| 00:00 - 00:05 | Uli came into our offices |
| 00:05 - 00:07 | "Steve! Dave! Jared! Arturia is killing us!" |
| 00:07 - 00:10 | "The Keystep is a low-cost MIDI keyboard." |
| 00:11 - 00:16 | "It even has CV and gate outs! We need to compete!" |
| 00:17 - 00:21 | "I need you to copy it exactly." |
| 00:21 - 00:24 | We thought he was pulling our legs. |
| 00:29 - 00:31 | It's been on the market for years. |
| 00:31 - 00:34 | Years! They've sold enough to panel the walls of a cathedral. |
| 00:38 - 00:40 | I mean, you can buy a used one for $60 |
| 00:41 - 00:47 | $50 if you have a friend selling it. |
| 00:47 - 00:50 | Uli wants to sell a clone for $99 new. |
| 00:50 - 00:56 | After the distributors and retailers take their cuts |
| 00:58 - 00:59 | we'll be lucky to have enough |
| 00:59 - 01:01 | left over for a packet of crisps. |
| 01:04 - 01:06 | He's like "No, it needs to be $99". |
| 01:06 - 01:08 | "And it needs to be identical." |
| 01:13 - 01:14 | We weren't to make it better |
| 01:14 - 01:16 | or give it more keys, full size keys, |
| 01:16 - 01:20 | polyphonic aftertouch, or add features. Nope. |
| 01:21 - 01:27 | We ended up tearing down an Arturia one, |
| 01:35 - 01:36 | reverse engineering it, |
| 01:36 - 01:39 | sticking it in a case made from recycled coffee lids |
| 01:41 - 01:44 | But hey, hey, we could have done better. |
| 01:44 - 01:47 | We could have added new features, maybe charged a bit more |
| 01:47 - 01:49 | Or understood the futility of entering |
| 01:50 - 01:53 | a market that was already full of low-cost controllers. |
| 01:54 - 01:56 | But this was a Friday. |
| 01:56 - 01:58 | Friday afternoon to be precise. |
| 01:58 - 02:02 | Happy hour was going to start in 90 minutes. |
| 02:05 - 02:07 | We wanted to get this done and |
| 02:10 - 02:11 | get Uli off our backs |
| 02:11 - 02:13 | so we could head down to the pub. |
| 02:15 - 02:17 | Steve owed me a round from last week. |
| 02:17 - 02:20 | When I bet him Uli would make us clone a TimbreWolf. |
| 02:21 - 02:28 | That's a sucker's bet and Steve took it. Daft cunt. |
| 02:29 - 02:30 | He always loses. |
| 02:30 - 02:32 | Damn right. He lost on the Cat, K2, and the TD-3 too. |
| 02:36 - 02:39 | So we bashed it out in record time. |
| 02:40 - 02:42 | Didn't even move the knob locations |
| 02:50 - 02:55 | or use something other than tiny switches on the back panel. Christ I hate those. |
| 02:56 - 02:58 | And Uli took it to market? |
| 02:58 - 03:04 | We were aghast, yeah. I mean, it's so blatant. He knew this would look bad. |
| 03:04 - 03:09 | Sometimes I think it's trolling. I'm no accountant. We might lose money on every unit that ships. |
| 03:09 - 03:11 | I wouldn't be surprised if next week... |
| 03:16 - 03:20 | ....he says we're doing a Synclavier for $300 |
| 03:23 - 03:26 | Trust me, he's mused about it. |
| 03:31 - 03:36 | They don't pay me enough. |
