Mike, just a cautionary word.
I'm also very much an Alesis booster- to the point of having been called a part-time sales rep (see the Masterlink threads). I've got two Masterlinks,
a Studio 32,
a QS8.1... I'd like nothing better than to see Alesis recover and flourish.
However, having said that: individual customers like us are really not your problem going forward. Your retail distributors really *are*, and they are rapidly losing confidence in Alesis during this hiatus. When I was calling around to get my second Masterlink just a few days ago, I was told a great many tales of woe by account managers for some of the major national distributors- some of your big accounts. Stories of the complete unavailability of any support for ADAT parts, non-returns of phone calls, and of a lack of confidence that the situation will improve even if the chapter 11 situation is resolved. It's to the point now that even the floor salesdrones at Mars or Guitar Center will tell customers, and I quote, "if they won't deal with *us*, they sure as hell won't deal with you".
The bottom line here is that there are a number of your major distributors who are ready to give up on your company: and if they do that, then our confidence in you is rendered moot. No distributors, no sales: burn your channels and it's game over.
I hope that your skeleton crew is putting as much effort into contacting and trying to work with your channels as you are putting in here: if not, they need to work much harder at it. For every one of us that you leave with a warm fuzzy feeling, there's a Full Compass, or a Markertech, or a Sweetwater who is getting angry at a lack of support, or of communications of *any kind*, and are getting to be less likely to come back after any recovery.
I've worked in the design and manufacturing side of the MI/pro-audio business, and I can state one thing as a certainty: Any groundswell of customer support for Alesis in the recovery period is meaningless if you folks don't support your channels, *right now*. If you have input to the channel support side of the business, I'd ask that you tell them this ASAP. Get on the phone to the buyers and the major account managers at these heavy hitters, and _talk_ to them. Right now, they story that they are giving to your potential new customers is not good: no news is *not* good news in such a fickle business.
And best of luck. It's hard to put in that much effort without a paycheck coming in, but it's critical that it be done...