Boomerang

[sarajanes@mdcs.com (Sarajanes)]

 Greetings Fellow Loopers, 
                           I wanted to share with you folks some of 
the conversation I had 11/14 with Mike Nelson via telephone. Mike is the 
designer of the Boomerang Phrase Sampler, and I believe CEO of Boomerang 
Musical Products located in Dallas, Texas. I called Mike to ask a few 
questions about the nature of his product and he was gracious enough to 
speak with me at length about my concerns. If you are unfamiliar with 
the Boomerang call 1-800-530-4699 for a free brochure. Briefly the unit 
was designed to be a looping device as opposed to a delay unit. It comes 
in either 1 or 4 Mbyte configurations, yielding 32 or 128 second loop 
times respectively. The unit will allow you to half speed these times 
with resultant time extension and bandwidth loss.You can also reverse 
the signal. Other features are best left to the brochures descriptive 
intent. My concerns were in discovering what upgrades might be in 
consideration for the device currently, and how the Boomerang people 
saw their device in the scheme of the looping device market at large. 
 
                             Mike informed me that among the features 
being considered for the next incarnation of the Boomerang are an "undo" 
function, and improved tap in and tap out parameters related to layering 
or "stacking" as they refer to it. He mentioned that they had already 
done factory mods for Henry Kaiser and a looper in S.F.(??) concerning 
some of these functions. He stated that they were aware of the 
different needs of loopers as compared to "standard" players and they 
hoped to address these performance issues through the development and 
marketing of the initial model and it's subsequent improvements. I tried 
to articulate my own concerns about existing looper manufacturers and 
their relative lack of interest concerning customer service and we 
agreed that it came down to bottom line economics,i.e. if Lexicon sells 
a hundred LXP-15 to every Jamman, where does the happy axe fall...no 
mystery. I stressed to him that the nature of this technology's future 
being driven by fiscally uninterested business interests was it's single 
biggest detrimental tangent. Coupled with the nature of looping not 
being all that accessable a compositional style for many players, the 
factors presented a challenge I suggested would "undo" even the best 
layed plans. Mike reassured me that his committment stemmed from his 
first instincts as a player not a salesman, and the desire to market 
a well made device with superior performance functionality. 
 
                              I feel Mike and his company are making an 
honest effort to provide a quality product with the proper amount of 
related customer service. My personal experience with factory reps and 
the like over the years (Gibson included) have made this buyer beware. 
I gave Mike the Loopers Delight URL, and urged him to access it as a 
source of information and feedback that would benefit his pursuits and 
perhaps all loopers in time. I know that the devices currently in 
existance can be improved upon and that the key to making that happen 
and other future developments is honest communication about our needs 
and desires as loopers, but those issues need to fall on hearing ears 
with adequate minds, and pockets. I hope the people at Boomerang can 
provide these important aspects through their work, time will tell. 
In the meantime, 16 and 32 seconds are my playground timeframes and 
I'll make do.....but the day is coming hopefully when I can choose an 
upgrade that makes sense, while not emptying the fridge for months as 
a direct consequence (women and children get crabby and uncooperative 
when malnourished). Hope this was of interest, stay looped. 
 
                                        Bryan (loss of signal) Helm