Re: Successor to the FTL Drive and Raptor
hmmm..... I was thinking about getting the GT-500 sometime in the not-so-distant future, and then this is some competition, but I have no way of knowing what yours sounds like.... and I don't have that much money to toss at things like this... decisions, decisions.
See my reply to Kam below for timelines, if that helps your decision. This thing won't sound too much like a GT-500, but it will be a similar idea for sure.
Dude, I know you're still in the initial design and development stages of this and obviously I'm not trying to rush you or anything, but do you have a rough idea of when you're going to begin taking orders? Financial planning has never been my strong suite, but I was serious when I said I'm going to start putting money aside for one of these. I was actually just going through a box of old stuff, looking for something to sell to go in my RD fund...
I'd like to give myself one month for each phase, so ...
Design: February
Prototyping: March (I would post clips of the prototype in action)
Ordering/procurement: April
Production: May
In other words, I would expect I'd be taking orders in early April and shipping late May.
Please note that these are rough estimates only. I'm a one man operation with a full time job, a band, and a video game addiction, so things could change.
Do you see your Raptor being bumped off your board by this new pedal?
I suspect the Raptor will stay on my main board, mainly because I don't really need a distortion pedal. However, I'm currently putting together a home practice rig based around a simple one channel amp (Epi Valve Jr is the current front-runner), and this new pedal would be a great fit there.
I should point out that the overdrive side of the as-yet-unnamed new pedal will
not be a Raptor in a different shell. The key differences are:
- No tone knob. The Raptor tone stack (one of its key distinguishing features from a stock TS) will still be there, but it will be hard wired to the equivalent of having the tone knob at 12:00.
- Fat switch from the FTL Drive will be making a comeback (the Raptor was hard-wired with a "fat mod" if the customer requested it).
- Bright switch mimics the Presence knob on the FTL Drive. Turning the switch on is similar to having the Presence up high, which adds a nice high frequency sizzle.
I've been finding myself wondering if you've ever considered putting together a kit of one of your pedals, for the guys who might like to try their hand at building one. That way, you could get the stuff together for more Raptors and FTLs, but not have to do the tedious work yourself.
I've thought about that too, and I'm not considering it at this time. Reasons:
- I would have to dedicate a great deal of time to writing build instructions.
- I would have to design the pedal in such a way that a novice could easily assemble it, which limits me quite a bit.
- I don't want to answer support e-mails from noobs.
- Quality Control ... if I control the entire manufacturing process, I can make sure that bad units don't get shipped out. If I let other people build them, they might do a crap job, which might get heard by others, which affects my reputation.
I'm not ruling out the possibility of kits in the future, but right now I'm not interested.
