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Re: Orvilles to replace EDPs?



At 04:51 AM 3/30/2003, Eric Williamson wrote:
>Quoting "JAMES FOWLER, III" <jimfowler@prodigy.net>:
> > i would stick with your edps for looping...you're
> > gonna have a hard time beating the flexibility of the
> > unit within the idiom.  plus, a pair of
> > orvilles...that's nearly 10 grand!!!
>
>no, he wouldn't need a pair. he'd just need one. Mr Redenbacher has 2 
>seperate
>DSP units in it, each capable of looping and processing. there is no way 
>to do
>feedback between the two blocks unfortunately (well, not in stereo).

The original question was about BrotherSync type functionality possible 
between two Echoplex units. Can you sync the two delay lines in an Orville 
in the same way as you can sync two EDP's with BrotherSync?

>i think that the DSP7500 may be more appropriate for looping/processing, 
>as it
>is much cheaper (3 grand).
>
>3 grand for eventide vs 3 grand for stereo exoplechen and
>harmoniser/pcm/whatever unit.

I don't see how you arrived at 3 grand for the echoplexes, must be the new 
math.

>it's kind of a wash when you look at it that way.

the functionality between the two choices would be totally different. So 
it 
is not a wash at all, it depends completely on what you want to do.

>if you NEVER use multiply, reverse, undo whatnot it could work great.

or ReAlign, BrotherSync, Multiple Loops, Sampler Triggering and delay 
looping simultaneously, adjustable startpoints, SUS mode control, 
UnRounded 
Multiply, UnRounded Insert, real time loop copies, quantizing, etc etc 
etc. 
Similarly, there are all sorts of loopong things you could do with 
eventides that the EDP can't do. Unless your approach to looping is very 
simplistic, the two have such different functionality that you are just 
not 
going to be able to trade one for the other.

>i never use undo, never store my loops, and rarely use multiply. i don't 
>know
>what i'm going to do.

Why don't you just get something simple like an Akai headrush? If your 
needs are so simple, you don't need an EDP or an Eventide.

>the Expensive Expansive Gibson Looper is the BEST USER
>INTERFACE DESIGN FOR A REALTIME LOOP/DELAY but i think that it's 
>overpriced for
>2003.

People are buying it at that price, so apparently not. There is nothing 
comparable for a lower price, so there is no competitive pricing pressure 
to bring the price down. Indeed, if the only alternate choice available is 
a $5000 Eventide product, Gibson could even consider raising their price.

>when i first looked into getting an EDP for myself back in 1996, the
>price that the local music store gave me was 390 bucks. when i finally 
>got 
>the
>money together to order one it had risen to 580. it is now TWICE what i 
>was
>originally quoted. that is not following inflation.

Here in the world where I live we have this thing called Capitalism. Now, 
Capitalism may have it's flaws, but that is in fact how the economy is 
structured whether you like it or not. In Capitalism, prices are set by 
supply and demand. If people are willing to buy something at a given 
price, 
then that is what the price will be. Prices are not set by the cost to 
manufacture something. That is how they do it in Socialism, which we don't 
practice here.

>i remember an email exchange i had with a nice man who works at Trace 
>Elliot.
>he told me the reason the price was so ridiculous for the EDP was that 
>because
>the design dates to 1992, many of the components are NLA or very 
>expensive.

No, that is not really correct. the parts are available, and the cost of 
them is not really an issue.

It doesn't matter though. Again, price is set by the market, not the 
manufacturing cost. Profit is affected by manufacturing costs, but that is 
the manufacturer's problem, not the consumer. Price is set by the market, 
and it appears that in this case the market is willing to spend more than 
you. You seem to find this upsetting.

>most other manufacturers would find a more cost-effective way to build 
>more
>units, as continuing to support hardware which uses unobtanium components 
>is
>not taking the long term into healthy consideration.

That makes no sense. They have production running fine. Units are 
available. People are buying them. Hopefully they continue to make a 
reasonable profit so it is worthwhile to continue.

Spending a lot of money on R&D adds more cost overall, even if the per 
unit 
cost of goods comes down. Then they have to make up the R&D costs.

However, let's suppose they were to redesign it for a lower cost and it 
magically didn't require any R&D investment. The cost to build it goes way 
down. Guess what would happen to the price? Nothing! The price would be 
the 
same! You would have the same features in a box, and the same Market 
willing to pay a given price for those features. So the price does not 
change, but the manufacturer's profit improves. Good for them, no 
difference for you.

Do you actually think an Orville costs $5000 because the parts in it are 
that expensive? No, it is because the Orville has a great set of features 
that is worth $5000 to a lot of people. If it cost Eventide $20 to make 
it, 
they would still sell it for $5000.


>he said he was trying to get the price down by buying components en masse,
>which would lower their per-unit parts cost.

He may have been a little confused about his role. His job of reducing the 
build cost is to help his employer improve their profit margins at the 
prices set by the market. That is a good thing overall, since a good 
profit 
margin encourages a company to continue making a product and investing in 
future products. It also gives them more flexibility in pricing, should 
market pressures change the price.

>what happens when you run out of
>those parts? you've bought all you can find.

It doesn't seem like that is a problem, since they are currently 
manufacturing EDP+ units in volume. In any case it would be their problem 
to sort out.

>the law of supply and demand (and
>the nature of business: if you can sell it for that price, don't lower the
>price) say that the price of the EDP will continue to stay high or even 
>rise
>higher!

No, you've got that confused. The price of the EDP will continue to be set 
by Supply and Demand of EDP's in the Looper marketplace. The cost of 
components in the EDP will only affect the profits made by Gibson.


>why doesn't Eventide licence the LOOPIV software for a module inside the
>Orville/DSP series?

We have a price for LoopIV, set by our market for it. There would be an 
additional NRE price for converting it to work in an Eventide (or any 
other 
platform), along with an R&D price for Eventide to pay in order to get 
their hardware and OS to do the functionality we would need. If Eventide 
becomes interested in paying that price, it could appear in an Eventide 
product. At the moment, they seem to be happy with doing their own thing.

>i think there are alot of people who would scrape together
>3 grand to buy a 24/96 LoopDelay with premium effects processing built 
>in. 
>they
>can scrape together 1700 (including 2 Aurisis ROMs) for a stereo echoplex 
>...

Maybe your problem is you shop at a really expensive store? By my 
calculation they pay significantly less than $1700.

kim


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