Re: music just for musicians?

[Jon Durant <74074.1316@CompuServe.COM>]

Dr. Michael writes:

>I'm not sure that's encessarily fair.  Just because a market is small,
>doesn't mean it has to die.  Out of interest, how many JamMen were sold
>compared to hour high-end reverbs?  The market for those must be tiny 
>(What
>do you think, dear - change the car or buy a Lex 300?).

OK, but try to remember that the Lex 300 also generates quite a bit more 
profit
than does a JamMan--especially when they have to be blown out to sell at 
all.
You have to sell a whole lot more Jampersons to make up what what you make 
on a
single 300. Not to mention how much more advertising you have to do. Let's 
face
it, you're market for the 300 is well defined: big studios who charge big
dollars for their time. OK, we know who they are, they know who we are. 
Easy.
Jamperson possible target audience? Uh, everyone who plays any instrument. 
How
do you reach them? How do you reach the sax players to tell them that 
Michael
Brecker uses a JamMan? How do you reach all the
guitarists/bassists/percussionists/vocalists/violinists/DJs/ blahblahblah. 
The
point is it costs an incredible sum of money to properly market a product 
like
the Jamman--just to get to the limited number of peoples in each of these
disparate groups. It really isn't a profitable idea, unless the product 
costs a
whole lot more. But, as we found out, the product didn't sell until the 
price
was dropped to the zero profit point.

So does this mean that the market has to vanish? I don't think so, but I 
think
that there has to be some very realistic thinking involved. The looping 
device
cannot be the bread-and-butter piece of a companies product line. But it 
can be
a valuable addition, so long as the company doesn't get uptight about slow 
sales
on one product. (of course, if there is such a company out there, I don't 
belive
that they are in the MI biz...)

I still maintain that the easy answer is a looping card for the PCM 80. 
All the
tools are in place, and it would be a really great product, albeit an 
expensive
one. But no one wanted to hear it, so...

Later,
Jon Durant