AW: Crazy idea to help us grow our community (and also: LiveLoop Festival Endowment post)

["Rainer Thelonius Balthasar Straschill" <rs@moinlabs.de>]

Dear Rick,

again, you're taking the lead with a combination of communist suggestions,
which in part do actually make sense ;-).

I see both posts (the "crazy idea" one and the "endowment" one) to be
somewhat related, that's why I will comment on them together.

First, regarding the "giving away an old computer" idea:
Speaking about Mobius, you wouldn't even need to ask Jeff to donate a
license, because as you may remember, it's free anyway. A computer like the
one you mentioned is basically worthless (meaning prices they fetch on the
used market are on par or below with shipping costs). And as requirements
for a looping computer, I remember that guy who used Mobius on a 128MB
800MHz CeleronI - a kind of computer I recently threw away because nobody
wanted it (it even had more RAM and a decent UltraSCSI system). So
seriously, by supplying something like that ritually at the festival, you
would actually make a little bit of a fool of yourself, as it would be
somewhat like ritually donating a gum wrapper to someone...

The actual costs really come with the accessories, which you usually don't
give away because they don't loose value that rapidly. To do proper 
looping,
you'd need a foot controller, a MIDI interface (to connect that foot
controller, if it's not a USB device) and probably even an audio interface
(although chances are good that the onboard sound can be used for startes) 
-
which sums up above the price of a cheap hardware looper.


Then, there's your other mail, regarding that DL4 you gave to a friend to
help him get into looping, and end that post (about repeating that in the
future): "I will each year, money permitting."

So here's my question: why don't you start lending the DL4 to someone (for 
a
year, e.g.), and then either he gets into looping and gets a looper of his
own (like your friend Jack did), or he doesn't - either case, you can give
your unused DL4 to someone new the next year.

I have been doing similar stuff with un/seldom-used loopers in the past, 
and
it really helped to get some people into looping (whatever it meant for
them) - and all that without any cost occuring to me (ignoring interest
rates on the looper for now), and saving them from the risk of buying
something they didn't even know they'd enjoy for a prolonged amount of 
time.

Summarizing:
Giving away your old computers is a good idea, if only for ecological
reasons, but I don't see a computer-based looping setup as a good starting
point (and also as a simple one, for the reasons stated above).

Your endowment concept is great (and has been done by me in the past as
well, although not "ritually"), but I believe it can be done in a low-cost
fashion by simply giving away an unused looper on a loan basis.

Yours,

        Rainer