So imo their build quality & parts selection is awful, and from what greggybud says so is their firmware programmer. I say this because the 3rd unit not only lacked the traces internally (we checked) but also has had hardly any issues now in 3 years aside from 1-2 sliders sending spurious data occasionally (caig fixes it). I assumed it was a bad circuit design at first but now I suspect their component choices are just really bad on tolerances and build quality varies a ton based on whatever workers are forced to sleep at the plant that week. Well he went through 3 of them (thankful for guitar center's warranty) and yes the the keys popped off (you'd think it was an older Roland ) and something came loose inside so when I opened it up to have a look we noticed several soldered traces on the board to fix issues after the pcb's were produced. His main reason in buying it was the fact that he tends to destroy things anyway, so they might as well be cheap. I had a buddy tour with one and went through several of them. Not sure about the VX but the UF series has issues due to build quality and not properly debugged circuit boards. Thats pretty bad when it gets to that point. PS their VX forum was so loaded with complaints and issues I guess CME shut it down. Oberheim MC3000 and Studio Logic VMK 188. I have used 2 other much better controllers. All I know is that I have never dealt with a worst product than the CME VX8.
I can't even remember most of the specific issues. But using it as a simply had WAY too many issues and lots of functions that didn't work, or only partially worked. The metaic casing is beautiful and the motorized faders are very cool. The unit which is 75lbs is built like a tank. As a matter of fact, my Sweetwater representative (I wish I had anyone else but him because its him and their higher prices that make me rarely even consider them anymore) said some people don't use all the features and are content just using the keyboard! I think it is ironic they are not a Studio Logic distributor.Īnd I loved the keyboard action. Sweetwater should be ashamed of selling the VX series because they know the issues people have with them.
When I explained the specific issues, and continued to email her attempting to get some personal accountability, her reply was "this will be addressed in the next firmware update."
I had email correspondence with a CME person in China, and all she did was quote the owners manual. Most of it came down to "that will be fixed in the next firmware update." I went through 1 or 2 firmware updates and most of the problems continued. Their "support" was just a USA CME rep and when we went through all the issues the CME had there was really nothing new that could be done. I owned a VX8 for a year before returning it to Sweetwater. To give benefit of the doubt, I think a distinction needs to be made between the VX series and the UF.