Re: Looper development and production costs?

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

That's great news.  I surmised from your earlier posts that it was more 
touch and go than that.  My feelings are, the more loopers, the merrier.

Mark

On Tuesday, October 16, 2001, at 09:46 PM, Kim Flint wrote:

> At 02:41 PM 10/16/2001, you wrote:
>> OK.  Sure.  Don't come to me when Gibson decides (again) that the EDP 
>> isn't worth
>> manufacturing.
>
> actually, Gibson never made such a decision before. Rather the 
> opposite, they've kept the echoplex around even when divisions 
> collapsed around it. They've even very recently devoted substantial 
> effort and money to keeping it going, making improvements to it, and 
> bettering the manufacturing process. That is why they are currently 
> easily available. Gibson has believed in looping for a lot longer than 
> just about any other company that's touched the idea.
>
>> My guess is not only will there not be an EDP 2, but within a
>> year, there probably won't be an EDP at all.
>
> It is impossible to know for sure what the future holds, but I don't 
> see that. As Tom pointed out, we are about to release a major new 
> software generation for it, allowing us an opportunity to reintroduce 
> it to the market and get new attention for all of the new 
> functionality. In any case, what Gibson decides to do isn't the same as 
> what Aurisis decides to do. If they don't want to do the EDP anymore, 
> we find some alternative. At the current time though, they seem to be 
> pretty enthusiastic.
>
>
>> The reason I don't own one is
>> because it didn't exist when I was in the market for one, and when it 
>> did, there
>> was a better alternative.  Because Electrix is aiming at a broader 
>> audience,
>> they'll win.  If you don't think it's a numbers game, you're asleep.  
>> I'm
>> suggesting (and offering my services for free, BTW) a logo redesign 
>> because I
>> don't want to see the EDP go away, even though I'm glad I went to the 
>> Repeater.
>> There will be a big change soon, and Trace-Elliot should be worried.
>
> Actually, they had more to be worried about when Electrix was 
> constantly delayed in releasing the Repeater. A lot of people delayed 
> buying decisions until Repeater was out, so they could compare. The 
> longer Repeater was delayed, the longer that lasted. Now that Repeater 
> is out and people have looked at it, I've noticed more people buying 
> echoplexes again. I don't have sales data yet to know for sure, just a 
> guess from comments people have made to me in the past month or so. 
> Decisions go both ways, depending on what people want. People other 
> than Mark seem to find quite a bit of difference between the two. Some 
> find the repeater is what they want, some find the EDP was what they 
> wanted after all. Probably some are buying the RC-20 or the boomerang 
> or dl-4 or Cycloops. The fact that there are quite a bit of differences 
> among all of these gives sales people something to talk about to 
> differentiate and sell their thing. This has resulted in much less 
> worry, not more, because the real situation is clear.
>
>
>> I can say no
>> more.  There are more DJs than there are looping musicians, and 
>> Electrix is
>> hitting both bases.
>
> I'm sorry, but I don't see many DJ's talking about the Repeater. Where 
> do you see that? I see a lot more discussion among dj's about the 
> Cycloops, which is a cool new looper well aimed at that market. In 
> fact, I've noticed that after the initial excitement, discussion of the 
> Repeater has died down a lot. Impossible to say if that means less 
> sales. But I would guess there was a sizable group of people built up 
> over a year of waiting, who all bought right at the beginning. After 
> that big wave, sales are going to come from new people coming into the 
> idea, which will be necessarily much slower than the initial rush. 
> Timing for Electrix probably couldn't be worse, given world events and 
> economic situations. But NAMM is coming so probably they can get a 
> boost out of that.
>
>
>> If what Kim says about EDP sales is true, there aren't many
>> EDP sales in a year.  Barely enough to make it worth making, if I'm 
>> reading him
>> correctly.  If Electrix takes a chunk of their sales (as they did with 
>> me) this
>> conversation will be moot.
>
> No, what I'm saying is there are not many Looper sales in a year of any 
> kind. This message comes from all different manufacturers. Lexicon said 
> this after the jamman was a major money-loser for them. Their execs 
> considered looping a joke after that and laughed members of their staff 
> out of the office for suggesting a jamman 2. Line-6 has just said this, 
> when they indicated it wasn't worth it to them to hire one programmer 
> to work on the looper functions of the echo pro. TC says this in 
> regards to their delays. We see this in our own numbers. Etc.
>
> It is a tiny market, and you organize your resources accordingly to be 
> successful in it. I think it is a growing market with a lot of 
> potential, but it is still very small. Principles that are true for 
> high-volume consumer goods are not true here. Yet the engineering 
> effort required is very high, as high as it would be for any consumer 
> electronics product. Loopers are very complex devices, much more so 
> than the average effects processor. You have to make smart choices 
> based on what you can really do with the money available and the 
> expected ROI, and a mistake will quickly put you out of business. Just 
> because the market is small does not mean that you cannot do well with 
> it, you just have to operate on a scale related to the actual market, 
> and make rational decisions accordingly. That is the message I am 
> sending.
>
> Electrix actually helps the EDP, because they bring more attention to 
> the whole idea of looping just by existing. When there is only one 
> product, people think it is a niche and many stay away. When there is 
> more than one, people see a market with choices, and they get 
> interested just for that. More choices makes it seem bigger, even if it 
> isn't. Significant growth in sales of loopers does not happen by 
> stealing customers back and forth from one manufacturer to the other. 
> That pool of existing loopers is too tiny and not worth fighting over. 
> Bringing new people into the pool is how it grows. Electrix is a new 
> entity doing marketing about looping. If Electrix draws new attention 
> to looping, many of those people will want to make some comparisons 
> before they buy. Some of them will choose to buy something different 
> from the Repeater. No matter what, it is a new customer for looping 
> products, which is ultimately good for everybody. Who knows, maybe that 
> customer will buy a second looper next year, which will be a sale for 
> somebody else.
>
> kim
>
>
> ______________________________________________________________________
> Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
> kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com
>