This is the Golden Age

[iaresee]

Can you imagine a pedal that runs Reaktor? or Max? or... whatever you can write in software?

Oh yea...I really can. Especially Max patches. Man I so want a way to put Max patches at my feet. I do not feel comfortable "playing the laptop" live.

Yessss, I want one!!!!!!!!
That V-pedal looks coooool!
Anyone tried it?

It's still vapourware. The video from Musicmesse is even a little suspect. But if it's real it's due out in May IIRC. 400 Euros.

[DougH]

And don't just look at the circuits - the questions being asked, and the proposals being put in the forum are evidence of what really makes a golden age - the people.

So for me, it feels golden right now.

I think there are two different conversations going on in this thread. One is about the pedal industry as a whole, which IMO for the most part has been a stale joke. The other is about the diy activities, which I agree have been exploding and have been very healthy.

[R.G.]

Yes.

[soulsonic]

It's certainly becoming a Golden Age for the hobby. At times, it seems more like it's still the Wild West in some ways. I mean that, like Gus seems to have suggested, there appears to be an odd mixing of professional and hobbyist which has made for some rather dubious design "standards". While many of these things are just fine for hobbyists, they really aren't appropriate for professionally manufactured products, but so many people in the "business" now are little more than uppity hobbyists who don't realize or aren't even aware that there's much better ways to do many of these things. It really makes me wonder what the market is going to be like 10 years from now - who's going to win? Will the successful effect companies be run by accomplished professionals, or basement hobbyists with a knack for salesmanship?

The weird thing about two different conversations going on is that I think there's really two different answers. I believe that as a hobby we're definitely in the Golden Age; with so many resources, kits, forums, websites and books available... it's crazy to think how much is out there now!
As far as the business of stompboxes is concerned; it's more like they're already past the Golden Age and are now in the Decadent era of eventual decline. It really is overwhelmingly decadent in the stompbox biz, with everyone and his brother selling a $300 boutique clone of a generic overdrive pedal that originally sold for about $100. This kind of thing is definitely not a sign of future growth, and I have a feeling the playing field is going to shrink alot in the next few years. Though I believe the huge selection of different effects will remain, I just think that alot of the redundancy will be removed.

[frank_p]

Now 60 years that Rock & Roll and decadence are getting along pretty well.  Now that is what I call a long term relationship.
Eternal unity of the opposites: golden ages and decadences via rock.  Your Sonic Soul is in Unity.

[any]

Yes, it is the golden age of pedals an I'll be sure to crank out the nastiest noisyest pedals
conceivable to make sure it IS the golden age...
Seriously though, the truth is many of the "DIY" builders here on the forum and beyond
are passionately pushing their envelopes electrically, technically and artistically.

Cheers!

[arawn]

Seriously, we're almost there. There are a couple of routes to this now and it's getting easier every day. There are ModelSim -> FPGA bridges that let you do block-based DSP design in ModelSim and move it to hardware. There's the Max/MSP approach. Combine it with Pluggo (which lets you turn Max/MSP patches into VST plugins) and something like this VST plugin running pedal and you've got Max/MSP block design -> hardware. This is the area where I think development has only just really begun. Forgot modeling and emulation. I don't understand why companies spend so much time trying to model when they could be innovating (I think TC Electronic was smart with the Nova stuff: no modeling overdrives, only analog overdrives in the multi-FX units) in the digital space. Doing new things. Instead of trying to do things that work well in analog, imperfectly in digital. I only really started to stray seriously in this DIY space as I started to contemplate how I could take some of the things I love doing in Max/MSP and put them at my feet. It's proving hard, but not impossible.

dUDE i WANT ONE !!!!!So much and imagine having access to the code so you can alter it to suit your preferences better. Like the BBE vst's i like but I would like better if i could fix what I consider shortcomings.

[DougH]

Will the successful effect companies be run by accomplished professionals, or basement hobbyists with a knack for salesmanship?

I suspect the basement people will have to learn a lot of the same lessons the pros already have, if they are going to survive.

One thing that hasn't really been discussed is the "definition inflation" of the word boutique. It used to mean "something that was built with more care than is possible with mass-production". Now it means "anything that is not mass-produced". There's a lot of garbage parading as "boutique" these days. And as cottage industries go, in the pedal world customers don't seem to make much distinction between the true craftsmen/entrepreneurs and the envelope-lickers.

a $300 boutique clone of a generic overdrive pedal that originally sold for about $100. This kind of thing is definitely not a sign of future growth, and I have a feeling the playing field is going to shrink alot in the next few years.

I used think the same thing, Martin. But you are not taking the audiophile aesthetic that has crept into this into account. That throws any rational or logical predictions about its future growth haywire.

[ayayay!]

As far as the business of stompboxes is concerned; it's more like they're already past the Golden Age and are now in the Decadent era of eventual decline. It really is overwhelmingly decadent in the stompbox biz, with everyone and his brother selling a $300 boutique clone of a generic overdrive pedal that originally sold for about $100. This kind of thing is definitely not a sign of future growth, and I have a feeling the playing field is going to shrink alot in the next few years. Though I believe the huge selection of different effects will remain, I just think that alot of the redundancy will be removed.

I agree with this, but it also plays into the audiophile comments above very well.  I think it will shrink somewhat, but in a good way.  I think a lot of it is just timing.   But let's not forget integrity counts, and most guys are out of the "biz" as soon as you notice they're in, mostly because they're just copying another "mod" (which we've also already discussed in detail.)   Honestly a good product/mod will sell itself, but it's a shame to see blatant rip-offs.  However that comes along with free enterprise and I for one have to love it and hope, at the end of the day, that integrity will win.  In this business it wins, as the sins of the casual hack are usually exposed in a short amount of time, sometimes buy fellows like us, but usually by themselves! 

[JDoyle]

I think it is also important to remember that 99.9% of the guitarists buying effects, not only don't know, but simply don't care what is going on inside the boxes they purchase, so long as the effect makes them sound good.

For example, the other guitarist in the band that I played with is easily one of the smartest people I know. His last year of college was paid for because he had the highest GPA in the business school at the school we attended (no small feat for our college, and God bless him - he took the free ride and then went on with me to make a go at it in the band after graduation). The nanosecond I start to explain what is going on in a pedal, his eyes glaze over and I know he is thinking about sipping a drink with an umbrella in it on the beach, or, hell, thinking about sitting in traffic, folding his socks, raking his yard, ANYTHING, so as to not hear the words 'capacitor', 'impedence', or 'bias'.

And in the end, can you really blame him and folks like him? If you step back for a second and look at this hobby from the persepective of... well, every other sane, rational, individual with different, better, things to do, it is an extremely esoteric and weird thing to spend your free time studying. I know that every time I try to explain my hobby to my friends or new acquaintences, I nearly always get a 'Wait. You do what again???' type of response.

And when a couple of cap and/or resistor changes can make the difference between a circuit sounding like crap and making the user sound like God to his own ears, it is obvious, to me at least, that now that the clone/bootweek cat is out of the bag, the industry will NEVER lack for 'just a TS with some part changes' types of effects.

But in my opinion, filter changes/additions, and part substitutions, do not innovation make. So I sincerely hope that we are at the beginning of the 'golden age' and not at its apex.

Regards,

Jay Doyle

[Mark Hammer]

At the moment, there are 8424 people registered here whose eyes specifically do not glaze over when such tech-talk takes place.  That number does not include the folks over at MEF/Ampage who also seek deeper uderstanding of how things work for the purpose of making them better or more adventurous.  Granted, they do not all possess the chops, or maybe even the drive to do anything more than swap a few parts that someone else like Bob Keeley or Brian Wampler told them to.  But the point is they believe in their hearts there can be something better than what they have, and that maybe they can be sonically unique in some way.  That bodes well.

[ayayay!]

But in my opinion, filter changes/additions, and part substitutions, do not innovation make.

Dude, you just channeled Yoda. 

[JDoyle]

No argument from me that the number of people wanting to learn bodes well and is an extremely encouraging sign of things to come...

HOWEVER, if you compare that number of 8,424 and double it to account for all of the other areas that you mention, and then some, it isn't even 2% of the 155,700 registered members of the forums over at fender.com

And that is just Fender. I didn't even look at Gibson, Ibanez, PRS, etc. If you start to add those in, along with the number of guitarist who AREN'T registered at a guitar site but still own an electric guitar (a rather large number, I would bet), I'm fairly confident that my '99.9%' would stand up to scrutiny.

Plus, with all of the advances in parts acquisition, kits, BYOC type things, etc., the bar to building your own effect from scratch is now so incredibly low as to be near paint-by-numbers level, whereas the bar to understanding what occurs inside an effect is just as high as ever. Therefore, I think the number of registered users at this site does not reflect the number of people who could cause/create innovation, or even recognize it when it happens.  

Again, this isn't to say that it is a bad thing, everyone needs to start somewhere... (or... start somewhere they must.  )

[puretube]

The bar is SO low,
that even the most uneducated people
can spread others` knowledge around the world
in a merely 15 year old medium named: www.
(and think they are: free) 

[DougH]

HOWEVER, if you compare that number of 8,424 and double it to account for all of the other areas that you mention, and then some, it isn't even 2% of the 155,700 registered members of the forums over at fender.com

Another interesting number would be the number of musicians at sites like myspace. A number of pros I play with have myspace pages but seemingly have no clue about (nor interest in) forums. Then throw in all the boneheads at the 'gear' forums, etc...

But re. Mark's number- 8424. Make that 8423. In all honesty, my eyes glaze over pretty easily in the midst of a bunch of tech talk. Some are endlessly fascinated by waveforms from simulators and oscilloscopes, transfer functions and the like. Some engineering types are challenged by seeing how many 'angels they can fit on the head of a pin', so to speak, whether it makes any sense to do so or not. Count me in as not one of them. Yes, IMO it is important to understand electronic fundamentals, what affects what, etc. Tools and math help save time and point the way. But in the end it always comes down to your ears. Most products I've heard that I don't care for seem to suffer from either the designer not having ears or not knowing how to use them. (Most musicians I've had trouble playing with seem to suffer from the same problem BTW- the inability to listen.)

So I don't participate in most of the "high-techy" discussions because I just get bored- my eyes glaze over and my attention span shrinks. I don't hang out at the DSP forum either because I've spent the majority of my career as a s/w engineer. And the last thing I want to do is ruin a perfectly good hobby by throwing computer programming into the mix. Not that there's anything wrong with that... I think DSP is exciting as a concept. It's just when it comes to the details I just can't hang- sorry... (I can't even respond to this thread without rambling...)

[brett]

As a person interested in electronics, and who can play a little bit of guitar, I probably have different opinions to the many guitarists here.

Mostly, I don't have a clue about what guitar players are doing, and whether it makes sense from a diystompboxer's point of view.

[runmikeyrun]

pete buddy, i still can't believe we live here and haven't hooked up... may 9th @ annabells in Akron- that's an invite!  it's a free show!  bring your earplugs    I'll have my effects of course!

Aron- I'm with ya!  I think someday guitar cables will be USB cables with digital inputs on amps, and your aforementioned theory about "building" effects on the computer and then downloading them into either housings or the guitar itself.  That might sound stupid, but way less stupid than me trying to build in surface mount!

This weekend when my band travelled to Michigan for a couple of shows i got more compliments on my bass sound and effects than on our music    haha.  But take or leave the music, i'm proud of my tone, because it's MINE.  I modified my DS-1 and Windsor amplifier, not to mention the extra pickup i put in my bass.  NOTHING sounds like my setup, and it feels good to know that people like it. 

I don't think i can ever stop building stuff!

Now... as for the golden age... what should i start hoarding?  I'll need some things to sell for retirement!

[aron]

The company I used to work for did this type of thing for MIDI. It was the Studio 5, Opcode's killer box for MIDI. Now I want it for DSP. I'd like to be able to use something like MAX to program the DSP and then offload into a compact pedal. I know it's coming and I will love something like this.

I'm just happy that I can mod my own gear and I always wish my friends would try.

[Fp-www.Tonepad.com]

 

RG is the man.

[Morocotopo]

RG is the man.

Yes, the man that ignites a match and then pulls up a chair and sits and watches the flames!!



Morocotopo