A public service announcement for musicians: do not buy anything from IK Multimedia.

Musicians first? Right.

Several years ago, I bought Amplitube, a guitar amp modeler made by IK Multimedia. Getting the plug-in set up was a true nightmare, just constant authorization problems. Finally, after much angst, I got the product to product, no thanks to IK. Their customer service was surly (I was nice, I really was, unfailingly) and took as long as a day to get back to me, even after my support ticket was open and the company knew my problem was legit.

All was good until I updated my Mac to OSX Leopard. After the OS upgrade, all the auth problems have returned. And today, after setting aside the afternoon to try to get something done, IK's auth process has foiled me, despite the fact that yesterday everything was fine.

Worse. to contact the company's tech support you have to enter in all kinds of info EVERY SINGE TIME (email, phone, type of computer, and on and on).

Given my latest woes, I have request $50 back from the company, and they can have their software auth codes. I'll be out over $300, but I don't care (well, I do a little, and that's where the $50 comes in). I'll report back once I hear from IK's tech support, but I'm sure they'll basically say go fuck yourself, asshole.

And just make sure this email catches a few searches, here's some tags:

IKmultimedia

IK multimedia

Amplitube

Amplitube 2.0

Guitar amp emulator

Amp emulator

Shitty companies

Oh, and why not some of their competitors:

Digidesign Eleven

Guitar Rig

Softube

Vintage Amp Room

And some of the amps IK models:

Fender

Marshall

Mesa Boogie

Vox