Nothing New for Eleven at NAMM - Now What?

[moff]

We got nothing for the Eleven Rack on 11/11/11, or at NAMM 2012. No new functionality, no customer IRs, no stand-alone editor, no new amps or FX. Idea Scale seems to have been ignored, and it certainly appears that Avid didn't listen to the customer base (again).

So now what? Does it mean that Avid has killed or abandoned the product? Does it mean our beloved 11Rs have suddenly become useless paperweights? Does it mean that we should all jump ship over to Fractal or Line 6?

What do YOU guys think?

[Sharmel]

I think this all happened for a reason. They are developing something new....Eleven Rack II.

[guitardom]

i think it simply means the RnD money and man power has went into pt10 and HDx. i could only fathom what it costed them to to pull of this off. its a business and has only so much money and manpower.

the 11r is only a couple years old and the erxp was released less than a year ago. avid has always stated when a device reaches eoss. i see nothing even remotely leading to it being a dead device. they service many many pieces of hardware through multiple companys. just because the 11r is not seeing an update every 6 months as many seem to want, does not mean its dead.

in all reality there was nothing new for avid period at namm, not just 11.

[blewis]

Originally Posted by Sharmel

....Eleven Rack II.

I'd like to coin "Eleven Rack mk11"

You can say it as "Mark Two" or "Mark Eleven" and the font can make "mkII" and "mk11" look pretty much the same.

But hey, Avid would be screwing up pretty bad if they hired me for their marketing team. ;-)

[SloeGin]

Originally Posted by Sharmel

I think this all happened for a reason. They are developing something new....Eleven Rack II.

That would be cool

[TieDyedDevil]

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but my Eleven Rack works as well as the day I bought it and has the cool ERXP that I added less than a year ago.

The Eleven Rack is still an awesome product that still does everything I bought it to do...

[dawnsman1]

Well, here are some thoughts!

The 11R and other such devices at this point mostly are emulating what old amps and effects do/did. At what point does it really get any better? I have been doing some recording with mine and just enjoying the things that this thing allows me to do that would have just not been possible a short few years back. I have professional quality sounds at my disposal (using PT 8.05 I think it is… it does everything I need!) and I never would have been able to get those kinds of tones by myself in the past without paying big bucks for a real sound engineer. I just recorded a song and I used the AC30, one of the Fender amps, the Plexi and the Ampeg for bass, not to mention the stomps and some of the rack mount kind of reverbs and the like. My only real limitations are my ability to play (broke my hand in Sept) and my hearing (I am legally deaf [no not from loud music although that probably didn't help!] and I am so thankful I can still have some musical fun! )

So, right now we are mostly emulating the past, trying to get all those tones we know and love. With new gear coming out like the Gibson Firebird X and the new Fender/Roland Strat that does some cool things as well as offerings like Line 6 has, is the future trying to do what we used to do better or more accurately or is there something new around the corner? At what point to we model the past at a level where is just doesn’t get any better? What devices are going to be classics 20, 30 years or more from now? Will people wish they still had their 11R because someone will be trying to emulate it?  On the other hand, I totally understand the feeling of feeling “abandoned” if Avid just shelves it. It would be too bad since it is a very good and useful piece of hardware and it will just die if word gets out it has no future, even if in its present state it is an amazing deal really….

[moff]

Don't get me wrong - I love my 11R, in fact I have 2 of them. I was merely playing devil's advocate because of the amount of anticipation many had, and the inevitable jumps to conclusions made by some.

[dawnsman1]

I am just being a bit philosophical I guess but I think these are some good questions. Buy a Firebird X and throw everything else away? I would like to try one of those someday!

I do feel bad for the guys running Lion on their Mac’s who would have to pay $500 for an editor though. That is a bit scandalous!

[TieDyedDevil]

Originally Posted by dawnsman1

Well, here are some thoughts!

Thanks. Interesting musings... :)

The 11R and other such devices at this point mostly are emulating what old amps and effects do/did. At what point does it really get any better?

I don't think this is answerable without some notion of what "better" means.

I have been doing some recording with mine and just enjoying the things that this thing allows me to do that would have just not been possible a short few years back. I have professional quality sounds at my disposal (using PT 8.05 I think it is… it does everything I need!) and I never would have been able to get those kinds of tones by myself in the past without paying big bucks for a real sound engineer.

Totally agreed! As Mrs. TDD says, "We live in the frakking future!".

Now where's my flying car...?

So, right now we are mostly emulating the past, trying to get all those tones we know and love. With new gear coming out like the Gibson Firebird X and the new Fender/Roland Strat that does some cool things as well as offerings like Line 6 has, is the future trying to do what we used to do better or more accurately or is there something new around the corner?

"New" sounds are obviously not the Eleven Rack's forte, which is just fine; what it does, it does very well. There are other products out there that may or may not be better at creating "new" sounds.

The problem, as I see it, is that no one really knows what "new" sounds will catch on. If you can't define the sound, the software guys can't build it. (For reasons that I won't elaborate here, it's not enough to say "I'm not sure what I want, so just give me all the options you can imagine.")

At what point to we model the past at a level where is just doesn’t get any better?

Again, that depends upon your definition of "better"...

For practical purposes, I think we've turned the corner to where the current technology is "good enough" for most people who want an emulation of some piece of gear. In fact I'd argue that, on average, we're all way better off than we were as little as ten years ago, if for no other reason than the fact that there are darned few of us who can properly apply a fire-breathing cranked tube amp nowadays

That said, there will always be those who might disapprove of some nuance of a model. You can't please everyone.

What devices are going to be classics 20, 30 years or more from now?

My crystal ball says, "Ask again in a few decades..."

Will people wish they still had their 11R because someone will be trying to emulate it?

I'd be surprised, but not because something else will be necessarily "better".