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Boomerang
Greetings Fellow Loopers,
I wanted to share with you folks some of
the conversation I had 11/14 with Mike Nelson via telephone. Mike is the
designer of the Boomerang Phrase Sampler, and I believe CEO of Boomerang
Musical Products located in Dallas, Texas. I called Mike to ask a few
questions about the nature of his product and he was gracious enough to
speak with me at length about my concerns. If you are unfamiliar with
the Boomerang call 1-800-530-4699 for a free brochure. Briefly the unit
was designed to be a looping device as opposed to a delay unit. It comes
in either 1 or 4 Mbyte configurations, yielding 32 or 128 second loop
times respectively. The unit will allow you to half speed these times
with resultant time extension and bandwidth loss.You can also reverse
the signal. Other features are best left to the brochures descriptive
intent. My concerns were in discovering what upgrades might be in
consideration for the device currently, and how the Boomerang people
saw their device in the scheme of the looping device market at large.
Mike informed me that among the features
being considered for the next incarnation of the Boomerang are an "undo"
function, and improved tap in and tap out parameters related to layering
or "stacking" as they refer to it. He mentioned that they had already
done factory mods for Henry Kaiser and a looper in S.F.(??) concerning
some of these functions. He stated that they were aware of the
different needs of loopers as compared to "standard" players and they
hoped to address these performance issues through the development and
marketing of the initial model and it's subsequent improvements. I tried
to articulate my own concerns about existing looper manufacturers and
their relative lack of interest concerning customer service and we
agreed that it came down to bottom line economics,i.e. if Lexicon sells
a hundred LXP-15 to every Jamman, where does the happy axe fall...no
mystery. I stressed to him that the nature of this technology's future
being driven by fiscally uninterested business interests was it's single
biggest detrimental tangent. Coupled with the nature of looping not
being all that accessable a compositional style for many players, the
factors presented a challenge I suggested would "undo" even the best
layed plans. Mike reassured me that his committment stemmed from his
first instincts as a player not a salesman, and the desire to market
a well made device with superior performance functionality.
I feel Mike and his company are making an
honest effort to provide a quality product with the proper amount of
related customer service. My personal experience with factory reps and
the like over the years (Gibson included) have made this buyer beware.
I gave Mike the Loopers Delight URL, and urged him to access it as a
source of information and feedback that would benefit his pursuits and
perhaps all loopers in time. I know that the devices currently in
existance can be improved upon and that the key to making that happen
and other future developments is honest communication about our needs
and desires as loopers, but those issues need to fall on hearing ears
with adequate minds, and pockets. I hope the people at Boomerang can
provide these important aspects through their work, time will tell.
In the meantime, 16 and 32 seconds are my playground timeframes and
I'll make do.....but the day is coming hopefully when I can choose an
upgrade that makes sense, while not emptying the fridge for months as
a direct consequence (women and children get crabby and uncooperative
when malnourished). Hope this was of interest, stay looped.
Bryan (loss of signal) Helm