Hi Nick, first of all I really do appreciate to get an honest answer and that this post was actually published.
While I do not question that there is a lot of work done in the stompbox area and that there are improvements to the algorithms I wonder simply why a similar effort should not be possible in the Harmonizer area? From a business perspective it is clear to me that you want to sell your products into the consumer market as you can achieve higher sales numbers and revenues. While in the area of stompboxes there is still request for actual hardware there might be less demand in the consumer and semi-pro market due to plugins and probably that is going to intensify.
On the other hand the question for me is why nobody thought about making the whole line more affordable and attractive and to adjust it over time? The benefit of the plugins is not the sound quality ,it is the UI and being connected into a DAW. At least you understood the first point by creating the H9. So why don't you do that for the Harmonizers? I am actually working for a software company, and I saw one guy doing a realtime raytracing renderin plugin in 6 month, so whats your point?
There must be some money left for the Harmonizers as since 10 years the price of the units has been the same, yet hardware all around us is getting cheaper and cheaper. At least I don't see anyone paying the same amount of money today for a CD player made in 2004.
Actually when a company tells me that an editor for a 5k$ unit is not included (and was meant as a inhouse developers tool for the geeks) and on the other hand the marketing dept. of the same company is trying to sell me a H9 500$ with the storyline that the Ipad editor is t h e tool to unleash the full potential of the unit, I am out of words. So when you tell me that only 10% of the users are actually using Vsig is it because of the tool or despite it? When I you actually google Vsig most of the posts are of people that would have liked to use it but found it too difficult and gave up.
Sorry but your arguments in my book sound like a stretch for past and current decisions that effectively manouvered the Harmonizer line of products into the corner where it is today. With all the plugins around I am still in the market for hardware and I guess there are a lot more out there but i need to see more support and love for a 5k product from a company in 2014 to justify such an investment. Get me some cool editor that looks and feels like 2014 and support the line of Harmonizers with the same love and capacity as you do with the stompboxes and I am sold on 2 H8000fws.
Thanks anyway for taking the time and effort and allowing me to have my arguments here.
Love my 7000 anyway!
