When your customer base includes musicians, recording studios, radio stations, composers and performers, there’s precious little tolerance for even the most infinitesimal of sound infidelity. So it is for Ringwood, N.J.-based Rain Recording, which, since its founding in 2001, has built an enviable reputation —and continuing success—by providing high-performance PC systems and peripherals enhanced for demanding audio applications, including recording, mixing, mastering, production and performance.

When Rain Recording discovered that its incumbent hardware platform was contributing to even the merest of sound drop-outs, pops and clicks, Rain knew it had a problem that few—save for its admittedly perfectionist customers—would discern, but one that needed fixing nonetheless.

As Rain Recording’s founder and president, Bill Paschick, tells it, diagnosing the problem was simple—it was a matter of fans cycling on to cool the incumbent processors’ motherboards—but coming up with a solution that would meet the specialized needs of Rain Recording’s customers proved much tougher.

At that point, Rain Recording began its search for an alternative platform and, based on recommendations from its customers, it sought out AMD. Rain Recording was quickly sold on the performance of AMD’s processors, but what helped seal the deal between the companies was AMD’s Validated Solutions (AVS) program, which provides customers with rigorous platform validation and testing, as well as postsales service and support directly from AMD.

“AMD was and is a popular solution for the enthusiast, build-it-yourself segment of the market,” Paschick says, “but we felt we couldn’t deploy AMD because of the perceived instability of everything surrounding the chips themselves. The processor seemed exceptional, but the other components such as the motherboard and the chipsets lacked consistency and stability.” 

Ron Myers, AVS senior manager at AMD, acknowledges that Rain presented a daunting set of challenges but that both companies’ desire to ensure end users’ ultimate satisfaction clinched the deal. “Rain Recording’s commitment to balance and stability mirrors our own philosophy,” Myers says, noting that the AVS program was designed to assist customers, such as Rain, that have specialized demands that aren’t necessarily being fully met by other providers. 

“AMD has proven that innovation can level the playing field and change the market,” says Paschick. “We have been thrilled with implementation, upgradeability, energy efficiency, support, and most importantly, sales and demand.”

A Meeting of the Minds

Rain Recording’s initial AMD implementation was in its Solstice workstations, powered by AMD Athlon™ dual-core processors and, later, AMD Phenom™ quad-core processors. The Solstice line marries two design philosophies—Rain Recording’s “Quiet Cool” engineering and AMD’s Cool’n’Quiet™ technology—for energy efficiency. Part of the Solstice line’s elegance comes from Rain’s exclusive use of an all-aluminum chassis, but the line also uses convection cooling, which lets air flow through systems naturally, eliminating the need for often-noisy air-management designs and devices. 

Undeniably, though, it is economic payoff that drives any business alliance, and here, too, Paschick says, AMD has demonstrated that the company’s AVS program can pay quick dividends. “If you don’t need to reteach and retool constantly, the whole process is easier. With AMD we don’t need a new motherboard every time there’s a revision in silicon. That means we don’t need to stock three different motherboards,” Paschick says, and that means less money is tied up in inventory. 

Beyond operating efficiencies, though, Paschick says that AMD has been able to grasp what other providers haven’t in terms of its Validated Solutions program. Moreover, he says, “the continual bits-and-bytes battle is needless,” referring specifically to hardware or BIOS upgrades that competing chip vendors typically issue on a quarterly basis.

Although those upgrades do refine and improve processor performance, Paschick contends that subtle efficiencies, such as those typically provided by BIOS upgrades, often are lost on the vast majority of customers, who were and are likely to remain satisfied with the core performance of their existing systems. 

“Most customers don’t want to be—or need to be—on the leading edge of processor performance,” Paschick contends. “They’re smart enough to know that straight rock-bottom pricing may not be for them.  They also don’t need the absolute latest, highest-end products available. The vast majority of customers want products and platforms that bring with them stability, longevity and performance.” 

Again, Paschick points to specific business benefits to back his philosophical allegiance. “For us and for our customers, being on a stable platform means that we have no issues with disk imaging every time an upgrade hits the market.” That benefit is considerable, in that customers aren’t forced to reload all of their applications and all of their files when the processor—or its instruction set—is upgraded, yielding savings in terms of customer and staff retraining, as well as eliminating downtime and possible field failures.

“Companies such as Intel aren’t to be taken lightly,” Paschick says, “but it often comes down to figuring out whether you can do your job with the technology you’ve got. We’re convinced that our approach
allows our customers to do their jobs in the very best way possible.” 

Day-to-Day Dealings

And although Paschick values the enlightened self-interest AMD’s AVS program demonstrates, underpinning the relationship between AMD and Rain Recording are the day-to-day dealings that confirm his sense that he’s made a wise choice. “We have a Top 10 list of why AMD is winning Rain Recording’s business, and intimacy of support is near the top,” he says. “We don’t expect favoritism, but we sometimes need help and some handholding. That means that your partner at least has to answer the phone. AMD goes above and beyond that.”

Paschick cites an incident in which his company’s engineers incorrectly made design assumptions based on their earlier CPU experience, which resulted in minor problems. “We had some tiny issues with things like motherboards due to mistakes on our part. AVS very quickly resolved those,” Paschick says, adding that AMD has helped Rain test units prior to their release. Another time, one of his employees requested more hardware RAM during a customer meeting, and the request was acted on immediately. “In my experience, everything promised by AMD with AVS has been delivered, and more. I’ve had 20 years of experience in this industry, and I am floored by AVS.” 

Rain’s partners haven’t always been so responsive. Paschick notes that if there were problems with part of an AMD competitor’s platform, such as a motherboard, the competitor routinely asked for the defective part to be sent back, a process that burned through time and money, and delayed product delivery. AMD, on the other hand, has demonstrated its ability to resolve issues while the component remained on-site at Rain Recording’s facilities. “The speed with which the company takes action is unbelievable,” Paschick says. 

He is also confident that what has passed in Rain Recording’s relationship with AMD is a prologue to a bright future between the companies.“We saw that the migration from dual-core to quad-core was amazingly painless,” he says. “There have been no field failures, and it has met every expectation. AMD’s transparency has contributed to the greatness of the solutions, and things get better and better,” he says.

Going forward, as Rain Recording begins work using AMD’s enthusiast platform—named “Spider”—which incorporates graphic cards, chipsets and processors, he expects more of the same. “We’ve been hearing a lot from our customers who say they’ve just heard about Spider and are really interested. In this case, increasing demand doesn’t make us wince at all, because the barriers to adding a platform like Spider are a lot lower than they would be with another vendor,” he says. “If anything, the industry buzz surrounding Spider suggests equal if not greater success than we’ve had to date with the Solstice line.”  

Paschick’s confidence is fueled by AMD’s continuing demonstrations that it “has a big-picture concern for its customers’ longevity. AMD provides us with closed ecosystem stability and open ecosystem opportunity,” Paschick insists. In other words, its technology is stable, allowing its partners to be innovative. “AMD is aligned with its customers,” says Paschick. “It doesn’t mandate things; instead, it creates alliances. It invites companies to collaborate.” 

Paschick wants to be part of a collaborative community. That’s why he’s pleased with the “useful, purposeful” alliances he sees AMD creating, not only between itself and its OEM customers but also among those OEM customers themselves. “That’s another synergy they provide us.” 

That synergy, says Paschick, has created excitement during recent discussions between Rain Recording and fellow AMD technology partners about new products being developed for market launch. The positive experience with AMD’s user group community, says Paschick, has made a believer of Rain Recording. “We support them 100 percent. AMD isn’t capturing prisoners; it’s winning loyalists.”