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Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 9:51 pm
by Jwar
Chankgeez wrote:
D.o.S. wrote:
jwar wrote: The website. I will disagree with those saying anything about your site. It looks ok to me. Who really gives a fuck about a website anyway? Look at Alan's site from Mountainking. It sucks balls, and people are fucking obsessed with his stuff.
To be fair, Mountainking (and Sonny, who's also the fucking man) are both working from a position of their existing endorsements gaining them a large foothold in the pedal nerd community.
Those pedals speak for themselves. They don't need fancy websites. Other pedals aren't so fortunate.

(Not a knock of the Wattson pedals themselves.)

Do they though? I mean that in all seriousness. I've NEVER tried one of Sonny's pedals, and haven't had a desire to. It sounds cool, but I just haven't cared to try it. The ONLY reason I started trying Mountainking was all the boner licking around here about it. Which to be quite honest, I'm not that impressed with them. Alan doesn't even answer emails when you say "I have money, please take it". So yea...not the best customer service.

What are their endorsements btw? Other than this place and Talkbass??? I'm not trying to be an ass, I'm just curious.

I don't think the website matters. I get orders for Acid Splash and I don't even have a website. Does that mean I'm not a pro? NO. It means I don't care to have one at this time because it's not that big of a deal to most people.

A website is only as good as the builder. I could give a crap less about someone's website.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 10:00 pm
by Jwar
One more piece of advice.

Close this thread. IMO people are being semi helpful here, but you need to talk to other people who run businesses like the other builders here. I'm sure they can give some guidance. When I was having troubles, I PM'd others and asked advice. It helps a lot. Not that the customers opinion doesn't matter (it totally does), but they sometimes will want what you can't give.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 10:25 pm
by Chankgeez
Yeah, jwar, in my opinion they do.

I don't really wanna type out a long post right now, I wanna get back to playing guitar, but if you wanna talk about this later, I'd be happy to.

BlueBeard is one of the nicest Muffs I've had the pleasure of playing with.
jwar wrote:The website. I will disagree with those saying anything about your site. It looks ok to me. Who really gives a fuck about a website anyway? Look at Alan's site from Mountainking. It sucks balls, and people are fucking obsessed with his stuff.
Mountainking was making noise when Alan was still using Myspace as his "website".

The Wattson website is stuck in 1996. If you have a product that you can't keep building fast enough to meet demand, then you can stop caring how the fuck your website looks. Until then, I'd say, make it look as nice as possible.

If someone asks for opinions on a forum, they're gonna get 'em. Qualified or not.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:24 pm
by new05002
Wattson dude, PM me if you want some thoughts on this matter.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:41 pm
by Jwar
Chankgeez wrote:Yeah, jwar, in my opinion they do.

I don't really wanna type out a long post right now, I wanna get back to playing guitar, but if you wanna talk about this later, I'd be happy to.

BlueBeard is one of the nicest Muffs I've had the pleasure of playing with.
jwar wrote:The website. I will disagree with those saying anything about your site. It looks ok to me. Who really gives a fuck about a website anyway? Look at Alan's site from Mountainking. It sucks balls, and people are fucking obsessed with his stuff.
Mountainking was making noise when Alan was still using Myspace as his "website".

The Wattson website is stuck in 1996. If you have a product that you can't keep building fast enough to meet demand, then you can stop caring how the fuck your website looks. Until then, I'd say, make it look as nice as possible.

If someone asks for opinions on a forum, they're gonna get 'em. Qualified or not.

I get what you're saying. I'm not trying to start a pissing match either. I'm was just stating my opinion as well. No hard feelings meant.

Also, I didn't mean that anyone wasn't "qualified" to answer his questions. I was only suggesting that he may want to seek advice from his peers first. Doesn't sound unreasonable to me? I just don't think a thread titled "why aren't we cool?" is going to be a positive thing.

Moving on. I've said my piece. Didn't mean to upset anyone.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2014 11:44 pm
by Chankgeez
jwar wrote:... I just don't think a thread titled "why aren't we cool?" is going to be a positive thing.
That's one thing we can agree upon. :hug:

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 1:29 am
by D.o.S.
jwar wrote:
Chankgeez wrote:
D.o.S. wrote:
jwar wrote: The website. I will disagree with those saying anything about your site. It looks ok to me. Who really gives a fuck about a website anyway? Look at Alan's site from Mountainking. It sucks balls, and people are fucking obsessed with his stuff.
To be fair, Mountainking (and Sonny, who's also the fucking man) are both working from a position of their existing endorsements gaining them a large foothold in the pedal nerd community.
Those pedals speak for themselves. They don't need fancy websites. Other pedals aren't so fortunate.

(Not a knock of the Wattson pedals themselves.)

Do they though? I mean that in all seriousness. I've NEVER tried one of Sonny's pedals, and haven't had a desire to. It sounds cool, but I just haven't cared to try it. The ONLY reason I started trying Mountainking was all the boner licking around here about it. Which to be quite honest, I'm not that impressed with them. Alan doesn't even answer emails when you say "I have money, please take it". So yea...not the best customer service.

What are their endorsements btw? Other than this place and Talkbass??? I'm not trying to be an ass, I'm just curious.

I don't think the website matters. I get orders for Acid Splash and I don't even have a website. Does that mean I'm not a pro? NO. It means I don't care to have one at this time because it's not that big of a deal to most people.

A website is only as good as the builder. I could give a crap less about someone's website.
I would wager that Mountainking's cache really started to take off after they got the liner note credits on the Shrinebuilder record.

Sonny's early Bluebeards ended up with bands like Sunn and The Hidden Hand and Mastodon (around Leviathan). Not the biggest bands, but definitely bands that dudes who like to spend money on gear that'll make them sound like their favorite records will buy.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 1:40 am
by D.o.S.
Also, if you're not going out of your way to cater to cultivate a specific tonal aesthetic--ala Dunwich--it's gonna be harder to get the gear to the people who sell the gear to the masses, ya know?

And, TBH, I feel like you guys aren't quite brutally transparent enough. Like, the Dwarfcraft Russian Circles ECT. Gee. I wonder who that's for? I wonder who that's by? I wonder why that one sold out in ten minutes or whatever the shit it was.

Same song, second verse: The Quantum Mystic. I bet Yob fans would like that one. I bet Dunwich and BAT and Mike S. would've sold like seven ten years ago.

A lot of it is marketing 101. If you guys have a Radiohead in a box pedal, you should call it "STEPPING ON JOHNNY GREENWOOD'S FACE WHILE YOU PLAY EXIT MUSIC (FOR A FILM)." You're dealing with musicians. Musicians have no frontal cortex. That's why they buy things like the Quantum Mystic and the Russian Circles ECT instead of a Ross distortion or a normal ECT. Because the fetish is what justifies the price, and the demand.

I go to Wikipedia to look up the SHin Ei Companion Fuzz--why don't I see any references to Wattson's reissue there?


(And, lest anyone get the wrong idea, I love the work that DunNick and JWar and Aen do.)

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 1:51 am
by AxAxSxS
And Mike Scheidt is currently selling QM's for $159. Not a bad price for something that sounds good, has Dunwich, BAT and Yob mojo's. I ordered mine after seeing Yob and hearing and seeing him use it. Now THATS MARKETING. I managed to talk to Mike briefly after that show and asked him about it and his face lit up and he gave it a rave review and was very enthusiastic about it. That experience made me want mine, and now when people ask me "whats that?" I tell them with similar enthusiasm. and on and on it goes...

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 2:01 am
by D.o.S.
AxAxSxS wrote:And Mike Scheidt is currently selling QM's for $159. Not a bad price for something that sounds good, has Dunwich, BAT and Yob mojo's. I ordered mine after seeing Yob and hearing and seeing him use it. Now THATS MARKETING. I managed to talk to Mike briefly after that show and asked him about it and his face lit up and he gave it a rave review and was very enthusiastic about it. That experience made me want mine, and now when people ask me "whats that?" I tell them with similar enthusiasm. and on and on it goes...
Right, exactly. I see it on Facebook from the Yob page. I see it on here 'cause of Dunwich, etc. It doesn't hurt that since Yob reactivated in '09 the collective "people" have gotten their shit together and actually started to listen to them, either. :)*

People want to use the gear that people who they think are cool use. I don't know of anyone that uses Wattson Effects, even though they're rad.


Food for thought.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 2:04 am
by hazelwould
AxAxSxS wrote:And Mike Scheidt is currently selling QM's for $159. Not a bad price for something that sounds good, has Dunwich, BAT and Yob mojo's. I ordered mine after seeing Yob and hearing and seeing him use it. Now THATS MARKETING. I managed to talk to Mike briefly after that show and asked him about it and his face lit up and he gave it a rave review and was very enthusiastic about it. That experience made me want mine, and now when people ask me "whats that?" I tell them with similar enthusiasm. and on and on it goes...
Ding ding ding! Buzzzz :)*

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 9:42 am
by Jwar
D.o.S. wrote:
jwar wrote:
Chankgeez wrote:
D.o.S. wrote:
jwar wrote: The website. I will disagree with those saying anything about your site. It looks ok to me. Who really gives a fuck about a website anyway? Look at Alan's site from Mountainking. It sucks balls, and people are fucking obsessed with his stuff.
To be fair, Mountainking (and Sonny, who's also the fucking man) are both working from a position of their existing endorsements gaining them a large foothold in the pedal nerd community.
Those pedals speak for themselves. They don't need fancy websites. Other pedals aren't so fortunate.

(Not a knock of the Wattson pedals themselves.)

Do they though? I mean that in all seriousness. I've NEVER tried one of Sonny's pedals, and haven't had a desire to. It sounds cool, but I just haven't cared to try it. The ONLY reason I started trying Mountainking was all the boner licking around here about it. Which to be quite honest, I'm not that impressed with them. Alan doesn't even answer emails when you say "I have money, please take it". So yea...not the best customer service.

What are their endorsements btw? Other than this place and Talkbass??? I'm not trying to be an ass, I'm just curious.

I don't think the website matters. I get orders for Acid Splash and I don't even have a website. Does that mean I'm not a pro? NO. It means I don't care to have one at this time because it's not that big of a deal to most people.

A website is only as good as the builder. I could give a crap less about someone's website.
I would wager that Mountainking's cache really started to take off after they got the liner note credits on the Shrinebuilder record.

Sonny's early Bluebeards ended up with bands like Sunn and The Hidden Hand and Mastodon (around Leviathan). Not the biggest bands, but definitely bands that dudes who like to spend money on gear that'll make them sound like their favorite records will buy.

Thank you for clearing that up. I was HONESTLY just curious. I haven't tried any of Sonny's stuff so I didn't know what the deal was other than he's a cool guy. I kind of should kick myself for the Mountainking comment too. God damn it. I love Mountainking. I'm just mad at Alan for not answer emails ever.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 11:50 am
by cedarskies
I went to your website and went straight to the blog to see what is new, and the most recent post is from 2008...

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 11:50 am
by rustywire
Because John Mayer doesn't use your stuff. :|:


But seriously, nobody seems to care about Shine Ei circuits; I rarely see them on boards from any manufacturer.
I'd really like to see a Wattson FX twist on Fuzzrites, especially the germanium...and at your price points.

Also, the current market trend seems to be one of space-saving and slimming down...so large enclosures, custom or otherwise....are passé.
Kind of like how you can go into most music stores and they'll have numerous 4x12s that nobody wants.

Re: Why arent we cool?

Posted: Thu Feb 06, 2014 12:23 pm
by Hyphen Nation
rustywire wrote:Because John Mayer doesn't use your stuff. :|:


But seriously, nobody seems to care about Shine Ei circuits; I rarely see them on boards from any manufacturer.
I'd really like to see a Wattson FX twist on Fuzzrites, especially the germanium...and at your price points.

Also, the current market trend seems to be one of space-saving and slimming down...so large enclosures, custom or otherwise....are passé.
Kind of like how you can go into most music stores and they'll have numerous 4x12s that nobody wants.
I think I'll always want a 4x12…

but I get what you're saying…what's on trend? As much as Gibson, Fender and Marshall would do anything to hold onto their golden age, the role of guitars in creating music is always evolving/changing.