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Looper's Delight
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--- Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com> wrote: > At 09:50 AM 8/27/2003, Greg House wrote: > >--- Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com> wrote: > > > Just because something is beyond your budget doesn't mean it doesn't >sell > > > well. The Echoplex price might be more than you can afford, yet at >that > > > price they sold every single one they were able to make. That makes >it > > > really difficult to understand how the price was too high. It's an >easier > > > argument to say it was too low. > > > >Or to say that they didn't make enough. > > Yes! I agree. That's why we went to a huge amount of effort to improve > production. But that is not a simple thing. You don't just press a >button > and quadruple production capacity. You need to have the capital, > infrastructure, people, get various design issues cleaned up, etc etc. >At a > company with many products and many priorities this can take a lot of >time, > especially with something that is not in the main bread-and-butter end >of > the product line. Mostly, this is what has been happening and its a lot > better now. Yeah, I understand. It does seem like poor product management to have let that be the bottleneck for a successful, mature product like that. I'm glad to hear things have improved now. > It's a hell of a lot better than Lexicon, who was > left with a warehouse of jammans that they couldn't sell, and ultimately > had to blow them out at a ridiculous price because the cost of the > inventory was killing them. I don't remember that blowout. What did they sell for? Seems like the originals sold for around $500. I don't remember seeing any for less then that, except used ones. > Right! now you see it. The limit for the #of units of echoplexes sold >has > always been production capacity. Not price, not sales effort, not >features. > More people have wanted it than they could keep up with for most of the > history of the product. They didn't ever reach a point where they needed >to > do anything other than keep trying to make more. That must be a bummer for you personally, since I presume you benefit directly from them selling more of them. > Well, it just depends on how you look at it. Effects units, recording > units, synths, samplers, loopers. That's what I see. The echoplex has a >LOT > of functions and features. Far more than most other looping products. >The > manual is over 300 pages long, and all it does is describe the features! > It's hard to imagine how more could be packed in there. If you look at >the > Echoplex and can see only one function, then by all means go get an Akai > Headrush. It does the same one function and costs a lot less. Well, I still see it as having one FUNCTION, and a bunch of options for manipulating that. It makes loops, and is very flexable about the manner in which it does them, and how it allows you to manipulate them, but it doesn't do compression, or modulation-based, or filter effects. That's all I was saying. > Anyway, to make you happy, replace Lexicon PCM-81 with PCM-91. Reverb >only, > $2000. Add in the TC-2290. delay only, $2000. Geez, I didn't know they were still making the 2290! (fwiw, your $2000 price is list, not street, but your point's equally valid either way). > People still spend $2000 for the 2290 delay. Admittedly that is a little > hard to understand, yet that's why TC is still selling them. Groundswell of the past popularity, I suppose. In that respect, Lexicon should still be making the PCM42 (they aren't, are they??) > But why pay $1440 for a TC G-Force if you can get a zoom or boss or > digitech product with the same effects for over $1000 less? Because the audio quality is better. Is the audio quality of the EDP better then say a Headrush or a DL4? > Or why pay $2000 for an Eventide Eclipse if you can get the TC for $1440? Yeah, I get your point. You're paying extra for the functionality it provides. > hahaha, no most of them don't use state of the art technology. They got >you > fooled if you think so. Most companies in the music industry cannot >afford > to keep up with state of the art technology. > > Buy things for what they do for you, not the date stamps on the IC's. Oh, I do. What I was getting at was that these products provide contemporary set of I/O options, stereo signal processing, and control mechanisms to modern standards. > > > > My > > > >observation from talking to people is that a lot of them really >like the > > > >idea of > > > >an advanced looper until they hear the price. At that point they >say > > something > > > >like "I think I can probably be happy enough with my DL4" or >something > > > >like that. > > > > > > if that is all the functions they need and they just want to dabble >in > > > looping a bit, then they are right. They would be happy with the DL4 >and > > > that is what they should buy. Why should they start out with the >high-end > > > product? As they learn more about looping they may start wanting a >higher > > > end product with more features. Then the price of an echoplex might >be > > > worth it to them. > > > >I'm just saying that people would like a few more features then the >DL4, but > >without having to pay several hundred more dollars for them. There >doesn't > >appear > >to be anything in that marketplace. Is it worth $600 to get a feedback >control > >for your loop? One feature? > > The only difference you see between a DL-4 and an Echoplex is the >feedback > control? Oh no! Of course not. I have to apologize here, 'cause I got kind of lost in what I was thinking. As you discerned, I started drifting into the idea for a "midrange" product. I never intended to say that the EDP should sell for $250. My original thought was that they'd sell a lot more if the price was a bit lower, that's all. > If all you can see in the Echoplex is feedback control, and that is not > worth it to you, then get a Boomerang. It has a basic feedback control. It doesn't have a feedback control that can change on the fly. > Or string together a bunch of cheap delay pedals and use a volume > pedal and mixer to control feedback. Hmm... interesting idea. > So now what you've identified is a market opportunity for another >looper. > That makes a lot of sense really. Let's say Gibson wanted to meet this > opportunity. They would do this the way all companies do it, by >introducing > a new low-end product. This would probably be something like an Echoplex > with all the features stripped out except for what's in a DL-4 and a few > extras, like feedback. Call it Echoplex Jr., and use the reputation of >the > high-end Echoplex to give it credibility. They price it about the same >as a > DL-4. That could easily happen. I think that'd be VERY cool if it did happen! > What they would never do is take the > flagship product, widely recognized as a high-end looper with hundreds >of > features the DL-4 lacks, and simply price it the same as a DL-4 when >there > are plenty of customers willing to pay much more. That would be foolish. True enough. If there are adequate customers at the higher price, then it's priced right. There are plenty of things which are priced beyond where -I- think they should be, so why shouldn't this be another one? Greg __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com