Scott Fraser

A Breadwinner? I believe Eastwood makes a Breadwinner clone. It's a cool shape, which became the starting off point for the Klein & other derivatives of the "Ergonomic" school of guitar design.

I'm suspecting that this whole thing got caught in the market shift away from hardware effects, towards software effects. IOW, TC came up with a brilliant plan to integrate a piece of hardware with VST applicability, brought out the rack unit, waited for the 3rd party developers, then realized that they were behind the curve, the hardware wasn't selling, upper management wanted to cut losses & concentrate on other products, & A String fell into a black hole of neglect, as the company turned its attention elsewhere. But, while understandable, that's no excuse. Somebody, somewhere in some corporate cubicle has to step up, be a man & say "I can tell you what the problem is. The problem is that the company doesn't want to invest any more in making this product work, so the plug is being pulled. But more important to us than anything else is making sure you get satisfaction in every TC experience you have, so we're going to do whatever it takes to insure you go home happy. The software isn't forthcoming, but we'll take the box back for cash, credit, or any similar value product we make, plus we're going to give you something extra for your trouble." There, I just wrote that, TC, & it wasn't that hard at all to figure out how to make a customer happy, if not with the product, at least happy with the the brand, & that's something that advertising can't buy, but good customer relations can.

Might could be there are so many other fires to put out in scores of other guitar forums that Tore just hasn't had time to get back to us. There could be hundreds, thousands even, of truly pissed off customers he's trying to placate.

Yes, it's the same company.

One should never buy a product for what it might do after the next intended upgrade. If the feature doesn't exist now you just can't count on it ever really being there.

Yes it is. But fugly is in the eye of the beholder. I'm sure somebody, somewhere is just swooning over this.

Great look, truly original. I've never heard an opinion as to whether these were any good. It kinda became the template for the Klein guitar. I think Eastwood is importing a modern version of the Breadwinner.

Is that a built in cell phone?

OK, that IS a baritone then. Always wanted one of those. At various times Fender has made Tele or Strat baritones, but never at a point that I had an excess of cash on hand.

B, E, A, D, F#, B, low to high?

That's long. Sure looks like a baritone. But, if you can find strings that long, I bet the tension at that length makes them sound really rich. Like piano strings, I bet.

Standard tuning, not baritone? That's long. Does it feel substantially longer than a Fender neck? I'll bet ease of playing upper frets is great, but wonder about certain 1st position chord voicings being more of a stretch.

This design, along with the one that looks like a fish skeleton, though imaginative & spacey, seems like the worst possible ergonomics one could think of in building an instrument that humans have to play. There's no body to anchor solidly against the player's body for stability, so the fretting hand has to hold the thing up, & there's no mass to provide sustain, nothing solid to push against for bends & vibrato. I don't get it.

Engineering-wise, I believe it makes it easier to build the pedals by robotic assembly. Business-wise, it maximizes profit by eliminating the cost of actual repairs. As long as nobody knows this is how they roll, it's good for TC. Once people learn this is their way of dealing with their customer base, it's very bad for TC. I hate this kind of corporate hubris. It's what gives capitalism a bad name. F*** TC, I hope this comes back to bite them very deeply on the ass.

Great price, too.

While browsing through Harmony Central today on another quest I ran across this from somebody there: "WARNING: TC Electronics Pedals Are NOT REPAIRABLE. Instead of fixing my switch they wanted to charge me $72 plus shipping on a $99 pedal to replace all electronics, when only the switch was defective. This is their blanket repair policy on ALL repairs. They have no replacement switches. The switch is on the board so substituting a different switch can't work. Do not buy pedals from companies that cannot repair their own switches."

Hey Skip, that mix totally addressed the balance & sound issues on the old version. Good job, you can hear everything now, nothing is masking other important elements. Done good.

So, in the same thread A String hit 3500 posts & Kramer hit 3333. That's something. I'll bet the Fleetwood brand name was one production run at an Asian factory for a specific client, maybe a large music store. Scott Fraser