Re: Putting my money where my mouth is

[kflint@annihilist.com (Kim Flint)]

>Echoplex originators on the list, but I do think that sooner or later some
>of the issues I mentioned would have had to come to light, rather than be
>alluded to as they have been up until now.  But even with the bugs, I'd
>say we'd all be a lot worse off without the Echoplex being available in
>whatever form.
>
>Thanks again,
>
>--Andre

Well, I think a lot of the reason these issues are in the light is because
I've been openly telling people about them for the past two years.
Marketing people will go to great effort to explain to you that your
problem doesn't exist, or was your fault, or whatever. I think that's a lot
of crap. Users should be treated with respect and given whatever
information there is about a product. When I was at Gibson, that's what I
did. When users got through to me, I took time to work with them on their
problem, making sure that it was solved. If it couldn't be solved, I at
least tried to make sure they were generally happier about the situation.
And when the net started getting more popular, I made an effort to look for
people discussing it and responded to any problems they had.

Problem is, I'm just one person with very limited time, and I can only
reach so many people. So what seems to have happened, is my careful and
often public explanations don't completely reach everyone who might care.
They just get little bits of it; remembering little things here and there.
And what seems to stick is "gee, people talk about problems with the
echoplex a lot."  This is really sad, and it makes me wonder if the
marketing people are right.

Maybe they are, but it doesn't really matter to me. What matters is that
every single person using the echoplex enjoys it. (or the jamman,
boomerang, 2290, or whatever else for that matter)  The Echoplex is a great
instrument. I own one, I use it all the time, and I like it a lot. That's
what motivated me to put so much of myself into the project in the first
place.

Does the echoplex have flaws? Yes, a few. Its a NEW INSTRUMENT! Pianos and
guitars weren't quite right two years after the first one was made either.
The important thing, and what I think I'm really trying to say here, is
that there are a great many things in the echoplex that work great and are
not flawed! Days and weeks and months and years were spent discussing every
function in there, usually to a ridiculously esoteric depth, just to make
sure that it was musical and did what a musician would expect. And from the
opposite side as well, discussing what a musician would want to do in a
situation, and creating functions for that. This took a lot of time, a lot
of trial and error, a lot of creative thinking, a lot of input from a wide
range of musicians, and a lot of guts to put something this different out
on the market. The result is the Echoplex, a powerful new musical tool with
a whole lot of new functions that have never been possible or even thought
of before. And you know what? The vast majority of them work very well.

There are a lot of users out there making all sorts of different music with
the echoplex, and enjoying it a lot. The few bugs that are there are mostly
very esoteric, or easy to fix or work around. I wish they were not there,
and some day I'm sure they won't be. But realistically, the few bugs that
we do have only cause problems on very rare instances for a few users. Most
people never have any troubles at all.

So its very frustrating to me when I see people saying things like "I'm not
going to get an Echoplex because it has too many bugs," or "I'm waiting for
the upgrade to get one because there are so many problems."  Its not that
there is a lot of problems, its that there is a perception of problems. The
perception exists because the problems are openly discussed, out of
proportion with the good points.

So what should I do? Keep talking about it I guess. Make a web site, start
a mailing list, try to convince Oberheim to clean up their act, what I've
been doing for a long time. Why do I do this? Damn if I know. Sure keeps me
up late though...

kim

______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                   | Looper's Delight
kflint@annihilist.com       | http://www.annihilist.com/loop/loop.html
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