Re: Looper development and production costs?

[jim palmer <jimp@pobox.com>]

> 
> Jim lists:
> >- don't go againinator
> >- digital i/o
> 
> s/pdif? USB? FireWire?
> 

i was thinking aes/ebu but some thinking about 
which format would definitely be in order...

> >- balanced analog i/o
> 
> what for? I would rather like the jacks to be stereo. I hate to 
> connect two cables and keep modifying all of my equipment for stereo 
> cables... The line ins of my small Mackie are L/Mono - R/Stereo - 
> without any loss or cost, just an hour of work :-)

i'm just one of those finicky audio freaks...
but if you had digital i/o, then us freaks could use our own converters 
and 
get balanced signals.

i agree that cabling is a mess. i am currently trying to figure out how my 
rig
will be configured for live looping.  i promised rick walker a show early 
next year...

> >- stereo
> 
> certainly
> 
> >- expandable memory.
> 
> certainly, actual SIMMs or flash card (more expensive!)?
>

i think both. internal memory on sims.
i like the repeaters compact flash card idea as well...


> >- flash os
> 
> yes
> 
> >- variable sample rates (lo-fi up to high res)
> 
> what for? once RAM is sufficiently cheap?
> One thing I think a lot about: To maintain Brother compatibility with 
> the old EDPs, it would be interesting to keep the clock at 41k. I 
> dont think this rate seriously affects sound quality.
> But for further compatibility, we would have to have 44.1kHz, too... 
> another parameter?
> 

i like going lo fi to get that nasty grunge (see? i'm not totally 
finicky...)
i like monkeying with the clock rate on delay devices to get weird
pitch/time shifts...


> >here's an idea: if gibson is not interested, why not have an open 
> >source design project?
> >i think enough people would be interested in the project to make it 
>happen.
> >and then when the design work was done (an interesting term in open 
> >source, i know),
> >gibson could run with it...
> 
> The design is not owned by Gibson and the licence is not exclusive, 
> but quite some money and structure to develop and distribute is 
> needed...
> Do you suggest that this effort would be made by the community, too?
> 

if we followed dennis' idea of using standard computer hardware,
then yes. otherwise i was just thinking gibson might jump on it if
the design work were already done (less r&d)   this had to be at
least part of their thinking in continuing production after taking over
oberheim, right?

> The present structure of the soft would hardly allow an open source 
> design and I would not be willing to give away 8 years of work for 
> which I did not get back yet what I put into it... I mayb e wrong...
> But as we worked up to now, quite some user wishes have been 
> implemented and this could grow further.
> Once the upgrade is done, for example, I could imagine to assemble 
> personal EPROMs with special variations of the functions for a 
> reasonable money.
> 

linux developers make pretty good money, don't they?
especially the ones most involved in the design of the os...
i think people would still pay for custom mods...
have you not recovered startup costs?
or are you referring to the time you have spent?
i certainly don't think you should be working for free...
(i realize that may seem a bit self-contradictory)