Re: What it means to build vs. play...

[msottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

On Tuesday, August 26, 2003, at 02:45  PM, Kim Flint wrote:

> Same for musical instruments. The vast majority of people who get 
> musical instruments just wish to play them. The less time fiddling the 
> better. There is a tiny fraction of people who like to build their own 
> instruments. It's a fun hobby and they spend most of their time doing 
> that instead of actually playing. That's great for them. But certainly 
> isn't the wave of the future now anymore than it is with cars, or it 
> was with breadboards and radio shack.

I think you're right about a lot of the points, except that as a list, 
we're probably more like the tinkerers than the Strat into a Twin crowd.

Also, cars are by their nature more expensive than (most) audio gear.  
Because of that people will tend to buy more than one effect box.  Soon 
they'll have a floorboard full of them.  Then, they'll switch to a rack 
with a MIDI controller.  But maybe some of the stompboxes have 
functionality that the rack effect processor doesn't.  So maybe you get 
another.... and another.  Now, what if I told you that you could buy a 
blank piece of audio gear and make it what you want buy purchasing 
effects ala carte?  I think that sounds great.  A good example is the 
Lexicon MPX-G2.  I thought it's distortion sounds were cold and 
horrible, but I loved it's other effects.  Maybe someone else would 
want only it's reverbs and filters... but they like another effects 
company's chorus.  That to me sounds like the best of all worlds.  In 
graphics design it's totally like that.  I buy Adobe's image editor, 
but Macromedia's vector animation program.  Photoshop doesn't do 
everything I need it to, so I extend it with Extensis plug ins.  
Another person might not need more than what Photoshop comes with and 
that person saved money.

Anyway, effects are pretty much hardware and software these days.  Each 
box I have has a d/a a/d converter in it.  Why did I pay for that 
component 12 times?  You can argue with me all you want, but I think 
that things like Plugzilla and that other one Kim posted are going to 
change the way all effects are purchased in the future.

Mark Sottilaro