It was priced very high, even for a boutique musical instrument. There are a lot of samplers on the market on (or even under) that price point and some simple ones that cost a fraction of it.
I already have both of those, a Bastl Microgranny, Polyend Tracker, and Polyend Play. Soni really don't need another sampler. But it does look fun and has a unique workflow.
That's the competition I was talking about: SP-404, (used) OctaTrack, MPC live or sample, EP-133 KO 2. All cost about the same or less and do a heck of a lot more.
The CHOMPI is a very fun project.. have considered building one myself over the years, but I think I have a bit more motivation to build a FundamentalFrequency LMN-3, which is in a similar form factor but is, imho, a bit more open ended with regards to what it can be used for ..
Either way the time has come for open source projects of this nature and form factor .. the world tires of overpriced junk from boutique vendors, and wants more DIY music making toys for the kids to rock out ..
Oh cool, I haven't checked on it in quite a long time.
I ended up getting them a Dato Duo, which we enjoy quite a bit. Got that for $229, price on it is way up now. Been eyeing the Dato Drum, but it's pretty steep at $500.
I'm not saying that you've clearly never built and shipped a hardware device as a small team in North America; maybe you have, and maybe that's what you do all day.
However, I have noticed that the only people who look at a product like Chompi and think "overpriced" are people who have never built and shipped a hardware device. Perhaps you'll be the one to prove me wrong.
I'm not saying that Chompi wasn't expensive, or that you couldn't get a mass-produced device like a Roland SP-404 for less on Reverb. I am saying that that is not a fair comparison, however.
I suppose my thinking was that they were going to try to sell this to -- maybe not even the general public -- but to someone like me, pretty well versed in tech but not ultra deep in the game, that price point is still waaaay too high.
Perhaps I'm missing it and it's almost a sort of, no really we're just building this for ourselves?
Okay, I think I understand. More importantly, I want to say that I don't think you're trying to be jerky about this, though I was initially sort of triggered (admittedly) because you see this sort of sentiment a lot and it hits close to home.
So, the main thing that many/most people do not remotely understand is how incredibly difficult, time consuming and expensive it is to get hardware to the state where it can be sold to strangers. Even HN folks who on the average understand software well frequently just have no way to grasp how much R&D actually goes into even a very simple device. It's playing in hard mode from start to finish.
In a bigger company, there's entire departments whose job it is just to source components. For a small team like pre-CBA Chompi, all of the electronics, firmware, enclosure design, UX, documentation, not to mention the certifications and environmental certs and marketing and packaging and shipping logistics and returns and support and.... two people. I forgot lots of steps, but the number of people stays the same.
The reality is that a product like Chompi can't address a larger market like a product from Roland or Korg can, and everything costs more at smaller scale, and yes, they were doing a lot of the work in the USA so this is directly comparable to the ongoing arguments around categories like fast fashion and how if you wanted to buy a high quality T-shirt made in the USA without any branding it should cost about 5x more than most people think that they should have to pay.
Basically, you want to pay an Ikea price for a limited edition shelf made by a single woodworker. This translates quite literally to stating that you wish Chompi would give you a product that only breaks even at $600 when they sell thousands for $300 because you've convinced yourself that that's what a Chompi should be worth. It doesn't make you bad, it just means your working from a different set of expectations which don't line up with the economics of Chompi. The snarky response is to tell you to just go to Ikea like the other people who don't really care what they are buying but just need a shelf that isn't terrible.
Every year in May the Superbooth festival and trade show happens in Berlin. Almost everyone you meet there is either making or has made gear, so it's an incredibly cathartic opportunity to collectively process shared trauma.
That's pretty much what I would expect from Chase Bliss. They make very cool, high quality, and often niche audio products. Small production runs made in North America come with a high price tag.
chompi is based on the daisy platform https://daisy.audio/. I've got a daisy pod that I've been building a my own sampler on lately. The tooling and documentation is a bit janky to get started with, but the platform is pretty cool. They just released some new dev kits as well. I've had a blast building a fully-featured sampler with a 1.5" oled screen and two button, two potentiometers, and one encoder.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 14.8 ms ] threadI'm still hoping to try one soon. Maybe this is my time!
I’ve adapted it to run in your DAW as a VST, Audio Unit, and AAX plugin for Pro Tools.
Check it out: https://www.temeculadsp.com/nibbi
https://github.com/temeculadsp/nibbi
https://github.com/FundamentalFrequency
Either way the time has come for open source projects of this nature and form factor .. the world tires of overpriced junk from boutique vendors, and wants more DIY music making toys for the kids to rock out ..
But I literally laughed out loud, HARD, at the price.
I ended up getting them a Dato Duo, which we enjoy quite a bit. Got that for $229, price on it is way up now. Been eyeing the Dato Drum, but it's pretty steep at $500.
However, I have noticed that the only people who look at a product like Chompi and think "overpriced" are people who have never built and shipped a hardware device. Perhaps you'll be the one to prove me wrong.
I'm not saying that Chompi wasn't expensive, or that you couldn't get a mass-produced device like a Roland SP-404 for less on Reverb. I am saying that that is not a fair comparison, however.
But -- your response really gives me a "what were they thinking?" vibe. Like, I have multiple raspberry pis and a flipper zero etc.
And just coming from a consumer of stuff like this POV -- I could MAYBE go as high as 300-350, and that's really pushing it.
Perhaps I'm missing it and it's almost a sort of, no really we're just building this for ourselves?
So, the main thing that many/most people do not remotely understand is how incredibly difficult, time consuming and expensive it is to get hardware to the state where it can be sold to strangers. Even HN folks who on the average understand software well frequently just have no way to grasp how much R&D actually goes into even a very simple device. It's playing in hard mode from start to finish.
In a bigger company, there's entire departments whose job it is just to source components. For a small team like pre-CBA Chompi, all of the electronics, firmware, enclosure design, UX, documentation, not to mention the certifications and environmental certs and marketing and packaging and shipping logistics and returns and support and.... two people. I forgot lots of steps, but the number of people stays the same.
The reality is that a product like Chompi can't address a larger market like a product from Roland or Korg can, and everything costs more at smaller scale, and yes, they were doing a lot of the work in the USA so this is directly comparable to the ongoing arguments around categories like fast fashion and how if you wanted to buy a high quality T-shirt made in the USA without any branding it should cost about 5x more than most people think that they should have to pay.
Basically, you want to pay an Ikea price for a limited edition shelf made by a single woodworker. This translates quite literally to stating that you wish Chompi would give you a product that only breaks even at $600 when they sell thousands for $300 because you've convinced yourself that that's what a Chompi should be worth. It doesn't make you bad, it just means your working from a different set of expectations which don't line up with the economics of Chompi. The snarky response is to tell you to just go to Ikea like the other people who don't really care what they are buying but just need a shelf that isn't terrible.
Every year in May the Superbooth festival and trade show happens in Berlin. Almost everyone you meet there is either making or has made gear, so it's an incredibly cathartic opportunity to collectively process shared trauma.
Anyhow, I'm going to leave you with a strong suggestion that you check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2B-AmJUQ1m0
It's a masterclass in empathetic communication around this stuff.