Whenever I see discussions like this, I wonder if we are all just complaining about how capitalism works. There are no rules in the free market and we all know that private companies’ only goal is to make money and squeeze as much out of customers as they can. Intellectual honesty and integrity have no place in private industries I’m afraid (I don’t want to give examples because I don’t want this to turn political
).
What do you guys think about that?
Which part? I’m not trying to be cynical here, but maybe I phrased things too harshly? What I mean is that the circuit design is not something that the end consumer really cares about so pedal companies are not incentivized to care either. As many expressed in this thread, the average pedal buyer judges with their eyes more than ears. But maybe that’s just part of capitalism? Or maybe it’s just people being people and has nothing to do with the economic system we live in?
Yeah it was worded quite strictly. Private companies are not
only trying to make money, and 29 pedals is a great example of that, even. If they were, they'd make the power side much simpler and use a cheaper enclosure and transfer all that cost to profit. Intellectual honesty and integrity do matter, too - whether it's enough to make a real impact is a different thing, but at least Fulltone is a good example that the free market is not just a perfect automaton system where values do not matter (it's a bit unclear to me whether they actually closed down for good or not, but at the very least their operation was disturbed).
I didn't take what you said as cynical, but mostly because I'm always cynical by nature.
I look at it like this:
1.) I think being candid about your "designs" is important. I am currently building Fuzz Faces. I don't market it as anything other than a modernized Fuzz Face. My contribution, and I'm careful to make this clear to people, is the integrated buffer. Stuff like relay switching, grounding, etc. is not novel. I agree that some add copy is ridiculous, as my Chase Tone rants make explicit, but I also don't think there is anything nefarious about talking your stuff up if that's what you choose to do. Marketing and all it's excesses and shortcomings is as American as Apple Pie. It's a tough market and sometimes creative writing is as good a skill as your technical abilities for giving you that extra edge. It's a packed market, i.e. you don't have to agree but "don't hate the player, hate the game..."
2.) Many consumers don't care about how things look, inside or out, but many do care. Frankly, as much as we may dislike something like 29 Pedals enclosures (I personally think they look great and as someone trying to also make good looking things, I get it...), the aesthetic package of a pedal is important to the overall worth attached to it. Making things look nice costs money. Full Stop. Can't hate on that. You may disagree, but not everyone wants something in a generic enclosure, no matter what your personal preferences may be.
3.) People generally ALWAYS want something for nothing if they can get it, so it's tough when you have to assign a value to something like your build time, because it drives up the cost and does not reflect itself in anything visible or tangible to the consumer. Yet, it is important for that value to be based on what you think your time is worth. Frankly, this is the value that translates to profit. I'd argue it IS your profit margin.
4.) One thing I find interesting is that DIY folks, of which I include myself since 2008, respect and appreciate aesthetic qualities and supreme build quality, EXCEPT, it seems, for when that then translates over to the commercial realm. This is not always true by any means and as a community we DO find unsavory things and bad designs from time to time. With that said, it seems like too easy a leap to get the lynch mob together every single time we find out that new hot shit overdrive is YATS. Not every builder is trying to fleece someone or pull the wool over people's eyes. You have to take into consideration that they might ACTUALLY think those changes they made make a difference.
5.) A big part of turning making pedals into a side gig is the eventual uneasy moment when you have to decide how much money you want to make off of a device. This is a real wake up call. You have all these ideas and goals and once you crunch those first numbers you get a rude awakening. I changed my prices a number of times trying to maximize my net profit per unit while also trying not to take advantage of anyone. It's super tough. This is why I am changing my tune toward preaching empathy toward builders. I have the luxury of not having to make a living off of this, and you can argue it IS a bad business to get into full-time and that's their own damn fault, but you can also try and understand the many moving parts that go into it.
6.) I DO NOT have any beef against tracing circuits. Far from it as I have benefitted greatly from the community. Having said that, I DO try to "walk a mile in someone else's Moccasins" and understand WHY people get bent out of shape about it. I personally have nothing to fear. If someone were to trace a Pompeii and see my buffer, they'd be underwhelmed and I'd be relieved.
I understand where you're coming from but I just feel like you're leaning too much on the side of the builders while exaggerating the criticism pedals receive (yes, there might be one or two people bashing a YATS pedal and not many exited people, but there's a lot of people who visit this forum and this market is much less enthusiastic about new things that are not radically different, for obvious reasons). I haven't seen lynch mobs unless someone is blatantly lying, or for people who charge $800 for a basic fuzz face, which is pretty much the same as blatantly lying IMO.
For the EUNA specifically, I can understand wanting a nice looking enclosure (which is expensive), and an unnecessary power supply (which is expensive) for a glorified buffer,
but that means you're basically selling a status symbol for guitar nerds.
I would guess the strong counter reaction to his reaction to tracing is because of this. Why is he so afraid of tracing when he's selling what's practically a status symbol? Is it because he thinks or knows that people actually want a cheap, good buffer with nice EQ options, and if they have the choice between that and the status symbol, they won't go for the expensive one anymore? But in that case, why pick only that route and not put out a cheaper version too? Combine that with the misleading ad copy which says how buffers can be bad for you
but this one is a line driver and that's completely different, and it's easy to make the conclusion that he's just trying to mislead people into buying the expensive pedal when they would rather have a cheaper version. I wouldn't say it looks like a scam exactly, since the customers still get a nice buffer with nice EQ options, but it looks like it's edging up there.
And please do note, I'm talking about optics here, I'm not making any assumptions that that's what he's actually looking to do. I don't think he's doing it maliciously, and it would make sense that he's just afraid in general for his company's future, but I can see why he gets so much hate (or, well, guess at it - I could also be wrong, of course).
Just imagine the response if he also put out a $150 125B 9V version (without the loop, even, so you can get the Premium version with the Anything power system and the Super Vintage Loop addons plus a Swanky Enclosure). Make the cheap one with SMD parts and use through hole on the big one for the Super Tone Experience or whatever. And be frank that it's just a really good buffer instead of trying to mislead people.
