LR Baggs Soundscape

[rer122504]

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/det...int-technology
Looks interesting

[pagedr]

Sounds like their answer to the ToneDexter?

[jonfields45]

Pre-order status since last winter NAMM. Maybe delegating the microphone and IR calculation to a sea of different possible cell phones is a bigger problem than they planned.

[Doug Young]

My impression is that production has been delayed due to the virus.

[AeroUSA]

I think they are just taking their time to get it right and that’s a good thing in my opinion!

[Cuki79]

Originally Posted by AeroUSA

I think they are just taking their time to get it right and that’s a good thing in my opinion!

Or struggling with a dozen of Android phones...

[jonfields45]

My guess is the Chinese contract manufacturer is ready to start production (they have models to show) and the firmware resident in the pedal is likely complete as its task is pretty straightforward (and again they have models to show).

The corresponding phone app for various OSs, OS versions, phone hardware chipsets, different amounts of available memory, and microphone types seems staggering to me, but exactly the type of work that could be done at home remotely during a pandemic.

I vote they bit off a bit too much.

[Petty1818]

Lloyd said about a month ago and this was also confirmed on their Instagram page, that production was basically put on hold due to the virus. Not sure where all this talk about issues with different phones is coming from. It makes sense though... why would a company launch one of their most innovative and impressive pieces of gear during a time when most people are avoiding music stores or purchasing gear in general.

[Cuki79]

Originally Posted by Petty1818

Not sure where all this talk about issues with different phones is coming from. It makes sense though...

It was just a guess. I have no solid information.

[Brent Hahn]

Originally Posted by AeroUSA

I think they are just taking their time to get it right and that’s a good thing in my opinion!

Might as well, since gigging in a lot of places has gone from nil to almost nil and now back to nil. Here in LA it hasn't even even got to almost. My money's going into distance-busking and a tip basket at the end of a ten-foot pole.

[fedexnman]

Other than the LR Baggs name , I'm not impressed , I've seen the demo video , and I'd choose the Tonedexter instead . Disclaimer I don't own either product .

[AeroUSA]

Originally Posted by fedexnman

Other than the LR Baggs name , I'm not impressed , I've seen the demo video , and I'd choose the Tonedexter instead . Disclaimer I don't own either product .

Firmware can improve things over time...

[martingitdave]

I would imagine (as Jon and Cuki) that developing the app software must be the biggest challenge. I presume they will eventually only support a dozen of the most popular devices. That’s a daunting task I suspect.

[jonfields45]

The much maligned Windows OS has one remarkable attribute:

No matter how old your code or how unusual the hardware, old software just plain runs.

This is not true for Mac OS, IOS, Android, and the many versions of Linux and Unix.

I left my career as an Engineering VP with near a 1000 engineers at times placed around the world developing all sorts of stuff including a lot of software. One of our bigger hassles was keeping our compute platform OS's up-to-date without breaking various development software tools.

One of the reasons big institutions run obsolete old computing systems (or overpriced underperforming updates of them) is they don't want millions of customers disrupted at once.

So what does this mean to the price of beans???

ToneDexter does everything native on the pedal. That has its challenges too, but they have only one version of their software and you have to move an SD card between the pedal and your computer to move IRs or update firmware. IT IS A BRILLIANT SOLUTION!!! They have 100% control over everything and it will always work very shortly with an update after anyone finds a problem. Not even letting a USB cable touch the pedal takes balls these days but I think so practical.

I was responsible for my company's DSP development tools for about 5 years and we would never have bitten off that many target computing environments and that team had almost 50 software developers (and most of the hard stuff was open source GNU code...). Likely several times more employees than all of Baggs.

Of course, it could just be some marketing guy is out sick with COVID-19 and has not approved shipment :~).

[jonfields45]

I guess where I stand is I don't care how good the Soundscape App UI is or how I don't need a microphone.

I know from own experience writing an IR generator that generating a decent IR is not that hard regardless of what Larry Fishman told you. I have no expectation that Soundscape will sound better than Aura or ToneDexter.

What I am confident of is Soundscape runs the risk of losing its app every time your wireless provider updates your phone.

IMHO, I think ToneDexter is nicely complete and a much more robust package.