favorably for all involved. My hope is bringing this to light will diminish the chances of this occurring again, not just for me but for the UDO client base. The issue became bigger then just me all on its own, my intention was never to point a finger but to get the attention needed to address and remedy this. The reasons that were given to me as possible causes via email, I did not agree with, and I cant imagine any customer being ok with those responses as to why this occurred to multiple units. If you read my posts I think its very clear I respect UDO’s efforts and appreciate the help being given, as well as my contact with the retailer has been nothing but respectful from the beginning.
Frankly I needed to hear from other owners and there experiences to try and understand why this happened, hence my posts here. Again, thank you for reaching out and all your help. I am very relieved to hear you have taken a personal interest with these events, as I am sure it will be resolved favorably.
Hey George, I submitted a support request ticket last weekend and have not heard back from your team yet. I just purchased a desktop unit and it is randomly muting notes and sometimes applying filter attenuation to either high pass or low pass for some of the notes in the patch. I just bought the instrument last week.
This seemed quite silly to me as the keyboards are double boxed and supported with a dense shock foam on the inner box, but whatever.