janome 12000- what to do ?

[digimad]

Originally Posted by mariannesews

Should I take up the dealers offer to buy the software with the machine so i get a better deal, or should i get embird or something else, probably for cheaper.

2 things to consider, first, do you want to learn to digitise? there' no magic formula, it takes time, effort, and commitment to learn how to produce consistently good designs.

Second, the 12000 has its own new stitch format, which only Janoms newest software has, all other brands of digitising software have to deconstruct the format to try and work out what it is. Obviously Janome and Wilcom the writers, arent going to offer the full programming architecture used to create that format, to third party software writers. Embird for example got it totally wrong with their version of Jef plus for the 11000. So Embird owners had to fall back on the older JEF format which had no hoop recognition for the newer machine. 4 years on and they still havent got it completely right.
Your 12000 and its Horizon link software contain 2 parts of the recognition codes, Janome's MBX which is the full digitising software and far easier than Embird, (I own Embird and Janome and teach both) contains the neccasary JPX format the machine wants to see, it's designed to support ALL janome embroidery machines from the MC10k up to and including the 12000, has all 4 versions of the Janome formats, is a manual and auto digitising program, has 100 pre digitised alphabets including micro alphabets, can do things Embird can't, though to be fair Embird has a few functions MBX doesn't.
I like both programs, but I do find Janomes software easier to use as its interface suits my user preference. I do apreciate not everyones interface preferences are the same as my own. I think in your shoes, if I had spent as much on a single needle machine, I'd go with the software designed for the machine.