Well, it happened. I got an email Friday at 12:03AM (just after Midnight) from an out-of-state customer who had been at church updating his new Midas Pro1 mixing console with firmware. The update was chugging along until the stagebox threw an error message that said that the update couldn't be completed. No big deal, right?! Try it again, and again. Then maybe you get mad at yourself for updating the firmware right before a big event, and you start sweating it. Then you send the email - at Midnight, when your wife is wondering where in the world you are. Can you sleep until morning? I don't know. I didn't ask.
Next morning. I pick up the email, sweat a little myself, ask what he has done, assure the customer that we'll get it taken care of, call the sales rep and I tell him what happened. He calmly said that he'd have someone from Midas tech support call the client directly, as soon as Midas opens its west coast doors a couple hours later.
The short story is that the Midas tech support rep called right on cue, walked through a couple tests that hadn't already been tried, determined that the stagebox was indeed about as good as a brick and would have to come in for service. For the next couple hours, Midas was trying to locate a replacement stagebox to send. We both knew that the client needed something, and we had a smaller stagebox in stock here. A "bird in the hand", right?!
We placed the Next Day Air Saturday Delivery labels on it and got it ready. Just as we were about to drive it to UPS, the Midas tech support rep called to assure me that he had a larger stagebox with updated firmware being tested, placed into a box, and that it would be there for the client on Saturday morning.
About an hour ago, I received a text message from the customer to say that the replacement stage box was in-hand and that he was on the way to church to put it in. About 30 minutes after that, I got the "success" meesage that it was installed, and fully tested, two hours before Saturday tech rehearsal. Whew!
Tour-grade, professional equipment costs more, but companies that are used to supporting large tours have the ability and willingness to do things that others can't and/or won't. When stuff breaks, even if it's not their fault, they come up big when it counts.
A big thanks to Midas Consoles! We all appreciate it.