Well, it appears I've been "Stranded". I have a Strand Palette VL that came with two universes. It's 5 years old. I'm expanding my inventory with more and more LED fixtures and I need to add a few more DMX universes to match. I was hoping to buy four more universes. One of the sales pitches back in the day from Strand was always that it's easy to upgrade, we can just send you a dongle to unlock more channels.
I contacted my local dealer who called Strand for a quote for the upgrade. His price to me would be about $325 for 50 Channels and they ONLY sell channel upgrades in groups of 50. When you throw in the sales tax it'll be nearly $3,600 to add ONE Universe. That's INSANE! I can buy a 4 universe Cognito 2 for that! But I want to add four universes. So I'm looking at $14,000 to upgrade. I can get a MUCH better console for that with a lot more universes on board. The Strand Palette VL is perfectly capable of handling more universes. I can't imagine it taking them more than about 20 minutes to plug a dongle in a computer, set up a new system that has more universes in it, and then throw it in the mail. It would probably take longer to address the envelope and throw it in the mail than it would take to setup the dongle. It's an opportunity for Strand to print free money.
My sales guy talked to two different people at Strand about it and was given two excuses, one was that it's a 10 year old discontinued product line so it costs more to update the software now. Lie. It's just a dongle unlocking more features it doesn't cost $3,500 to unlock a universe. The other excuse was that when they created the Palette product line 10 years ago they were selling to lots of schools and churches that had small budgets and so they a lot of new systems with 100 channels for a 96 dimmer rack. As a result they only sold upgrades 50 channels at a time. Now that everyone can afford LED's and movers, they apparently don't care and are still selling upgrades 50 channels at a time.
I really like the Palette VL and was hoping to bridge the gap between it and need to upgrade to something more concert lighting focused, by adding a few more universes to my existing system. Well that's apparently not going to happen because Strand has no interest in keeping loyal customers or making free money selling upgrades that cost them nothing. Stupid Stupid Stupid Strand.
Will the next console be ETC, Avo, Hog, MA, Chamsys? I'm not sure, but I definitely know it won't be Strand. Don't get Strand-ed!
I contacted my local dealer who called Strand for a quote for the upgrade. His price to me would be about $325 for 50 Channels and they ONLY sell channel upgrades in groups of 50. When you throw in the sales tax it'll be nearly $3,600 to add ONE Universe. That's INSANE! I can buy a 4 universe Cognito 2 for that! But I want to add four universes. So I'm looking at $14,000 to upgrade. I can get a MUCH better console for that with a lot more universes on board. The Strand Palette VL is perfectly capable of handling more universes. I can't imagine it taking them more than about 20 minutes to plug a dongle in a computer, set up a new system that has more universes in it, and then throw it in the mail. It would probably take longer to address the envelope and throw it in the mail than it would take to setup the dongle. It's an opportunity for Strand to print free money.
My sales guy talked to two different people at Strand about it and was given two excuses, one was that it's a 10 year old discontinued product line so it costs more to update the software now. Lie. It's just a dongle unlocking more features it doesn't cost $3,500 to unlock a universe. The other excuse was that when they created the Palette product line 10 years ago they were selling to lots of schools and churches that had small budgets and so they a lot of new systems with 100 channels for a 96 dimmer rack. As a result they only sold upgrades 50 channels at a time. Now that everyone can afford LED's and movers, they apparently don't care and are still selling upgrades 50 channels at a time.
I really like the Palette VL and was hoping to bridge the gap between it and need to upgrade to something more concert lighting focused, by adding a few more universes to my existing system. Well that's apparently not going to happen because Strand has no interest in keeping loyal customers or making free money selling upgrades that cost them nothing. Stupid Stupid Stupid Strand.
Will the next console be ETC, Avo, Hog, MA, Chamsys? I'm not sure, but I definitely know it won't be Strand. Don't get Strand-ed!