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Yo Mark, Here we go again. :\ Mark Sottilaro wrote: > The EDP > does seem expensive to me, considering I bought my Repeaters for $525, > but tack on another $75 for more memory and it does put the Repeater in > the same range as the EDP. You can't really compare the two, but if > you're looking for a stereo unit, the Repeater comes in a lot > cheaper... even at the currently inflated ebay prices. Think about this: - The EDP has been in production, with a few breaks, for about nine years and two software upgrades. Both Gibson (the manufacturer) and Aurisis (the brain trust that actually designs the units) are alive and well, as is the product they've been putting time and money into. The former has seen fit to revamp the EDP for the European market, and the latter has seen the software through two software upgrades - The Repeater, at a slightly lower street price, destroyed the company which had created it, and the Repeater itself, in less than one year of its release. The now-extinct unit is still saddled with a fair number of bugs and a unique (and seemingly very difficult to replace) power supply. For my money, I'd be willing to spend an extra $200 on a looper if it gave me a choice between these two scenarios. > If the > Repeater had been flying out the door, they probably would have > continued it's development, as would Gibson have continued it's > development of the EDP. Conversely, the fact that the Repeater destroyed Electrix now potentially makes life more difficult for other people who are looking to design a looper. Because if a software designer is trying to shop or licence real-time looping code to a manufacturer, the Electric model of "business" could scare the hell out of prospective companies. > The truth of the matter is we loopers are a > fairly rare breed and the hardware we use is probably going to be > considered esoteric for quite some time unless someone figures out a > successful marketing scheme to pave the way for mass appeal of live > looping. The idea of looping in general is actually more popular than ever, thanks largely to the proliferation of software programs like Ableton Live, ACID, and now Radial - so much so that there's now a dedicated category for "loop editors" in a lot of music retail web sites. These programs are not necessarily designed with live-input looping in mind, but the fact that so many people are interested in real-time loop-based music making means that more and more people's heads are getting tuned to the idea. And that means there will be lots of people who, for whatever reasons, will be more inclined to want an EDP/Repeater/Boomerang than a computer running Ableton/Radial/ACID. I see this every time I do a clinic - people who don't know anything about looping start asking questions about how they might be able to implement certain types of functions and applications. > I > remember a thread about marketing looping to a broader audience that > was met with huge resistance by a lot of list members. > Pissed me the > hell off. > As if having a label would change what we were doing, people > refused to be described. OK Mark. As one of the people who pissed you off so in that exchage, maybe this will make you feel better... or at least help to acquit myself of your charge of shunning descriptive labels and hoarding looping to this mailing list: These are raw page views and downloads from my website, from December 25th, 2001 (when I uploaded my first wave of EDP solos), to yesterday - about 15 months. These are not hits; these are actual unique pageviews and invidiual file downloads. /EDP/index.html (main page for the EDP analysis pages): 5,916 pageviews asana.mp3: 2,442 downloads /EDP/ambient.html: 1,820 pageviews /EDP/tg.html: 1,609 pageviews glitch.mp3: 1,409 downloads /EDP/dt.html: 1,111 pageviews /EDP/2001.html: 1,066 pageviews relent.mp3: 1,055 downloads umbra.mp3: 1,036 downloads azimuth.ram: 934 streams insinuation.mp3: downloads /EDP/muso.html: 845 downloads strange.mp3: 819 downloads ton.mp3: 700 downloads backwardsglance.mp3: 680 downloads spastic.mp3: 620 downloads reaction.mp3: 587 downloads diorama.mp3: 585 downloads flux.mp3: 585 downloads entwined.mp3: 584 downloads bookworm.mp3: 583 downloads hushed.mp3: 528 downloads gestalt.mp3: 517 downloads bela.mp3: 475 downloads shrine.mp3: 466 downloads smalldrama.mp3: 436 downloads instant.mp3: 395 downloads Now, as for my alleged refusal to label what I'm doing: I came up with a label called "turntablist guitar" which at least 2,500 people have heard in action and 1,600 people have specifically read about, and has fostered discussions like this one: http://makeashorterlink.com/?Y2E4144B3 I personally think this is a better, more evocative, and more accurate label than "juggling music" (which is one of the labels Matthias was seriously considering for his loop music web site, in the thread which caused you so much grief). I feel it's more specific and informative than "loop music," because that could be Brian Eno or Steve Reich or Public Enemy or Underworld or Aphex Twin, and it talks about how a type of music is made, rather than what it sounds like. I don't want to require potential listeners to sit through a technical lecture or a philosophical essay before they're going to have some clue as to what my music sounds like. And I don't think it's fair to any artist for their stylistic orientation to be glossed over in the name of forcing them into a box with a bunch of completely unrelated musical styles because they use the same kind of gear. If you put a lot of time and energy into marketing something the wrong way, you're not doing anyone any favors. Ask Electrix - if you can even get an answer from them nowadays. These are a few of the reasons I objected to ideas in that thread, Mark. If you're going to belittle my opinion, then I hope you'll at least grant me the change of trying to justify it? > Here's the real kick in the ass: I believe that one of the > problems here is with US. I think most of us love our little secret > looping devices and techniques and this tiny community we've built. You might notice that, about halfway down that list of downloads, the number go from being close to 1,000 to being closer to 500. Most of the downloads in the latter portion were LoopIII solos which were posted primarily to this list. Most of the more heavily downloaded files, in the first half, are LoopIV sounds which were promoted on the Looper's Delight and Aurisis web sites, as well as the LoopIV press release. In other words, being promoted off this list has, ironically, been one of the best things to happen to my own music. A lot of us have been working our asses off to take this stuff, out of the realm of the armchair philosophical debate and into the world at large. Thousands of people have been listening to my EDP solos and reading my performance transcriptions. Tens of thousands of people heard and saw Steve Lawson playing with two EDP's on the Level 42 tour last year. Everyone who read the back-page editorial in Electronic Musician last year found out about Loopstock. Rick Walker made the front page of the Santa Cruz Metro in January. Ironically enough, Mark, your scathing denouncement of Gibson, the EDP, Looper's Delight, and people who don't agree with you on a half-year-dead thread (including myself) comes at a point when I've been seriously questioning the tremendous amount of time and effort I've expended over the last year and a half. To try and present my music in a compelling and unique manner, and to inform people about the nuts and bolts of exactly what I was doing, has been a very long and arduous path. Reading emails like yours, though, make me seriously wonder if this hasn't been a serious waste of time. So I'm sorry, Mark. I'm sorry nobody's come up with a label to describe every member of this list that I agree with. I'm sorry I haven't been able to demonstrate what's so special about the EDP in a manner that justifies the cost to you. I'm sorry if 6,000 page views in 15 months for a looping tutorial site with no advertising budget isn't getting you the results you'd like. Maybe if I posted nasty and curmudgeonly messages to Looper's Delight criticizing the attitudes and efforts of its other members, I'd really be getting somewhere. In the meantime, I have to go finish an album. I hate to be argumentative, Mark, but you may not realize how hurtful your kind of attitude can be. Please think about this next time, before you scream through your keyboard again? --Andre LaFosse http://www.altruistmusic.com