I’m directing this primarily to the S2400 dev team. I haven’t had my machine for even a year yet, and it’s been great machine to use. However I’ve noticed that our user base is mostly preoccupied with firmware updates. I’m simply wondering if the dev team would consider decoupling bug fixes a bit more from feature requests such that smaller and more targeted bug fixes could be rolled out on a more frequent basis.
This is just my opinion, but despite the S2400 having been out for a few years now I think it should still be considered a “young” product given the pending firmware updates and upcoming hardware add-ons (I.e. filter cards). With that being said it would seem that firmware stability should be the primary focus. I think more frequent, bug fix oriented firmware releases would give the user base an opportunity to give more meaningful feedback to the developers on a more frequent basis so that we can get the firmware to stable point. Then the devs could put more effort into improving the machine’s feature set down the road, much sooner.
If you look into the update notes with each firmware release, most of it is in regard to fixes. If I recall, one of the more recent updates was almost entirely bug and stability fixes.
It’s a small team. They have to split the difference between what different people want (bug fixes, new features, new products, not to mention the day to day of running a business, plus “keep the lights on” stuff like repair and sales).
Ultimately, the only way to “speed things up” in any meaningful way is to hire more people - and it’s not one-to-one, once you get enough people you need managers.
And HR. Accountants… It snowballs. That means more overhead. That means the price goes up.
The way I see it, the S2400 is beautiful and we should treat it as an instrument and not some Behringer “and another one…” We just have to ditch the McDonald’s/Burger King brain - “exactly what I want NOW NOW NOW.”
Are there particular bugs that YOU are running into in your normal usage? Not saying this is you, but a lot of people are echo chambers that talk about bugs that they read about on some forum (but that they’ve never personally encountered).
As a software developer who has worked in small teams myself I totally appreciate the points you made above. I also think that what the Isla team achieved with the S2400 is nothing short of amazing. If anything I was simply posing a question that might be relevant to reducing these “echo chambers “ that appear in this forum.
If there’s one thing I learned by watching the recent stream on ProSynth, it’s that Isla is definitely NOT an echo chamber, and each member of the team brings a different attitude and style to the team, especially in regards to the subject matter you brought up in your OP.
Systems dev here and I have been saying that hotfix releases need to happen more frequently than once a year. New features are awesome but they frequently break existing features possibly due to the fact that something hadn’t been tested for regressions before release.
Maybe organizing a focus group of users for testing the dev build prior to releases could be something great. The users could be those who have a track record of writing clear and concise bug reports, selected and favored by @Mickey and @av500 since they will be interacting with the group the most. Or maybe open applications and let people upload their resumes, haha
I think it will be more difficult to help and have things fixed quickly because most of the future bugs will probably be caused by the part of the firmware for the DSP card or the filter board. And I suppose that not everyone will buy them so it may take longer to reach to a stable state．
I understand and appreciate that Isla is a small team, but I do get concerned that we’re seeing videos about a new product and pre-orders when there are bug fixes from the last firmware update that still need to be addressed. It would be nice to see a firmware release that at least addresses any issues marked as [FIXED] in the bug reports.
when we have a new firmware that we are ready to release, I will always shout it from the rooftops.
There are fixes in our development branches. when they are ready for primetime, you’ll know.
thanks
Yes, you’re good at announcing them and that is appreciated. I get that you don’t want to publicly commit to anything, but that also concerns me. All I personally want to see is bug fixes. I myself am a software engineer and understand that it’s not a straightforward process, however I also recognize that when resources are allocated to new products and there is publicity around that, folks who are current users can feel sidelined, which leads to negative sentiment, which does not pay forward to return customers, etc.
That said, can you narrow it down to, say, a quarter when we could next see bug fixes?
Worth noting the major feature upgrades that were happening a year or so are slowing down because the machine is pretty complete and stable, so I wouldn’t expect more updates other than what we got last week every now and then. The S2400 is in a good place stability wise - at least from my own usage. When the add on cards come out I imagine the firmwares will have upgrades but it sounds like the add ons are the end game for the development of this machine. Which is good!
