Today I tried to buy a copy (i.e. "activate the demo") of Native Instruments Traktor 3.3. The bloody NI website makes it impossible to buy anything either with credit card or Paypal - an object lesson on how not to design a website store. Getting in the way of the credit card payment! Obtuse error messages. Apparently non-existent Paypal integration (landing me at my standard Paypal home page rather than the page that allows me to authorise payment).

An all-round abysmal experience of abject web usability. E.g. obviously pointing to the wrong paypal page, a credit card details screen that was extremely hard to conquer -- in a non-sizeable pop-up window but too small for the available window size, from a third party (i.e. too cheap to get their own payment gateway or even front someone else's), all in Deutsche, and seemingly would not take either my American Express or Visa card, and while it had an error message for that in English, it wasn't helpful ("payment option not enabled for this user"???). Also they forced me to create an account on their website in order to buy, continually rejected fields in my address details with no explanation, and so on.

Really it was a pathetic experience and it lost them over USD$200. And future sales because there is no way I'm gonna buy any of their software until they make it easy (or even possible) to pay for it. They probably wonder why they don't have any web sales and end up in a vicious circle of "we don't make money from direct web sales, so don't spend any money on the process" and they probably wonder how Ableton manages to do it!

I deliberately contrast this to Ableton whom I have found nothing but a pleasure to deal with on the two occasions I had to contact their support, including the time I exceeded the unlock limit on my previous version of Live after I bought a Macbook. They cheerfully - and speedily - replied that since I was an "old friend" (i.e. a long term customer from v1 days) they had no problem giving me another block of unlocks on the version and I was operational again within the course of my working day.

Anyway the cracked version of Traktor 3.3 that I downloaded via a torrent was however, perfectly reasonable and functioned out-of-the-box so well done "ArCADE". Frankly I believe that as NI wasted more than a couple of hours of my time as I tried every conceivable option to pay for their software, they owe me a free copy.

This is a film clip of the track "Falling" by Now:Zero. It's recorded off Rage (the only copy I have!). The video was done by my friend Jason Gee. You can download the track here. Thanks to Dennis Remmer from Transcom for rescuing and digitising the video.

Update: Jason Gee made it not Emile.

See Skuzzy Beatz for more info, sales enquiries, etc.

UPDATE: Buy it from digital-tunes.net.

Our First Digital Release On Skuzzy Beatz Will Be Available From Monday 14/01/2008

Victor Xray - Death Groove Ep - SBDIGI001
Death Groove 9000
Death Groove 9000 (Death Grip Remix)
Skates On

Available @ Digital-Tunes, Skuzzybeatz.com And Will Shortly Be At I-Tunes And Napster

"DUB-HEAVY DOOMSTEP BLEND OF PARANOID DUBBY MADNESS"

ACHTUNG ACHTUNG
PAPA NOVEMBER HOTEL KILO DELTA MIKE YANKEE HOTEL FOXTROT VICTOR XRAY
END TRANSMISSION

File generated Thursday 03-JAN-2008 12:38 AEST.
Receive 12208746 bytes. Type audio/mpeg. Encoding 320kbps. Duration 5m05s.
References file Papa November, generated 28-DEC-2007 22:22:52 AEST.

Download Victor Xray Papa November 08 (320kbps mp3).

TO DOWNLOAD: As usual, click the "attachment" link(s) in this entry if you are viewing the HTML web page - or use a podcasting client RSS feed of the blog to get automated downloads of any new music placed on Xray Dubs. If you can't see a download link anywhere go to the original page url - usually linked from the title.

A new track for a new year. This one is called The Lamplighters. It's got a great woozy bassline that's not pitch accurate - it's a pitched down sample - and a off-kilter beat.

Update - New version ... ruffed up the drums a bit, added phase effects on keyboards, and shortened it by a minute.

Download Lamplighter (320 kbps mp3)

TO DOWNLOAD: As usual, click the "attachment" link(s) in this entry if you are viewing the HTML web page - or use a podcasting client RSS feed of the blog to get automated downloads of any new music placed on Xray Dubs. If you can't see a download link anywhere go to the original page url - usually linked from the title.