[A6] some interesting reading ,

[Sayer]

That's very interesting indeed! What was the date of Ben's post?

So, the development cost of the A6 was written off during the bankruptcy thus leaving the
new owner with an awesome technology with no development cost. Makes sense that they should
keep producing them unless the hardware cost becomes to great. 

I've been told that there have been discussions some time ago on this list that there will
probably never be another OS update for the A6, but maybe with this news there is a chance?
There are a few things I would really like, although I am thrilled with how the A6 is now. 

I still have not tried the Ion out... When Craig Anderton demonstrated the Ion at a local
music shop he was very enthusiastic about it. There is a video interview from him at
SonicState: http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=1158#

Sayer

--- "Shawn O." <sobrien at wavecable.com> wrote:

> Read the below on AH mailing list ,. thought this would be some good info for us all to
> share as well.
> 
> 
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> I came to this thread a bit late, so I'll try and tie up a bunch of things at once.
> 
> 1.  The Andromeda is still in production, and still sells roughly the same numbers it
> always did.
> 
> 2.  There are no plans to discontinue the Andromeda.
> 
> 3.  Alesis went bankrupt shorty after releasing the Andromeda.  (Not really related. 
> Plenty of other problems.)  The pre-bankruptcy Alesis spent a pile of money developing
> the Andromeda and the custom analog ICs.  It's possible that with spin-off products,
> better advertising, cost reductions in production, etc that we could have made the money
> back and turned a profit.  I wouldn't bet on this though.
> 
> The new owners of a Alesis bought a synth that had already been developed and was already
> in production.  They are sold at normal, profitable mark-up, so there's no reason they
> can lose money on it.  They even spent a little money and engineering development time to
> move the production line and improve the testing of the analog ICs to increase the yield.
>   
> 
> 4.  Alesis - pre or post bankruptcy - is not, and never has been a public company.  It is
> and was privately owned.
> 
> 5.  There are analog filter chips and analog oscillator chips in the Andromeda.  Each IC
> has two voices worth of filters or oscillators.  So, two chips for two voices, but not
> once voice (of four) per chip.
> 
> 6.  The Ion was mainly my idea - though there had been talk about making an analog
> modeling synth since before the Andromeda was finished.  It had nothing to do with
> strategic planning, or market data or any kind of response to the Andromeda.  Frankly, I
> think the company was just too busy changing ownership and dealing with post-bankruptcy
> house-cleaning stuff to take a good look at what I was doing and tell me to stop.  
> 
> I won't go into too much detail because it's off topic, but basically I thought that the
> virtual analog synths that were out there didn't sound at all like real analog synths,
> were too one dimensional sounding, and were way too expensive - both for how they sounded
> and what they did, and based on the cost of the parts that went into them.  I though we
> could do fake analog "realer" and cheaper, and itch a bunch of pet peeves I have with
> synthesizer U.I. design at the same time.
> 
> 
> Ben Ling, Alesis
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> A6 at code404.com
> http://mailman.code404.com/mailman/listinfo/a6
> 


=====
Sayer
---------------
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