tl;dr - Squarp is refunding my shipping cost to send my Pyramid to France where it just got sent back to me in Texas after weeks of sitting in customs for no apparent reason, and, arranging to have it be picked up from my home to ship back to France again!

I have such amazingly bad luck with music gear, it seems. I have failed gear as often, or, (the more common) far more often than anyone else I have talked to about it.

I bought a Squarp Pyramid about a year ago and ordered right as they were switching to the Mk2 units. I ordered before their site changed to reflect the change but I did receive a Mk2 Pyramid!

Before anything else, the Pyramid is just about the most perfect hardware sequencer I've ever used. It replaced my Octatrack as my main midi sequencer and it was faster than the OT for writing with. I wanted a pattern based sequencer with a FAST interface for writing and the the Pyramid is IT! It's everything good about the MMT-8 combined with just about everything that's good with the Octatrack (just missing p-locks, but who cares)!!

My one single only issue with it was kinda workflow killing for me, but it was resolved with the 3.0 beta OS! So, I had powered it up to try out the new OS after having it sit for months and ... one of the LEDs was out. This happens. This wasn't bad at all, other than it's an SMD LED ... and my solder skills are NOT up to snuff for that fix myself. ;) So, I emailed Squarp and Jean said to just send it in and they'd repair it for me for free! And, this being one of the very first Mk2 units, it just seems right that I'm the one who got the single failed LED! :D

So, I looked up online to get a quote for shipping and saw it would be over $150. I was (I still am) insanely broke, so I had to wait. Then, when I did have the money (like 6 weeks later), I went to UPS and they quoted me $350 to ship it!! Feeling dejected and annoyed, I went to the USPS and they shipped it for $85 (with like $35 of that being the insurance ... which I never ship without any more ... see above where I talk about bad bad luck hahaha)!

It got to France in a few days and then got to Customs on June 12th. And there it sat. For weeks. And, suddenly, yesterday morning, I got a text from the USPS that my package was delivered ... in Texas, not in France ... and it was on my doorstep.

I emailed Jean at Squarp back asking if some weird magical way they'd gotten my package and the tracking was all screwy. And, nope, they never got it. They contacted customs and customs said it just sat too long so they sent it back?! WHAT?! :D HAHAHAH!!!! Jean said this is the first time they'd ever seen that happen!

So, he offered to refund my initial shipping cost and arrange for a pickup at my house for the Pyramid to have it shipped there. After having an incredibly awful day yesterday--where my Pyramid just randomly showing back up for no reason was like the LEAST awful thing to happen--having Jean from Squarp offer to fix what wasn't even close to their problem has been seriously amazing!

I can't say enough good things about the Pyramid and now the same for the company that made it! <3