Re: Footpedals (was Rampant Elitism)

["Mike Biffle" <Mbiffle@svg.com>]

> There is obviously a need and demand for this type of unit.  Isn't this 
>a potentially profitable piece of equipment?  

I get the feeling that most people who ergonimically need foot control 
(guitarists, bassists, horn players, ???) tend to also want simplicity 
(read: non-time-imposing implementation). So first off... most guitarists 
od on midi specs and programming minutae and don't really know they NEED a 
fully implemented pedal. Which leads the majority of them to less than 
fully featured pedals... leading the manufacturers to believe that there's 
not a big enough market for a fully implemented pedal. Sales of these 
pedals probably bear this out and voila! We get what we as for (as a mass 
demographic). 

> What exactly would it take to resurrect the PMC-10? 

I wish I knew... I've got two PMC-10's and wish there were some ongoing 
product development and support for them.

> It does leave you wondering when a major player like Roland discontinues 
>their full range foot controller.  Isn't this something everyone will 
>need when all men are brothers, oops, all machines are talking thru MIDI? 
> (Don't tell me that day will never come) :) Gary

I'm surprised that Roland has done this... They might have offered a 
little more information about the deeper features of this cool pedal 
though because it seems to do a lot more than product copy would lead you 
to believe. Although using hard coded cc numbers for the expression pedals 
leaves a lot of products out in the cold... (Waldorf and others using hard 
coding for their controller assignments). The ability to just assign even 
a single number to a pedal would be a LOT more flexible.

Sigh...
-Miko