Re: Why Vortex flopped...?

[jtaylor@scsn.net (Jay Taylor)]

anybody - where can i get a mail-order vortex at a good price? i need to
forward it to the jolly old morph. (have lost address and phone obtained
earlier.) jay 

At 09:02 AM 12/7/96 EST, you wrote:
>Andre writes:
>
>>-- As has been commonly mentioned here before, the factory presets don't
>>do the unit any sort of justice.  Not only is the selection of basic
>>effects pretty tame, but the actual effects level is far too subtle to be
>>noticed in a guitar store environment.  Like I said, there was little if
>>anything in the factory sounds to suggest that the unit was capable of
>>some of the things it can actually do; most of the stock patches sounded
>>like a good chorus/delay unit with a lousy control interface.  The subtle
>>velocity-sensitive bits and stereo panning details will never come across
>>in Guitar Center, even under the best of circumstances.  And most of the
>>preset pairs are so similar that I didn't even know I was engaging
>>morphing most of the time.
>
>When I first broght the unit to Vernon Reid, I went through the presets, 
>one by
>one. He thought it was cool, but wasn't overwhelmed. Then I set up a 
>register
>pair of Bleen and Fractal, grabbed the e-bow, held down a note and morphed
>between-em. He freaked out over it. "Why didn't you show me this 
>first?!?!"  He
>grabbed the guitar, and stated getting completely sick. It was great fun. 
>
>The sales staff at Lexicon have a tendedcy to believe in make everything
useful,
>saily, right out of the box. An incredible time is spent on presets--and 
>when
>you plug in nany reverb from them (from Alex right on up the line), 
>you're not
>likely to have to do much alteration to find a sound that's right for what
>you're doing. But Vortex is different, and I think you're right. The
presets are
>way too tame, and that coupled with lack of MIDI (#1 problem) were the two
>biggest oversights in the device.
>
>As for other issues, I can only state, again, that when the engineering
>management forces a package on the designers (in the case of Vertex, the 
>Alex
>box), you have to make sacrifices. There's no bypass switch because there
wasn't
>one on Alex. Nothing could be done. MIDI was not an option because of 
>price. It
>was in the original spec, but taken out because of cost. Take it or leave 
>it.
>
>In a lot of ways, there were people who made it impossible for the 
>marketing
>team to really have any say over what would end up in the box. This is 
>what we
>often referred to as "sales prevention". An ugly situation, which as near 
>as I
>can tell, continues to worsen since my departure. Sad, really. Some really
great
>ideas are simply being throuwn away, and very good people are getting fed
up and
>leaving.
>
>Do I sound bitter?
>
>
>
Jay Taylor
P.O. Box 1333
The State
Columbia, S.C. 29201
(803) 771-8549
fax: (803) 771-8430, 8480
jtaylor@scsn.net