Alesis thingie

[Enzo]

I have a small piece fo Alesis demonstration gear. Back when they were selling Microverbs and MIDIVerbs, they made a little box to compare them. It was made for the music stores selling the units. The little box was made in the same extruded cabinet as the microverb. All it was was a signal source and a selector switch. It had two pushbuttons, and each played a sample. One was the short sound, and was a snare drum hit. The other was a long sound, and was like a chord struck and held as it fades. Pressing either button played that sound. On the rear were three return jacks, routing the sound sample from three units being demo'd, an output to some amp for listening to the result, and an output from the sound generator to go to the demo units.

On the front a small switch selected which of three you would hear. There was also a front AUX in jack in case you wanted to play some other sound into it.

That's it, it plays a snare hit or a chord at the press of a button, and acts as a basic signal router.


Normally I am pretty good at google, but I can't find this thing. To make it worse, Alesis made a much more sophisticated demonstration unit later, with LCD screen and more capability. If I search for demonstration unit, I get you tubes of product demos. If I try to get specific enough to find a demonstration thingie, I only find that newer fancy one.

ANyone have any thoughts?

And it is for sale, if I can figure out what to call it.

[km6xz]

Hummm, We were their biggest warranty station and in fact took over all factory service the last 2 years the original company existed, and never heard of it. Have you seen others or was it a one-off for some chain?

[Enzo]

never seen another, but then I rarely scoped out other stores. It came to our independent music store in town, not part of a chain. Inside it is a nice professionally done board, silk screen and all, some socketed ROMs with I assume the samples. I wound up with it, and I left there in 1994, the panel is labelled for Microbverb II, Quadraverb and MIDIVerb II, if that helps place the era. I think the Microverb II came along in 1988?

Not that they couldn't have made a one off very nicely, there is nothing home made looking inside. There is nothing inside to identify the product. Other than "REV:BB" in copper along one edge. Nor was there evidence the board could be used for some other product. Whatever it is, it isn;t a kludge.

[km6xz]

Sure does not sound like a custom made. The company did not spend much money on sales tools but maybe that was one that was offered to stores for a price most did not care to bother with so was very limited production. You have a rare collectable for "all those collectors of late 80s digital electronics......if there is such a group.
A lot of what they did was inefficient and amateurism inside the company but it was also pretty creative. Everything was in one building from production to advertising to design, shipping, repair, accounting etc. If there was a problem, the 6 different departments which were impacted were all within 60 feet of each other. That worked surprisingly well and kept costs low until they had some real cash flow increase with the ADAT and the upper management went crazy with spending and trying to act like one successful product that had already peaked, was enough to warrant increasing overhead 10 times. They leased a gigantic building next to MTV and Sony in Santa Monica which cost more per month than their entire operating budget the year before. That new world headquarters was only accounting any corporate offices, they had to lease a gigantic warehouse, 15 times larger than needed across town for some reason, plus moved engineering staff which worked on custom IC designs to a separate design center 1.5 hours away on the beach. It tried to turn corporate as if a gigantic bank, not a one-cash-cow product niche company. The next big seller never came and soon the monthly drain from leases and increased inefficiency of being spread out doomed the company. I lost a lot because they owed me a great deal of money when they suddenly declared sham bankruptcy. It was a ploy to stiff $50m in debt and buy the name and licenses for $100k and were up building everything in China a week later. Romney would have been proud of them.

[Enzo]

I do intend to sell it, I just hoped to find a good name for it and maybe a little story.

Like the guy says on Pawn Stars though, "Just because something is rare, doesn't mean it is valuable." But we can hope.

[Richard]

Sure does not sound like a custom made. The company did not spend much money on sales tools but maybe that was one that was offered to stores for a price most did not care to bother with so was very limited production. You have a rare collectable for "all those collectors of late 80s digital electronics......if there is such a group.
A lot of what they did was inefficient and amateurism inside the company but it was also pretty creative. Everything was in one building from production to advertising to design, shipping, repair, accounting etc. If there was a problem, the 6 different departments which were impacted were all within 60 feet of each other. That worked surprisingly well and kept costs low until they had some real cash flow increase with the ADAT and the upper management went crazy with spending and trying to act like one successful product that had already peaked, was enough to warrant increasing overhead 10 times. They leased a gigantic building next to MTV and Sony in Santa Monica which cost more per month than their entire operating budget the year before. That new world headquarters was only accounting any corporate offices, they had to lease a gigantic warehouse, 15 times larger than needed across town for some reason, plus moved engineering staff which worked on custom IC designs to a separate design center 1.5 hours away on the beach. It tried to turn corporate as if a gigantic bank, not a one-cash-cow product niche company. The next big seller never came and soon the monthly drain from leases and increased inefficiency of being spread out doomed the company. I lost a lot because they owed me a great deal of money when they suddenly declared sham bankruptcy. It was a ploy to stiff $50m in debt and buy the name and licenses for $100k and were up building everything in China a week later. Romney would have been proud of them.

I'll bet the bigwigs gave themselves big raises for that one.