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Comments
I honestly believe all most companies see is the possible large-scale waste 'out of the desired range' components. The lower price and predictability of op-amps and modern transistors makes them far more appealing for mass production. Although putting it rather simplistically 1000 JRC4558s could make you 1000 Tubescreamer clones, whereas more 1000 expensive and harder to source in large number vintage transistors may only yield 100-200 fuzz faces.
The point stands that some pedals are horrendously overpriced. The klon was one, and I don't really like it much. The timmy wasn't nice either, but I did try a les lius which I loved, despite being a metal guitarist mostly (it made everything sound awesome).
But it's just a rip off, and that saddens me. It's a great pedal, but expensive and not original - as far as I know, it's just modded slightly?
the KSR comes with a comment on the enclosure "Kindly remember the ridiculous hype that offends so many is not of my making"
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
It's dismissive without addressing why something has been judged lacking - a common trick among the manipulative and their confederacy of dunces.
Not necessarily meaning to say you are either, merely that you risk being mistaken for such a person by using their tools.
Again, the prevalence of people selling pedals they've made in their spare time while a day job pays for their food and shelter has massively distorted the market. If I was trying to make a living selling Valvesporkers I reckon I could make four a day. To pay the mortgage, other bills and food I'd then have to sell those for about £200 a pop...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
And I'm sure in that you are solely incorporating production cost, let alone setting about promotion and PR to ensure you are managing to sell a steady amount.
I wouldn't say the Klon was majorly overpriced but I do feel it set a marker for new boutique price-points to follow. If you include the extravagant enclosure which many say cost around £100 to produce, part for part the Klon is actually cheaper than some of it's contemporaries.
I look at the Sunface sometimes and think that maybe it's over-priced then think the if Analogman wasn't charging those prices then he probably wouldn't be able to survive making them.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
There's usually no small level of self-satisfaction at being able to deploy such a pithy but convincingly working class sounding epithet as a rebuff against oh you know something or something they're not prepared to engage with.
So I imagine that smug grin... feel the same urge to bury my size 12 boot up their arse, "see disappearing up there is a painful process have a bit of empathy next time".
conditioned response, much like the use of such phrases ... anyway thre ya go KSRs some do some don't.
Also you could possibly make the case that it was overpriced compared to what it cost in dollars in the USA to buy... I can't remember exactly but I seem to remember it cost more or less the same in pounds (~£300 IIRC) as it did in dollars, at least at the time I was aware of them. IIRC that was also around about the time that a pound bought you two dollars...
True. A lot of US gear seems to be marked the same in dollars as pounds.
Now I mean obviously there are several reasons for it (some perfectly legitimate, I'm well aware of that), but it's still annoying
Thanks for a great laugh!!!
Brgrds,
Of that the retailer will take somewhere around 30-40% (split the difference and say £35), leaving £65.
3PDT - £3ish, £8 if it's a decent one - let's assume it's a cheapo.
Pair of jacks and a DC socket - £10 total for ones worth using (otherwise you risk too many returns) - it states that the jacks are USA switchcraft
Enclosure - looks like a Hammond, £5 assuming decent bulk
Powder coating and silk screening - £5 in batches
Pair of CTS pots - £5 a pair?
Board and components - £3 - though those PIO caps may be quite expensive, depends what they are.
Davies knobs - £2 the pair
So that's £33, leaving £32.
£32 to assemble it, package it, post it out to the retailers, manage any returns and try to make a living. Screw that for a living. Even if all the parts came to £5 you'd be earning £60 before tax on a pedal that probably takes an hour or so to assemble. That's got to cover tax, premises, insurance, food, heat and power and everything else.
I've lost count of how many times I've done a breakdown like this and demonstrated that the boutiquers and small builders are not laughing all the way to their private banks. The component cost is almost irrelevant for hand made things.
For what it's worth I own several ZVex pedals. Half the value of ownership is in the paint jobs - they're artworks that happen to make cool noises as much as they are guitar pedals.
And this from someone with a well-known dislike of overhyped 'hand built' products...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Just because I don't care, doesn't mean I don't understand." - Homer Simpson
The problem (as much as it is one) is that the boutique market arose because of consumer interest - guitarists as a whole are quite keen on blood sweat and tears having gone into the tools they use. Witness the endless (and largely spurious) debates about hand-made vs CNC'd guitars - there is as much focus on the method as the result. BTW - I mean that as a throwaway example, not a new topic in this discussion (though no problem with someone starting a separate one!).
Your post doesn't come across as rude to me.
And I do believe that the paid-amateur is distorting the market, though I wouldn't express it as "ruining it for everyone else", it's just that having a day-job that pays all the essentials does tend to make people underestimate the value of their spare time compared to their paid time. I think that's a matter for the consumer of the product or service; do they want lowest price, or do they want someone who can afford to put things right if they go wrong? Or, rather, where on that continuum are they happy to put their money?
I completely see your point and it's not rude, it's a perfectly valid argument. The thing about it being within consumer electronics is that those who are buying them are either not comfortable building one themselves are opting to buy one made by ZVEX for another reason. Usually a lot of the bullshit, although encouraged by makers, is generated by consumer's ears being influenced by price and hype.
There are guitar builders who assemble pre-made parts which is something we can view as 'we can all do that'. It is the fine tuning skill and experience as well as the support they can provide which separates them from the layman, and not everyone wants to get their hands dirty. Sadly for these guys it is getting increasingly difficult to earn a living as the prices they need to charge can appear unbalanced when compared to factory line competitors.
Smaller professional builders are not opting to build pedals by hand as a for a deliberate cost or time consuming reason, it by and large can provide more consistent results than a mass-production line - which is evident when you start opening up a lot of Joyo pedals. If you take @Sporky's earlier comment about the price of producing a run of Valvesporkers, on top of this he could not afford for products to be repeatedly returned so he has to ensure his every effort is going in to making it as solid and durable as possible - and that does take both skill and time. In contrast Blackstar launched their first bunch of pedals with enormous marketing knowing the far east distance-production and the saving on cheaper component increased the possibility of unit failure - which did happen but the investment was in place to cushion that. If someone approached Sporky and said we would like to invest a huge sum of money in the Valvesporker, transfer production to the far east and cost save on local components then undoubtedly he could drop the price and ironically would be making far more profit per unit than producing them himself individually by hand.
To a builder smaller, simpler jobs are usually the most awkward to deal with. I find true bypass loop pedals to be the bane of my life. I get a request for one in a plain enclosure and it becomes a real challenge to price. It's a switch and jacks in a box which anyone semi-competent with a soldering iron could put together so charging too much doesn't sit well with me morally. By the same token it has to be worth my while time-wise as I could be making something else more profitable. There was a guy on EBay for a long while selling 'volume boxes' as attenuators (can't find him on them now) and charging £45 and claiming them as some piece of his own revolutionary design - it wouldn't sit well with me but plenty of people bought them and judging by his feedback were very happy.
I've made 3 Orange Squeezers so far - I've improved my understanding each time - what components are critical, which can be messed with to improve sustain or attack - I imagine a genuine maker attempts many many many more experimental versions before commiting to make a pedal - and I view the cost of the pedal to be mitigating some of that time.
It's like pirating albums - it didn't take the band 50 minutes to compose, write the songs, rehearse them, evolve them... they didn't record them using little indian babies as sound engineers in shanty town studios on an old binatone tape player.
Likewise the cost of a pedal isn't based on it's parts count.
Bill Finnegan used to spend an awful lot of time trying to improve the Klon, different pcbs, components, that's dedication and professionalism - you can buy a copy off ebay but it might not have had the same rigourous testing you can expect of a man who deeply cares about his products reputation.
Precisely, and in parts used in both development or lost to mistakes we learn from the cost adds up and it is indeed not as simple as comparing parts to the finished article.