A couple of months back I decided it was finally time to replace my ageing audio PC with a shiny new machine. Despite the fact it was still basically running fine, it was showing its age and no longer able to keep up with the latest soft synths and huge sample libraries that are now the norm for media composing.
There were 2 options: buy the components separately and build it myself or leave it to the experts. The first option is always cheaper and years ago I could probably have done the job adequately myself but technology has moved on a lot without me keeping up, meaning there’s a lot more room for compatibility problems between the motherboard and all the components, hard drives, audio interfaces, SSDs, fans, PSUs etc.
I no longer have the knowledge or patience to spend on choosing components – I’d much rather get on with making music so I decided to try scan.co.uk having heard some good recommendations from other musicians. People usually only comment on a company when they have a bad experience but now I have my new machine fully built and running smoothly I have to say I honestly cannot remember the last time I dealt with a company whose customer service and help was as first-class as Scan‘s, in particular the brilliant Pete Gardner.
I’ll spare you the boring technical details but my machine had a few teething problems to start with, which it now turns out was due to a fault/compatibility issue with one of the hard drives which took a bit of problem-solving to narrow down. No hardware is 100% perfect and I know Scan have a very thorough QA process but sometimes a unit just has a fault. Throughout this, Pete was completely knowledgeable of all the paths to try to find out the problem but most importantly from a customer perspective was patient, friendly and went out of his way to help me get it sorted quickly, couriering out replacement parts to try and even giving me his home email address in case I got stuck at the weekend. I haven’t had that level of service from any company since, well I can’t even remember when…
I’ll definitely be using Scan for any hardware or audio components in the future and if you’re looking for a company in the UK to supply a dedicated pro-audio PC or components (they also supply high-end systems for graphics, video and gaming etc.) I have nothing but positive things to say about Scan, and in particular Pete (Scan head honchos – if you’re reading this you should make Pete a partner!).
www.scan.co.uk