Re: Repeater's Demise

[Kim Flint <kflint@loopers-delight.com>]

At 11:39 AM 7/9/2002, Greg House wrote:
>The looper in the DL4 also presents a feature checkmark (in marketing
>terms) that other competing products probably feel they need to also
>include.

just correcting the history a bit here: Line6 copied the Boomerang feature 
set almost exactly for their looper in the DL-4. The main obvious 
difference is one less button, forcing line6 to do the odd 
halfspeed/reverse combo on one button. In Line6's original literature from 
before they shipped the DL-4 they even referred to the looper as a 
"Boomerang Model". This disappeared shortly later, probably when Boomerang 
pointed out that they did not agree to this use of their name.

so in reality, it is Boomerang that should get the credit for the basic 
feature check list for a footpedal looper.

>That also expands the exposure of musicians to looping
>devices, further enhancing the market for such a device. This should
>eventually lead to more sales of great units like the EDP, and
>potentially enough market for other vendors to add full-featured
>loopers.

That is true. Having a variety of devices in the market brings more people 
to the idea of looping. Sooner or later many of those people become 
customers of the other companies making similar devices. Also, just the 
collective effort of several different companies marketing the idea helps 
everybody, since nobody has the resources to do a big enough marketing 
effort on their own. The real source of growth for any company making 
niche 
products like these is the huge pool of potential users who don't use any 
of them yet. Stealing the relatively tiny number of current customers from 
each other doesn't amount to much. So even from a manufacturer's point of 
view, having more companies involved is better in the long run even if it 
doesn't always seem that way in the short run....

kim


______________________________________________________________________
Kim Flint                     | Looper's Delight
kflint@loopers-delight.com    | http://www.loopers-delight.com