Artiphon Avis 265

I am writing this review in a state of pure frustration and anger, hoping to save even one person from the absolute scam that is Artiphon and their so-called "products."

Let me be perfectly clear: **Artiphon is not a real company. It is a ghost ship that takes your money and abandons you in the digital void.**

I was an early supporter, one of the many suckers who bought into the hype and purchased an Orba v1. It was an exciting concept, and for a brief moment, it worked. But that moment is long, long gone.

Here is the reality of dealing with Artiphon that they will never show you in their slick Kickstarter campaigns:

**1. TOTAL AND COMPLETE CUSTOMER ABANDONMENT:**
The moment your payment clears, you are dead to them. My Orba, a device that relies on software, is now a useless, brightly-colored paperweight. Why? Because every single piece of support infrastructure has VANISHED. The official forums? **Gone.** The dedicated app download pages? **Wiped from the internet.** The support ticket system? **A ghost town.** It is impossible to get help, download necessary firmware, or find any official resources. They have systematically erased all evidence of their past products, leaving paying customers like me stranded.

**2. THEIR WEBSITE IS A LITERAL EMPTY SHELL:**
Go to Artiphon.com right now. I dare you. You'll find a barren, empty website with a few flashy graphics and no substance. It's a Potemkin village for a tech company—a hollow facade designed to look like a functioning business while hiding the fact that there is nothing behind the curtain. No support, no community, no legacy product information. NOTHING.

**3. THIS IS A PREDATORY BUSINESS MODEL:**
Artiphon's strategy is now blatantly obvious:
* Step 1: Invent a flashy, "innovative" MIDI device.
* Step 2: Market it heavily on crowdfunding platforms and social media.
* Step 3: Collect thousands of orders and payments.
* Step 4: Release the product with minimal long-term planning.
* Step 5: When the next shiny idea comes along, COMPLETELY ABANDON the previous product and its user base.
* Step 6: Repeat.

They are not building a brand; they are running a series of cash grabs. They have zero respect for the musicians who trusted them with their hard-earned money.

**FINAL VERDICT:**

**DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, GIVE ARTIPHON A SINGLE DOLLAR OF YOUR MONEY.**

Buying a product from them is not a purchase; it's a temporary rental with an inevitable, unsupported expiration date. You are funding a company that views you as a disposable revenue stream, not a valued customer.

My Orba v1 is a permanent reminder of their betrayal and a testament to their shameless business practices. Learn from my expensive mistake. **STEER CLEAR OF ARTIPHON.** There are plenty of other music tech companies that actually stand by their products and support their customers. This company is a disgrace to the industry.

Love the Chorda as an instrument, but Artiphon as a company is practically unreachable when it comes to customer support. I've submitted tickets concerning my Chorda's headphone output (only outputs on left channel) and have yet to hear anything back, and it's been nearly 2 months. C'mon guys, you gotta do better.

Updated firmware on my ORBA 2 about a year ago. I left it for a long time, now there's nothing i can do to get it working. it's a brick. Artiphon sent me an email that basically said "we're short staffed. don't expect a response any time soon" when i emailed support.

Bluetooth still not fixed on android app. once they have your money it seems all their focus is on new products, and they don't care about supporting existing customers. i suspect cash flow issues.

(Tried troubleshooting on two different computers win10 and win11 with most recent and rolled back apps. also unresponsive on android (galaxy s20+). device not recognized as connected on any platform. shame.)

No stars. This company is a scam and I wish I would’ve seen this page before I bought from them. I ordered an Orba3 in 2024 as a Christmas gift. I made it before the holiday cut off time and my order was expected on December 23rd. I ordered the Orba 3 and a case. They shipped the case but not the Orba. I emailed them. They said ups might have stole it. I told them it was unlikely given I opened the door minutes after they left it there and I live in a gated neighborhood where we do not have package thieves. They took weeks to respond. They they kept breadcrumming me. I asked for the item to be shipped or for a refund. They said they’d ship it. Weeks again without communication. They finally respond saying it is gonna take another week to ship. I tell them okay but if more than that give me refund. Of course they have stopped responding again. There is no way to ask for a refund or track one on the site. You can only email them. I feel stupid for falling for this scam. Big EFF YOU Artiphon. You are a BIG SCAM.

I ordered an orbit 3 over a month ago. Every time I send them an email they give me an automated response. My package did not and will not be arriving. This company is a scam day. They will take your money but you will never receive your product. Do not buy from this company. I am not the only one they have done this to. This is what they do. This is not a real company. It is a scam!

Ordered the ORBA 3 on Dec 21. They said it was backordered and would be 3wks or more. I received a notification about it's status which required you login to an app called SHOP. That app is absolute crap and I could not make it work. I contacted Artiphon and they only interact via email. They will not call. Never got help on finding the package. After the 3 weeks were up, still no package. Emailed them again and they said he're a link showing the package was delivered. That link was to USPS site. I never got that tracking #, never had indication it was delivered and left on a porch.

Apparently it was either stolen, never delivered or the delivery took it. No pic of it sitting on porch like you get from Amazon or UPS. I'm out $160.00 and it's tough luck per Artiphon.

STAY AWAY from ARTIPHON. It's a company known for stealing money.

my orba 3 didn't come I'm convinced ts company isn't legit like bffr I don't got time for ts bs, yall suck gimme my money it's been like a month I honestly knew it was to good to be true like reading the rest of the reviews make me not wanna even touch ts thing def not worth it all

Received an orba 2 as a Xmas gift. Had to send it back as the software was awful and made the device unusable as I couldn't send new sounds to it.

I read it's not great on android (not an excuse, it's 2024 and the orba isn't cheap, why does your software not work on any device) so I tried it on an apple phone, exact same issues. Wouldn't update the sounds, glitchy as hell...

So I thought I'd try to install it on my windows pc, installed it and doesn't even open at all. The process just quits itself immediately.

Sent the device back for a refund. What a waste of time, why are you selling devices with software that doesn't work??? Poor company that clearly doesn't care about the user experience. Check the reviews on the app stores, all bad.

Will never buy their products again unfortunately and will not be recommending to like minded friends either. One way to ruin a business in my eyes... Get things fixed and quick.

I paid cash for the artiphon2 and I haven’t got confirmation on it yet but the money was withdrawn from my bank and I have not been able to contact them

Don't buy anything from Artiphon, that's one of the worst company I've ever seen !

Bought an Artiphon One, Chorda, and Orba.

Artiphon One :
- I lost my AC Adapter, and asked for another. They taught me to buy another complete Artiphon One because they don't sell AC Adapter ! I contacted the support, they didn't even know what AC Adapter would work with Artiphon One other than the official ! After that, NO ANSWER FROM THEIR SUPPORT FOR 3 YEARS NOW !
- Chorda : It never reach my house. I asked for a cancel. I took 1 month to be refund !
- Orba : That's the only one working, an 8 touch midi controller !

Update: Really? That's Artiphon's response? This is just deflection; "Let's post something and hope it goes away."

Since my original review (see below), I've received my reward and it's impressive. It's a well-designed and nicely engineered device and I'm pleased I backed the Kickstarter campaign albeit that the company's communications and behavior was disappointing so I guess I should not be surprised that rather than address or even acknowledge my complaint, the company decided to trot out a non-reply. Will I ever back an Artiphin project again should they do one? Nope. Will I forever see the company and their CEO as unethical? Yep. Will they care? Obviously not.

Original Review: Artiphon ran a Kickstarter campaign to launch their new product, the Chorda. As is often the case with Kickstarter projects, the campaign ran behind schedule but the company at least kept backers reasonably well informed on their progress. They supposedly started shipping at the end on 2023 but since then only a small number of backers have received product and, it transpires, Artiphon is now selling the product via retailers.

I checked with Sweetwater, one of their resellers, who, as of a few days ago, had eight Chordas in stock. I spoke to one of their extremely helpful sales engineers who told me they put Chordas on pre-order back in November and start shipping around December 28th last year. They've sold something like 80 units since then.

This puts paid to Artiphon's claims of shipping problems and underlines that the company has probably been trying to bootstrap sales and thereby cash flow for the product. The problem with this is the lack of transparency and the company's assumption that backers can just suck it. It's a monumental failure of ethics no matter how you view it.

Finally, Artiphon has no published phone numbers at all; you can only contact them via email. That says a lot about the company.

A one star rating is more than they deserve.

Their EU page - artiphon.proactiveaudio.eu looks like scam.
I made an order 4 days ago and I did not receive any information about the shipping of my order.
So I wanted to write to support and ask about it, but now I see that the page is down and whole website looks like scam. I'm worrying now that I just lost 200 euros and will never get my order.

Very capable, but far from intuitive. It's easy to access the instruments, but hard to figure out how to loop or even turn off the loop. It's easier to turn it off and then back on again to get the loop to stop playing. It has a lot of potential but it will take a lot of study to get it to work as intended.

It is everything it is advertised to be. Fun and inspiring.

Trying to figure out what in my PC makes this work so badly. "Internal disconnect" every :30. Despite several Firmware updates. SSD only half full..

Excellent service in Ordering Tracking and Delivering UNIT.

The Orba 2 is AmAzing! A very very cool tool with unlimited potential for creativity. The customer service was very good too, although turnaround in responses to emails usually took 24-48 hours so I got the sense it was a smaller company.

Items arrived on time and in good condition.

There awesome

Quality of sound, easiness to operate, the small band is a show 😁