kahawe":1oac16at said:
Since we are talking midi footswitches... I have honestly always been wondering what makes pretty much all those midi thingies so expensive because to me it's nothing but some switches, some cable, a metal box and a tiny bit of MIDI signaling and yes I realize that is probably ignorant and yes I haven't got the first clue about what's going on - so maybe you can help me understand the magic or where the price comes from; even factoring R&D and software into it... we aren't talking Mars-rover operating system complexity here..? Even the midi-mouse goes for 100 - 150...
At the heart of a MIDI foot switch is a microcontroller (or some use a microprocessor), which is basically a full blown 8-bit computer on a chip. Software has to be written to make this mini computer do what it does. Switches, wire, a box and a tiny bit of MIDI signaling doesn't quite cut it. MIDI is serial data...these micros have a UART on them that has to handle the reception and transmission of said serial data. The firmware for the micro has to be able to process this data and turn it into the signals used to switch things on and off. Or vice versa...convert the signal from the switch into serial data. Let's not forget all the signals the micro must generate to operate the switch LED's along with the numbers and characters you see on the controller's LED display. That all takes software to do and unless you're a firmware developer, you don't realize just how complex and time consuming the writing, testing and debugging of this software can be.
You also have switches...and the cost of those add up. Throw in LEDs, an LED display, the resistors for each LED and 7 or 8 resistors for each LED segment on the display, and a transistor for each digit on the LED display, plus latch chips for demultiplexing, the external PROM chip for the software storage, and the external NV-RAM chip for user data storage, the crystal/burden caps that make the micro work, DIN connectors, power supply components, the power pack that comes with it, the ribbon cables inside of them, the printed circuit boards (which charge a set up fee to have them made plus the cost of the boards themselves), then there's the chassis that has to be made (which there is a set up fee to make them as well as the cost of each chassis), all the chassis painting, silkscreening and/or lexan overlays for the graphics...not to mention the hardware required to assemble the unit...every screw, nut, washer, spacer, rubber feet, etc etc must be accounted for.
Now you also have to pay people to populate the circuit boards with all the components plus the time they spend assembling the units. Not to mention the solder that gets used to assemble each unit.
Let's not forget the packaging that the controller goes in along with the paper used to print up the manual plus all the advertising they do on these things...
And that's for final assembly. Consider the R&D time and the firmware author is going to want something for his code that he wrote for it...all of the above mentioned things while also making a profit (as profit is the end goal of any business).
In the hand made/boutique market, everything is being done by hand from chassis drilling to labeling/painting, all of the assembly time, plus the heavy duty switches cost a bit more than the actuator/tactile switch setup found on mass produced controllers.
So it may sound like "just some switches, wire and a tiny bit of MIDI signaling" to most, but there's a lot of little things that eventually add up and when you're in business, every little thing must be accounted for or the business loses money and eventually goes under.
