Re: Repeater's Demise

[Mark Hamburg <mark_hamburg@baymoon.com>]

on 7/3/02 4:45 PM, Hedewa7@aol.com at Hedewa7@aol.com wrote:

>> To have a looper as the sole product of a decent sized company is
>> suicide though, IMO.
> in that, i hope you'll be proven wrong, one day.

It would be interesting to know how big the looping community is relative 
to
the size of this list. It's certainly somewhat bigger since as far as I 
know
RF isn't on this list. On the other hand, it isn't necessarily a lot bigger
-- witness the report regarding Alto's sales of the Repeater.

I suspect that Electrix was in a better position selling their earlier
effects modules. As the results of the blow out indicated, their problem if
anything on those was probably just having the wrong price point. I know I
love my FilterQueen, EQ Killer, and MoFX and wish that I'd been more
aggressive about grabbing some of the others. On the other hand, I spent
several months before getting them mulling over whether or not to do so
because the price point kept it from being an impulse buy. So, the blow out
did a great job of getting things moving but it probably also sabotaged
their ability to bring the products back at a sustainable price point if
they had wanted to.

Line6 probably does well with the DL4 in spite of the looper not because of
it. Okay. There isn't really a downside for them in including the looper,
but I suspect that the vast majority of the units they sell are on the 
basis
of the echo effects not the looper. That may lead people who buy the pedal
into looping, but it isn't the selling point.

Gibson can sustain the EDP because at this point it's mostly a matter of
doing a production run every so often and selling them through their
existing channels. I would be surprised if they have even one person
dedicated to nothing but the EDP. (That being said, it would be good for
them to continue seeing sales.)

Matthias and Kim have done wonderful things as Aurisis Research, but I 
doubt
that either of them would want to depend on it to keep them fed and
sheltered.

Running a company isn't cheap -- particularly if you build hardware and 
have
to worry about inventory, shipping to dealers, etc.. There's a certain
amount that's basically minimal fixed cost. Furthermore, if you have
employees as opposed to someone just doing work on the side or on a
consulting basis, you've now got additional ongoing expenses.

So, Electrix abandoned their somewhat broader market to build a cool 
product
for a niche market. Furthermore, it's a harder market to explain to people
so it's prone to remaining more or less a niche. They also priced their
product quite competively all things considered. At the same time, while 
the
product offered many cool, unique features, it had flaws -- specifically
with respect to creating drone loops -- that interfered with selling it to 
a
significant subsegment of the niche.

Result: Not a sustainable business model.

Sad because while I can't comment on the Repeater's software, I do know 
that
Electrix built nice hardware. I've certainly been tempted to get one to
complement my EDPs.

Mark