Re: Looper development and production costs?

["Dennis Leas" <dennis@mdbs.com>]

If we're brainstorming, here's some thoughts...

Why design all custom hardware?  Why not use the Alesis ADAT model (i.e.,
their use of stock VCR tape transports) and use as much off-the-shelf
hardware as possible ?  (I realize Alesis is *probably* a bad example to
use...)  Use a commonly available PC motherboard but *don't* use the
"standard" software.  It boots only looper-ware.  Sure the motherboard
would have far too much hardware than you need but it might be cheaper in
production and certainly would not require as much R&D.  The problem with
looping on a stock PC is not the hardware so much as the non-real-time
(bloated) OS.

Some custom hardware would be probably required.  But probably not too 
much.
You could probably get by with all off-the-shelf hardware except for the
user interface.  I'm just not sure if complete off-the-shelf hardware is
cost effective.  After all, it's the software that primarily makes a 
looper.
Excepting the user interface (like the EDP LED display) what is the
hardware?  ADC, DAC, MIDI interface, memory, processor, supply, and 
probably
something like a NIC, USB, or SCSI.

Dennis Leas
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dennis@mdbs.com