comes off very
“…ehhh, shit happens, you know?”
¯\(ツ)/¯
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And to make clear, that’s not quoting me, that’s a quote of the Birdkids spokesperson.
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Yes, of course, I did try to abstract the question. Quoting can decontextualize for others though.
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It does indeed come off exactly that way and with an added dash of, “but when it does, it happens to you”.
SO GROSS
Kickstarter hired a new CEO today. Everette Taylor will replace Aziz Hasan, who left KS six months back. You can get some more detail in this report.
KS is a big company, and our interest in it, in this forum, is with only a small number of the products crowdfunded and promoted there. We will see what sort of changes this may make in the area of our concern.
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Are they still planning on cramming cryptocurrency into their product so they can reduce chargebacks?
I’m still preordering stuff from small vendors but I do not want to deal with that platform anymore since those “plans”.
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I think not. Looks like that and the negative reaction to it relates to the former CEO moving on “to pursue new opportunities”. KS was lead temporarily during the six month search for a new CEO.
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I’ve KS’d a few things over the years, most have been super late and a little bit disappointing after the big wait but the best by a long shot, and I have no qualms about saying this publicly because it was an utter shitshow was ((Arches)) by Soundmachines. Now I’ve had a lightstrip and plane for years and the prospect of basically a eurorack remake of the buchla thunderbird controller seemed like an amazing prospect.
Damn thing ended up being about a year and a half late, was utterly horribly manufactured, clearly not tested and then shipped with a barely working firmware missing most of the advertised features. It got slightly better, for about 6 months and then Soundmachines basically abandoned any semblance of customer service or support, ignored the dummies that had bought in and were trying to get a working product and then eventually deleted their own company forum where all the discussion, bug reports, requests etc, were posted.
Absolute dog dirt, it put me off ever kickstartering again and I ended up eventually selling the thing at a massive loss after it sat unused and half done in a box in my studio.
I’m sure there’s loads of amazing stuff out there from all sorts of suppliers, I sort of thought that Soundmachines had a decent handle on production and quality given their other products but just because someone’s put something decent out in the past doesn’t exclude them from KS failure.
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Well here’s a good example.
The Filton the dual transistor morphing ladder filter from Modal.
The thing sounds great ! Listen to the sound demos rather than the video at the beginning.
This is advertised as an exclusive deal, only from Kickstarter. The video suggests the possibilities of other parts of their high end synths being made.
There is only 8 days left, and the project is only half funded, though i’d say it’s got a decent chance of making the cut.
They are set for a December 2022 delivery and i’d say the likelihood of then hitting this schedule is very good. If they get funded.
ADDED : The Filton failed to fund via KS, but Modal plans to continue this and will be announcing plans, probably in the coming week.
Why does modal need to be crowd funded?
Oh, they don’t…
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They have successfully used KS twice in the past, when money for them was tight.
An explanation could be made that there are internal reasons, and mitigating risk could smooth an internal difference of opinion.
I’ve funded about 70-80 campaigns, 3 or 4 failed to deliver, some were quite disappointing, some had delays even before covid, but overall it’s been a good experience. But you have to be careful and picky. And even that won’t prevent you from backing the offGrid.
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Often enough there comes along a project that is way outside the norm. Crowdfunding can give a chance for people with unusual product ideas to give it a go.
Very experimental. Hell this thing looks dangerous. Dangerous synths are good in my book.
The Telmatronics Groovetube use radio frequencies and high voltage across a gas plasma in a glass tube, with vacuum tubes, and various other effects to create a sound signal. The sound is, well you describe it ! Animalistic ?
It takes a special sort of person to invest in a prototype like this, and it’s not inexpensive. But they are funded already. Definitely a company to watch, as they develop this into a more regular product later.
Someone want to start a thread for this – have at it.
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Sounds like alien beatboxing.
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That’s the most advanced fart machine I’ve ever seen!
I mean, also kind of cool, but I’m curious to see if it gets away from that fundamentally flatulent character.
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Yeah, will be interesting to see where they go. It would be useful if we could get some of the affected squonk of Metasonix gear with less budget, I’ll be curious to see it in use 
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Good advice. Sometimes this is hard to know before hand, and you go with your spidey sense. Plus if it looks too good to be true, then …
There are also factors that cannot be evaluated or prevented, on both sides, by investor and developer both.
So this project and the Birdkids one are the prime examples of the bad.
There is still a good side to crowdfunding, and hopefully that balances this all out.
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Yes, for preorders I ultimately I ask myself-
- Are you familiar with this company from years of member engagement on the larger sites (Modwiggler, Lines, etc)?
- Have they released anything in the past?
- Is their idea for scaling idea to production realistic?
- How have they adapted to continuing conditions of pandemic-affected supply chain, fabrication, shipping cost?
- Do I really really need the item?
- Is it worth a year to support the builder?
- Would I buy the product if released at 20% more today?
I haven’t supported too much via Kickstarter these days, though I did just back https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/flightofharmony/facehugger-module because I dig flight of harmony and want to see them around, they’ve been around long enough to hopefully have this down and set expectations realistically.
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I’d absolutely buy something like this… if it didn’t literally sound like farts. Cool concept though, I hope they can follow through!
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