Conference napalm::guitar

    
    
    I hate their product release strategy - the example that comes to mind
    is the quick succession of the X-11 foot pedal by the X-15.  Maybe they
    were just testing the waters for MIDI foot controllers when they issued
    the X-11, but I had to add my own foot-pedal-continuous-controller
    thing - and then the X-15 hits the market...  *8'(
    
    BTW, the graphics suck, too!  I'd rather pull a nice black box out with
    some simple, elegant line graphics on it, with space for taped on
    labels.  For the ads, and the compulsively neat, they could package
    some pre-printed sticky labels with the unit.
    
    Tell them that MIDI gear is too flexible to be stuck with pre-printed
    labels.  Tell 'em that some of us use their foot pedals on carpet, so
    we need footswitches that aren't so darn stiff.
    

    You can also say that while some people appreciate "bang for the buck"
    that the two things that bug me about ART is they trade off features
    against audio quality...they just don't sound as *good* as some other
    brands (notably Lexicon and Yamaha, both of whom are higher priced for
    similar functionality), and the reliability of the units doesn't seem
    to be very high.  I'd rather have a unit that can do two or three
    things very well for a long time instead of one that does a dozen
    things only fair, and has to go into the shop twice a year.
    
    						Brian

(Ramble warning ?)
     A friend of mine has the ART "Starimaster" model MIDI foot controller 
with 14 buttons & 2 pedals. I don't know the model number, but it seems to do 
everything one could ever want in a MIDI controller. He had some problem 
getting it to talk to his Alesis Quadraverb+, but that turned out to be mostly 
that he was too lazy to renumber all the channels. Apparently one of the units 
goes from 00 to 99 while the other goes from 01 to (1)00, so unless you 
reassign all the numbers, you have to live with a skew. I think he decided to 
live with it. I would have too ... for about 20 minutes ! Anyway, the QV+ is 
pretty popular & I don't know if there are any "standards " about such things, 
but someone should decide what the most suitable default settings are & then 
everyone should adhere to that system as much as possible. This is probably a 
nit.
     Anyway, if ART is planning "professional" product entries, they should do 
some serious engineering work first. Quality specs on things like headroom, 
noise level, dynamic range, THD, reliability, & documentation are not only 
desirable, but necessary when it comes to pro gear. Most of what is needed to 
achieve better grades in these areas is simply a matter of design for quality 
rather than design for cost. Once it's discovered that using a certain type of 
component versus another improves the quality significantly, then the better
component should be used. 
     This goes for manufacturing processes as well. There's a world of 
difference between what is passible for a rack mount unit that does 101 things 
& is affordable for any garage band & a high quality piece of studio gear that 
will be selected on the basis of its performance in a low noise commercial 
(digital mastering etc.) environment. A big slice of this difference is the 
way these things are put together & the components used. Often this is a 
relatively low priority of gadget manufacturers.
     IMHO, the objective of a company like ART in entering the "pro" sound 
arena, should be to build a reputation of producing the best sounding, most 
reliable units possible, while increasing its customer base. This canNOT be 
done with hype, & it doesn't matter how popular their low to mid grade stuff 
is. 
     BTW, I'd vote for those stickers as well.
Paul

If I had to criticise ART it would be headroom, their gear has a serious lack
of it. Soundwise the newer stuff is comparable to Alesis, but then alesis
hasn't added anything really new to their multi-effects gear in years, and it's
bordering on obsolete. And yes I do know about the Quad GT (bleech on the 
distortions).

dbii

>     A friend of mine has the ART "Starimaster" model MIDI foot controller 
>with 14 buttons & 2 pedals. I don't know the model number, but it seems to do 
>everything one could ever want in a MIDI controller. 
    
    Umm, thats an ART UltraFoot X-15.
    
>    He had some problem 
>getting it to talk to his Alesis Quadraverb+, but that turned out to be mostly 
>that he was too lazy to renumber all the channels. Apparently one of the units 
>goes from 00 to 99 while the other goes from 01 to (1)00, so unless you 
>reassign all the numbers, you have to live with a skew. I think he decided to 
>live with it. I would have too ... for about 20 minutes ! 
    
    Correct - Alesis has memory locations from 00-99, and ART has 01-128.
    I don't see that it makes much of difference though, as both units
    will map to any number you want, and the foot controller allows you
    to number the buttons any way you want too.  With my TriAxis/QuadraVerb
    set up, I just need to remember that button "1" send path change to 
    the triaxis for path 01, and path 00 for the Quadraverb.  It doesn't
    make a difference to me, as I never look at the rack anyway.  When 
    it comes to brass tacks tho, the ALESIS unit is the 'non-standard' 
    one - not the ART pedal.  Most stuff that I've had starts at location
    01
    
    My opinion on ART gear isn't very promising.  They tend to dazzle you
    with glossies on how the unit will do everything under the sun, look
    sharp (yeah, I like the graphics :-), and generally seems to good to 
    be true.  IMHO, it IS too good to be true.  While ART gear tends to 
    allow you to have zillions of options, sound wise, it doesn't do any
    *one thing* well...Other than the UltraFoot controller, which I really
    like...  I had an SGE that I hated, and I spent some time with the 
    SGX2000 also.  Bleck.  They've got a long way to go before I buy any
    of their stuff for MY studio...
    
    jc - With his two cents worth of MIDI Rack Puke commentary

    RE: "MIDI rack puke"
    It seems as if it's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid becoming a
    MIDI rack puke these days. (Unless you're playing blues.) There are
    *folk*singers that are MIDI rack pukes !
    
    Paul