bubstance wrote:Rant ahead...
less_cunning wrote:a girl's gotta make a living though, right? i do not begrude her that. plus there are like a ton of boutique dudes that are gonna still buy them at that price anyway.

I don't know, I'm a firm believer in the whole theory of "a cheap pedal will sell more than an equivalent expensive one". Case in point, the Boss DS-1. Yeah, we can always find something that'll outdo it, but you have to admit, it's one of those pedals that most beginners buy, and it's cheap. So, if I can make a great product and sell it for cheap, wouldn't more people buy it than if it was 3-6 times that much? Think about it, if I make a fuzz pedal that absolutely kicks ass, and I sell a dozen a year at $300, that's not much income, right? Why not just make the pedal cost only a little more than parts cost, and sell a dozen a month?
At least that's how I see it. That's probably why I don't like the so-called "boutique" world, even though I am a member here. Quite honestly, I don't view the products here as "boutique" in any way. I dislike builders like Frantone, Zvex and the like, because their prices are only meant to fool you into thinking you're buying something innovative. Hardly any of the effects we buy as a community are truly "innovative", most are just rehashings of old designs, but modified to suit a different need. So what in that makes it worth a $275 price tag? By putting the price up that high, the so-called "audiophiles" think they're getting the best pedal on the planet, when in reality normal human beings cannot tell a difference between WIMA and Sprague. It's all a hype, and they know it too, which is why they can get away with it. They can sell something like a "crackle okay" knob as a gimmick and make a shitload of money because people just eat it up. People will eat it up because of the name attached to it, instead of actually looking at the quality of the build. The quality shouldn't reflect the price. I mean, look at Dirty Boy pedals. The only thing that makes them remotely "special" is that they're built by Alex Saraceno. The parts are average, the build quality is relatively normal, and the customer service is standard. So why can he charge +$400 for a fuzz? Because people are stupid, that's why.
So I'll stick to my decently priced gear, build shit myself, and laugh at anyone who will drop $300 on a fuzz when all it takes is a little know-how and a few hours to have something of the EXACT same quality for 1/10 of the price.
Blargh.
*edit* I know someone will point this out, but I do, in fact, own a Gibson Les Paul. The only reason was because I got a Studio for $300 from Craigslist. A steal, so I jumped, seeing how I got one from the period when their quality control was at its peak (early '90s).