did you ever get the idea...

[petemoore]

  ...One of those ideas..."I think it might work this, and that'd be cool' then try it out only to find it totally surpasses expectations and takes a certain circuit beyond what it had been doing/ in a very good way?
  Then want to share it but feel secretive about it at the same time?
  It was the easiest thing to try.
  Sometimes I'm sure you guys would love 'it', and sometimes you do, just about like I would or wouldn't.
  Then I read that there are those who reap benefits [whatever that may be] by producing and marketing well made replicas that grow out of ideas presented here...
  Usually I go "ahh what the heck, these guys on the forum taught me 'everything' which is 99% true.
  The other 1% is my whacky ideas, of which I've been confronted on two occasions about 'I was doing this first', not in so many words.
  The one occasion I remember pretty clearly [in my own mind...I suppose it could be looked up in the archives who was on when and what they might have read here] 'dude' posting about a certain time when we were posting the one idea about the perforated light wheel 'spinner phase', but not contributing to it, then saying "I'm the creator of this concept', and was selling units he'd worked out all the details on [alot of details], they looked like nice units too. Whatever the details of the origin, clear and simple, he'd gotten the product worked up and out there first. Very good work.
  I haven't seen him around since a week after that issue...I'm not the forceful type I guess.
  Actually I'm cool with all that, but still I tend to want to be secretive, which essentially I don't like.
  No reason for typing this other than to share my thoughts on it.
  Ya know, you get this idea, it works fantastically and does what you think 'they'd' want it to and drool, get all heady about it's worth something...which it probably is IF you're into producing, marketting and selling units [which I'm not]...even if all that were so...there would only be a limited time before copies lessened the uniqueness and 'value' of 'your' circuit.
  "Your"...most all the time I'm starting with "his" circuit and messing around with it, or combining modified circuits...there have been a few occasions I've strayed into relatively 'unknown territory', [as far as who knows].
  I can't even say it's 'my' idea...and I'm hoarding it.
  I'm not trying to raise hairs, believe me, I'm just looking for maybe some insight on 'idea management', it is Irky to read of ideas 'stolen', but from another viewpoint [I have], all of these physics were there before I or anyone 'discovered' them...I like the word 'discovery' and 'idea', 'created and invented' are words that may require closer scrutinization...IMOHO...'grasping concept' might be good...lol...for me at least !!!

[brad]

Look at it this way: all creative ideas already exist before they're discovered.  Electrons have always contained the capacity to make every circuit that will ever be made -in other words- a thousand monkies sitting at a thousand CAD workstations would eventually design the Fulltone Fulldrive II.  Mike Fuller may have uncovered the idea first, but the possibility has always existed.  As for "ownership":  the Fulldrive would never had existed if society hadn't provided the means for it's existance in the first place.  Someone else had to create capacitors, guitars, Texan blues, the United States, democracy, the english language, ect.  So really, a claim of ownership over an idea is based on a tiny fraction of all the factors that combined to result in it's discovery.

We all exist in the same universal realm of possible ideas, and sharing them enlightens us all.  (Those thousand monkies are just going to dscover it eventually anyway!)

[Steben]

Actually the Fulldrive IS just a tube screamer, godd.......

Maybe we CAN install some deal-rule-brotherhood-banning something... I don't know. But I'm not keen into pushing it either.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

Edison is supposed to have said, "Invention is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". Here at Frostwave (effectively 0.4 total employees including myself) that is certainly the case.
The idea of the spinning light beam modulator goes back at least to the late 1940/50s, with Raymond Scott.

[bioroids]

a thousand monkies sitting at a thousand CAD workstations would eventually design the Fulltone Fulldrive II. 

Thanks, you made me laugh with that line! And it's funny because it's true.

This reminds me an old Carl Sagan saying: "before having a tree, you have to first create a Universe" (or something like that, I heard it in spanish)

Luck

Miguel

[Melanhead]

I'm not worried as I haven't had an original idea  ... yet

But I know what you mean, I guess it's the kinda thing where you want something that nobody else has ... It's the same reason why Fuller "goops" his pedals. You discover something, or have an idea, and it sounds spectacular! ... Share or not to Share

How long can you keep a secret

[Mark Hammer]

Once more, with feeling....

You can't get rich off a fuzzbox and especially a fuzzbox idea.  If there is any money to be made, it comes from:
a) transforming the idea into a product that works reliably and occupies a unique and desirable niche.
b) figuring out how to produce the product cheaply enough to aim for a pricepoint that will generate customers.
c) busting your hump on the phone to the people making your boards, the people supplying you with parts, the people doing the machining and silkscreening of the chassis, often in a language which is not your first or even second.
d) driving in your 1991 Corolla to every trade show you can afford.
e) waiting, and waiting, and waiting.....
f) working on another product and another, so your first idea can look more legitimate becomes it is part of a "line", while you're doing E.

That's why I stick with my government job.

People hoard ideas because they feel someone else might make all the money from the idea.  Rarely the case.  The money is made by doing all the other things listed above.  Ideas themselves come cheap, and the ideas themselves don't generate money.  Finished products with warranties going to one set of hands and cheques (that clear) going to another set of hands are what makes money.  If you're in love with making pedals, and can stand to live closer to the poverty line than to the median family income, go for it, but don't expect anywhere near the comfort of even the most mundane of retail or desk jobs.

I'm not trying to paint you into a corner and shame you/ridicule you into "giving it up".  Rather, the delight one feels at a particular insight or outcome should not be mistaken for a substitute for all the other steps involved, all of which may well be unfeasible anyways.  I understand that others here with commercial interests have good reason to keep mum about some things, but the rest of us are often just stumblers.  If I have an idea, I cough it up, because I know I would LOSE money if I tried to do what was necessary to turn the idea into a product.  That doesn't have to be your choice, though.

[Steben]

Mark,

I guess Fulltone's OCD is quite an example of your these. It's a fine, finished, trusthworthy looking product rather than a distortion circuit sent from god.

[Dave_B]

If I have an idea, I cough it up, because I know I would LOSE money if I tried to do what was necessary to turn the idea into a product.  That doesn't have to be your choice, though.

I'm still kicking around the idea of your "metronome" LFO display.  My PIC chips should be in the mail when I get home today and that's third on the my "have to figure out PIC's to do" list.  If I ever get it to work, and I don't fry my serial port in the process, I plan to share it with the group, fwiw.  I'm new here, so there's no reason to believe that until you see the URL.   

I'll admit, the Brian May eBay guy irked me. 

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I didn't find Mark's "metronome LFO" (looked in search engine).
But, if it is just to have a metronome type display of the LFO, you can do this by using  NatSemi bargraph display driver, a row of leds, and feeding the LFO to it.
the original post probably refers to somethign entirely different though.

[petemoore]

  Ok it's about LED/LDR phasers...upcoming new thread...

[Dave_B]

I didn't find Mark's "metronome LFO" (looked in search engine).
But, if it is just to have a metronome type display of the LFO, you can do this by using  NatSemi bargraph display driver, a row of leds, and feeding the LFO to it.
the original post probably refers to somethign entirely different though.

No that's pretty much it.     http://www.diystompboxes.com/smfforum/index.php?topic=36430

I thought it would be nice to have it 'stick' momentarily when it got to either end of the swing, like a real mechanical metronome.  I'm not sure how to do that in an analog world (cheaply or otherwise) but it should be easy with a PIC.  I've also thought this might be a good way to build a digital LFO at the same time, but I realize that's not where this started. 

[Mark Hammer]

Yep.  It wasn't my "idea" as such.  Rather, it was more of a complaint and request.  A couple years ago, Mike Irwin had demoed a very nice phaser for several of us that had a bi-color LED as an LFO monitor, so you could see the up down rate.  More recently, while beta-testing the Tone Core Liqui-Flange, I realized there came a point in the range of LFO rates where tap-tempo stopped being useful because you couldn't keep track in your head of where things were in the sweep cycle.  It was like driving into a tunnel with your headlights off.  An LFO status LED was useful, but a simple pos-peak/neg-peak indicator was not articulate enough at slower rates.  I was thinking more in terms of a 10-LED display that bopped back and forth, showing yuo where you were in the cycle, but the metronome idea was offered up by someone as a nice graphic display that could assist people in not "losing their place".

[bwanasonic]

Then I read that there are those who reap benefits [whatever that may be] by producing and marketing well made replicas that grow out of ideas presented here...

I think that is much more of a perception than any kind of reality. When pressed for actual examples, I'm not sure there are too many provable examples of this actually happening.

Kerry M

[bwanasonic]

I realized there came a point in the range of LFO rates where tap-tempo stopped being useful because you couldn't keep track in your head of where things were in the sweep cycle.

That's where ears, fingers and brains come in handy!  "Flashers? We don't need no stinking flashers!" 

Maybe it's just all those Adrian Belew records I listened to in my formative years...


Kerry M

[Dave_B]

I was thinking more in terms of a 10-LED display that bopped back and forth, showing yuo where you were in the cycle, but the metronome idea was offered up by someone as a nice graphic display that could assist people in not "losing their place".

Yeah, I'm guilty of injecting the metronome analogy.  I'm not sure it didn't cloud things up. 

The nice thing about the digital LFO idea I've been contemplating is that it could also do tap tempo.  You're basically just telling the PIC to start counting when you press the switch, then stop counting the next time you press it.  Divide that number by whatever the circuit requires and you end up with an LFO frequency.  If I (or someone else who already knows this stuff) can pull that off, we should be able to have a fairly easy to implement "Overkill LFO" with tap tempo and 9-led display.  It sure sounds cool. 

[phaeton]

Once more, with feeling....

...(a through f)....

That's why I stick with my government job.

Well said.  I went through the whole "I'm going to be a Bo Teek builder of amps/pedals" thing myself, but when I sat down and did the numbers I saw pretty much the same as what you see there.  My exception is that I have a 1999 Ranger instead of a 1991 Camry, and I was actually going to do all the etching/plugging/soldering myself.  It was all simply more time and work than I wanted to invest into something with such a dismal outcome.

-That Said-

I empathize with petemoore.  I dream up all these ideas all day long that *I* think would be cool.  I feel a bit defensive about it, mainly because I don't yet  have the skill or chops to implement something like that, and I know there are lots of people here who could.  It would still take a whole lot of sweat and heartache to refine it into something useable, but if anyone here wanted to do that they could easily beat me to my own implementation, and probably have a better end result than I would.  For me it's not about financial success so much as it is about recognition for coming up with something cool.

I feel like i'm being "stingy" with ideas that may not even be worth a crap, and like petemoore says, I'm kind of uncomfortable with myself about that.  I think it's getting better though, the more that I realize that nobody is interested in my crazy spin-thoughts as much as I am

The *other* problem I have, is that I'll dream something up, breadboard it, tweak it, twiddle it, and come up with something that I think is an accomplishment, but then later discover that it had already been done before.  I tend to discover things or figure them out on my own, completely oblivious to what's already been beaten to death for 30 years.  I tread down a lot of the same paths as others before me and reach a lot of the same conclusions.  The whole "those ignorant of history shall repeat it" bit.  It's not intentional, it just happens.  I'm sure that it happens to everyone now and again, but it happens to me a lot- not only in this hobby but in all the others I am in.  Been that way all my life- i suppose it's the fate of the experimentor

[johngreene]

Once more, with feeling....

You can't get rich off a fuzzbox and especially a fuzzbox idea.  If there is any money to be made, it comes from:

I have to disagree with such a broad statement. You can get rich off of just a good idea. It just has to be a 'good' idea. Many companies will pay quite handsomely for something that has mass market appeal. Now, if you want to talk about the odds of coming up with an idea like that.......... and then realizing it and being able to bring it to the appropriate people who would recognize it....... 

The odds are pretty slim, but it's still possible.

Just my $0.02 worth.

--john

[petemoore]

  In my camp today, all on this subject is moot, the EZ Vibe has become a tremolo...I opted against the 'vibrato' switch and wired it direct to 'chorus'.
  I don't know whappened !!!
  But it's not a happy vibe today with it, just starts killing the note according to the light pulse of the LED's...I did pull the paper out and noticed a difference,,,
  Back to the lab with it again I guess...Everything looked real good last night, all boxed up and able to withstand 'normal' knocks and everything phasing like Real Good, I was getting a long kick out of it.
  The only thing that 'wiggles' is the LED LDR 'spider wire' frame, which is Perf on the one side and cardboard separating the LDR wires which all fan out and go where they go...Dagnab EZ Vibes sound great, but nobody else has the troubles I do with them...now I'm writing Blues song titles and everything...

[Mark Hammer]

I have to disagree with such a broad statement. You can get rich off of just a good idea. It just has to be a 'good' idea. Many companies will pay quite handsomely for something that has mass market appeal. Now, if you want to talk about the odds of coming up with an idea like that.......... and then realizing it and being able to bring it to the appropriate people who would recognize it....... 

The odds are pretty slim, but it's still possible.

Just my $0.02 worth.

--john

Hi John,
Nice to see you here again.  You're right of course.  But by the same reasoning, *someone* has to win the lottery eventually, right?  Of course, chance being what it is, some folks can spend 10% of their paycheck on lottery tickets for the rest of their lives and never win anything, while someone else can win big on their first ever ticket.  The question is whether you want to base your daily life on that.