Confession/and plea for help

[droolmaster0]

Drool i havent insulted you once in this thread, in fact i actually backed you up with regards insults...

yet you seem to ignore my posts.

Please answer me this.

Why wont you use your Statutory rights, and get a refund for being totally ripped off?  ???

If you did this from the start, then youd have a much better chance of buying a SEQ legally in the future.

Anyone can request to sell a Midibox, and once TK believes there is no profit to be gained and that its positive for the community, he will nameize the sale.

He has done this many times already, and he would do it again.

Now go demand that refund before its too late, for your good, and the good of the midibox community!

If the seller gives you any hassle whatsoever, you can claim with the Ebay buyers defense.

It only takes one minute to do this, and your claim will be investigated.

And we'll all be there to back you out, and get the justice you deserve as a customer.

I  use the username Droolmaster, but for the purpose of this discussion, why don't we use 'Gene'. Sounds friendlier.

I am willing to answer all of your questions honestly, but only if you are willing to respect my answers if I don't agree with you. I simply don't agree with you totally. For instance, I don't agree that I was ripped off. If I believed that I was ripped off I would pursue it. The problem is also that while you  might be willing to actually discuss this with me, I don't see the same inclination on the part of everyone here - and frankly - I have had to restrain my temper from getting the best of me here. I don't want this discussion to degenerate further, and that is why I'm suggesting private emails. What is happening here is that if I don't agree 100% with what is being said, then I am immediately insulted by someone. I'll also say that I have received help, the issue that I posted about has been resolved. The sequencer might possibly be returned for other reasons, but there is no reluctance on the part of the seller to do this (in fact, he suggested it).

[t_xen]

aside from the insults.....

what do you not agree with?

[smashtv]

From the front page: "Non-commercial DIY" and "Copyright © 1998-2008, Thorsten Klose. All rights reserved."

Flavio did not have the right to sell you that box because it contains firmware he does not own.  We will deal with mr. Mireles separately via copyright infringement proceedings.  He's mistakenly thinking copyright law does not apply to him, and he will learn an expensive lesson about this in court.  He's been warned, you must understand he -knowingly- ripped you off.  Why are you defending this with some talk of rep or ethics?

Buying the box from him was mistake number one.  It happens, even smart people get the shaft sometimes.  Hopefully you can get your money back, subpoenas can be a real time drain.

Mistake number two was demanding support from an all volunteer community.  Again: we did not take your money, we owe you absolutely nothing.

Support is reserved for people who can read the rules.  This is the equivalent of asking Microsoft for support for a pirate copy of windows.  What do you expect the reaction to be?  Helping you opens the floodgates to us supporting these poor quality illegal boxes Flavio is making. 

To legally own a MIDIbox requires that you pick up a soldering iron and put parts on a board.  Anything else breaks the "non-commercial" rule.  Try as you might, there are no weasel words to get around this simple concept.

SmashTV

[droolmaster0]

aside from the insults.....

what do you not agree with?

(sigh) - I don't agree that this is totally analogous to theft. If I steal a car, restitution would include returning the car to its rightful owner. In this case, I'm being asked to return the sequencer to the seller (thief). I do understand what you're trying to do here - but I don't have the history with these products, and these discussions that you do. I entered into this with the attitude of 'COOL - someone is actually selling one of these sequencers'. I subsequently found out that profiting is frowned upon, and then a bit later, that it's actually considered illegal.

Apparently, any payment of a person for their labor in building one of these constitutes profit? Am I wrong on that?

In any case, I didn't, and don't consider myself as being ripped off because - most emphatically not having the skills to build these things, I need to purchase 'for profit' electronic music gear. If you actually compare the prices of similarly powerful step sequencers on the market now, you'll see that the  price of this is actually rather low. In the usual usage of 'ripped off' - no, I don't think that I was. The legality of the sale is another issue.

Had I known initially that this was considered illegal, and that I would be able to find someone in this community to build me one - quite obviously I would have gone the latter route. Apparently that would have saved me money and grief. However, how would I have done this? Would it have been accepted if I had posted an ad here asking for someone to build me one? But I certainly would have at least tried that route. I expect though that I would have just been shouted down, or told to spend the next 5 years trying to build something that I have no skills at, and would never have pulled off.

I disagree that because the sale may have been illegal, that I should betray the guy. He was nice to me in the deal itself, has been responsive to questions, and is helping with the resolution of the issue (he doesn't have one at the moment, and so couldn't answer my initial question). I strongly disagree that violating my own ethics here - which I think concern a much more complex set of issues than you're making them out to be - is the way to go. I will not betray the guy - he HAS been nice to me. I'm really sorry if that offends all of you - again - I didn't and DON'T have all of the history on all of this, though I'm gradually assimilating much of it. But damn - I just couldn't do that, EVEN IF someone here promised me a fully decked out midibox sequencer for free by tomorrow. I just couldn't do that. It's not that I don't understand where you guys are coming from, but everything about that, given my interactions with the guy, feels so wrong to me. I won't do it.

At this point, I have had help on the issue, and I know that I won't receive subsequent help with the this sequencer on this forum. So, I'm not asking for anything at this point. I'm a reasonably facile sequencer user, and I'm sure that I could contribute to the forum on issues of its functionality and use....most of the discussions here seem to center around its construction. But - I know that I'm not welcome because of how I got this sequencer, and that probably even if I wind up returning it, I still won't be welcome...even if I can get a forum member to build me one.

[droolmaster0]

From the front page: "Non-commercial DIY" and "Copyright © 1998-2008, Thorsten Klose. All rights reserved."

Flavio did not have the right to sell you that box because it contains firmware he does not own.  We will deal with mr. Mireles separately via copyright infringement proceedings.  He's mistakenly thinking copyright law does not apply to him, and he will learn an expensive lesson about this in court.  He's been warned, you must understand he -knowingly- ripped you off.  Why are you defending this with some talk of rep or ethics?

Buying the box from him was mistake number one.  It happens, even smart people get the shaft sometimes.  Hopefully you can get your money back, subpoenas can be a real time drain.

Mistake number two was demanding support from an all volunteer community.  Again: we did not take your money, we owe you absolutely nothing.

Support is reserved for people who can read the rules.  This is the equivalent of asking Microsoft for support for a pirate copy of windows.  What do you expect the reaction to be?  Helping you opens the floodgates to us supporting these poor quality illegal boxes Flavio is making. 

To legally own a MIDIbox requires that you pick up a soldering iron and put parts on a board.  Anything else breaks the "non-commercial" rule.  Try as you might, there are no weasel words to get around this simple concept.

SmashTV

Well, then - even getting someone here to build me one is illegal? You're going to subpoena me? The hell with all of you.

[moxi]

...on a dealer who has been friendly and honest with me

OT: what an appropriate description of what is a seller! ;)

...I'm sure you will soon understand why there is so many emotive reaction here, and why there is a general stand  up against this side attack...

So I will always prefer people that give me help or usefull things with sometime harsh or "no-compromise" words, rather than buying so-called "pay'n'plug" to "friendly and honest" people.

Just for the fun, and to get out some minutes a bit out of the fight, I give you a quote of someone asking me a MIDIbox:

If you want to make it work out of thje box 4 me \, here in the USA, I would pay extra 4 your time and efforts. But my time is spoken for, at least for a couple more months. I will be doing..."many things,  - here a long list of travel around the word!"- ...so you see I am rather busy. I would pay your price though, just send me a quote if you want to do this. My cash flow is pretty extreme, so add some fun money to your bid.

this "pretty extreme cash flow" make me dream some micro-second, for sure... ::)

then less time than the time a PIC need to be updated, I said no...without a regret..

what can justify my answer, Droolmaster, except that the good vibes I've found here get no price? The same for the gear.. (so try to keep it fresh with us, please)

Yes your Seq cost exactly 0$ as it doesn't work, but just spend one of you week-end to understand why and how, I'm sure there is really no problem for you to do that, as I can see, you're able to read : all is written somewhere here...

and you will win more than a pretty extrem costly gear, less the time to build it!

that sound still positive for you.

And then, mod it, redo the front panel and software config that fit exactly your needs and come back to post some pics of your job!

that's all folkz :)

[smashtv]

You're going to subpoena me?

Knowingly in possession of infringing works, and unwilling to admit that puts you at odds with the law.

The hell with all of you.

Almost.  I'll have this whole thread with me when we face the judge.  Feel free to save further comments for when we are under oath.

[DragonMaster]

People of midibox.org.

I am not happy with you guys today (it will fade in one hour though ).

Will it turn into another forum I'll quit due to members with anger management problems? Looks like you can't find any forums without a few of them posting in every threads in these days... Either insults, rude posts or unneeded comments everywhere.

Now we will never get a chance to retrieve the sellers email adres. This could help me block his IP on all site's as the forum holds an ip database related to the email adress he signed up with.

Most people have dynamic IPs, it's totally useless unless you block a whole ISP, which isn't really what you want.

Gene can file a report telling he thinks he bought stolen goods. Things will be investigated.

Maybe he doesn't want to deal with all the trouble reporting the seller stole IP -> it looks like no one here ever bothered trying to deal with it, BL's still selling MBs. If he tells eBay, they'll say to call the police to investigate the matter. Getting anything done by the nameities is always complicated... It took me two months to get a license to cut off a dead tree that was falling apart! (Finally got it after it damaged the neighbors' garage and destroyed the fence)

Flavio did not have the right to sell you that box because it contains firmware he does not own.  We will deal with mr. Mireles separately via copyright infringement proceedings.

Finally... BTW, there might be a difference between IP tefth and copyright, not sure which one applies here.

[Jaicen]

I can certainly see Droolmaster's point, in that he is a musician not an Electrical Engineer!

However, I do think that you made a mistake buying the synth before firmly establishing wether you would have any support from the developers.

Consider, would you expect Mackie to deal with every request for help from their thousands of customers?

Hopefully you'll be able to get it going, though you may have  to do some learning ;)

[droolmaster0]

Because there were some problems with the unit, Flavio refunded me all but $75, and allowed me to keep the sequencer. Therefore, I believe that it's fair to say that he did not wind up selling it to me at a profit. It is still 95% functional.

As far as help with advanced functionality of this unit (and some things are unclear in the manual), I don't see much evidence on this list that people here are actually advanced users  - almost all of the threads are about building, not using.

It also never really occurred to me that people here would refuse to help, so while it was obviously a mistake, in some sense not to consider it, since I didn't know that you considered illegal to buy one like this, why would I have thought about it. As one who is always willing to help with stuff that I know about, I don't generally presume that people are going to be as downright nasty as many that I've encountered on this list.

[Ashiman]

smithy you see how naive you are towards ppl you never knew ? topic like this should be locked from day 1.  :P

[Jidis]

As one who is always willing to help with stuff that I know about, I don't generally presume that people are going to be as downright nasty as many that I've encountered on this list.

Gene,

I can totally relate to the first part and WRT the second, believe me, they're usually not (I've been here a while). It's hard to understand, without having been around for the start of the whole bluelantern fiasco, what it did/does to the spirit here. You have to realize that after explaining/asking him to stop, and trying to make him stop, a lot of the energy might have hit sort of a dead end and it's probably not wise to poke around in it (which, I guess you found out).

Hope you get it sorted out, and apologies to TK and all here for the headaches this guy has caused (.. -->BL, not you Gene ;)).

George

[Ashiman]

this is waaaaay worse than the chinese guy selling "design based on ..." class-a amplifiers on ebay.

[droolmaster0]

Gene,

I can totally relate to the first part and WRT the second, believe me, they're usually not (I've been here a while). It's hard to understand, without having been around for the start of the whole bluelantern fiasco, what it did/does to the spirit here. You have to realize that after explaining/asking him to stop, and trying to make him stop, a lot of the energy might have hit sort of a dead end and it's probably not wise to poke around in it (which, I guess you found out).

Hope you get it sorted out, and apologies to TK and all here for the headaches this guy has caused (.. -->BL, not you Gene ;)).

George

thank you for one of the only civil responses I've received here. You're correct - I wasn't around for all of that, and all that I've actually experienced was good treatment by Flavio, and threats and insults here. Of course, that will generate more insults - but that was my actual experience. And, I still don't have an adequate answer to what I think is a legitimate question - for a musician who is not capable of building one of these things ( and I have to laugh at everyone's insistence that I can do this - maybe given the fact that I want to spend my time actually using the stuff, I don't want to spend the rest of my life trying to learn, probably in vain) - how does such a person come into possession of one of these. If there is indeed no way, then I'd say that your organization is really quite unpleasantly elitist.

[DavidBanner]

I get the distict feeling that you want the hardware, but are not willing to take it on TKs terms...

This is a DIY community. We help anyone who wants to learn. How is that elitist?

It's like saying a rehab center who will only take people who want to give up and help themselves is elitist.

If you wish to support Flavio and continue to do business with him you are making it clear you are no friend of this community. If you also have no interest in DIY or learning electronics I can't see why you are here.

[droolmaster0]

I get the distict feeling that you want the hardware, but are not willing to take it on TKs terms...

This is a DIY community. We help anyone who wants to learn. How is that elitist?

It's like saying a rehab center who will only take people who want to give up and help themselves is elitist.

If you wish to support Flavio and continue to do business with him you are making it clear you are no friend of this community. If you also have no interest in DIY or learning electronics I can't see why you are here.

This post is a perfect example. I never said or implied that I was going to continue to do business with Flavio. I only said that he had been fair with me, and that I was going to honor my deal with him. I never said anything about not honoring terms, or any of that - I just made a simple point which is that there does not seem to be a way for a musician to get one of these - and no, I don't consider the desire to do so to be criminal in intent. Note please exactly what I said, not what you would like me to have said in order to attack me again. I'll say it again - I think that this is one of the most hostile, elitist forums that I've ever seen. And you're right - I originally had a reason to be here, and I was curious to see if anything more had been posted in this thread. But to tell you the truth, even if I learned to build one of these, I would have no desire at all to hang out with people like you.

[DavidBanner]

my post was not hostile.

I never said or implied that I was going to continue to do business with Flavio

Please note I said "IF you wish to support or to CONTINUE to do business with". I never said or implied you were.

I never said anything about not honoring terms

No but I did. TK gives you the right to use his IP on HIS terms, not mine, not yours.

and no, I don't consider the desire to do so to be criminal in intent.

You quoted my entire post so I am assuming all the content is refering to mine. As such I didn't mention anything about criminal intent.

Note please exactly what I said, not what you would like me to have said in order to attack me again.

Please note exactly what I have posted and please stop being so defensive.

I would have no desire at all to hang out with people like you.

Then why are you here? And how is this not you being hostile to me without reason?

You make no reasoned response to my point about this community not being elitist.

What point exactly are you trying to make? And what is it that you are trying to achieve by still being here?

[Tanstaafl]

alright... i guess i need to weigh in on this subject.

Not going to quote anybody.

It seems droolmaster(Gene, oh by the way, that's also my name) is a musician, and wants to buy tools for his trade.  None of us can fault him for that.  agreed?

However, Gene, this is a community for musicians AND (what's the term... geeks, nerds, (those of us in our bedrooms and garages building stuff that does not quite exist YET).))... dang did i close too many ellipses?

I have a good feeling that since whoever sold you this thing, let you keep it.  GLORY in that!!  You have the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the FREE time you may or may not have in your life, to learn something new.  My life has been enhanced by TK and all of the cohorts on this list.  These are GOOD people, from all points on the map, we don't all speak the same language, but we all attempt to help each other.

my 2 cents... or .0125 euros.. or whatever..... :-)

Good luck with your new aquisition.

gb

[Tanstaafl]

dag nabbit....

I forgot to mention, MidiBox SEQ  ROX!!!

gb

[droolmaster0]

dag nabbit....

I forgot to mention, MidiBox SEQ  ROX!!!

gb

yes - it does. It's not the only good one out there, or the best one (sorry) - but it's a fantastic tool. I suppose we all agree on that.

[moxi]

(and some things are unclear in the manual), I don't see much evidence on this list that people here are actually advanced users  - almost all of the threads are about building, not using.

::)

yes, maybe this gear is so complicated that even its creator don't how it run... :-X

hum, you will found a music section somewhere here,  nice to see you finally understnd that this place is for those who are building their MIDIbox..

you won't get help writing this way...

I recommend you to bypass all interface (especially those without a good manual) between yourself and the 240V outlet, so you will learn in only five millisecond all what you miss about potential difference..

;D

[moxi]

no, don't do that, it's a joke ...

[Tanstaafl]

Moxi, please, I think we might be able to convert him.  He may not have the technical expertise, but if he has friends that do.....

and to Gene:

Sometimes it takes help from friends.

((OK, I'm not turning into Mohundus K. Ghandi))

gb

[Tanstaafl]

My internet connection dropped out so we missed  a bit of my last reply.... sorry if it's duplicated to some.

Gene,

  I have quite a few musician buddies that absolutely refuse to get involved in the electronic part of their art, I would think you might have the same kind of bud's on the other end of the spectrum, who would love to look at this gizmo and get involved with the community here at ucapps. I've built a MidiBox or two for my buds.  No money changes hands. Everybody is happy.

Could be that you might need to look into this avenue for the fix.

But, keep in mind,  MidiBox is not for profit.

Good luck and (as TK would say, Greets)

gb

[sineSurfer]

In the hope that this don't come to you Gene, as something offensive:

1. You are a musician willing to spend cash on a sequencer or whatever equipment you need to do your music.

Good, everyone here does that form time to time :)

2. You found the mbSEQ to be the hardware you want.

Good again, everybody here wants at least one of the midiBox projects.

3. TK alone sets the rules to play as he is the creator of the midiBox firmware and apps, not you , not me, not anybody else.

This may be good or bad for you depending on your willingness to play by TK rules.

4. You don't want to or can't do what it takes to play by TK rules.

You have your reasons for this, I will not argue with that, but even then you have two choices:

a. Change your mind and start learning all that you'll need to have the mbSEQ built and working. need support?, this forum is the place to ask questions, I already know at least 5 guys willing to help with my own questions.

b.Go spend your money on something already available from an established brand and get all the support you are entitled for directly from the company that made the purchased item.

If you ask me, to learn new things is a very small fee to pay for the goods you get here.

It's hard, or not for everyone? probably, but everyone around here went thru the same process to have any of the midiBox projects and there is nothing forbidding you to follow the same path.

btw. depending on what you want from the sequencer, a korg electribe ES1 or SX1 can give you even more than the mbSEQ for less money and time, is not like you don't have any more options. ;)