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on December 11
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectyes, marc, that's pretty accurate. According to our costs, the list price will be $219.00. The Kickstarter folks will still have the instrument at $200. As far as magic, there are a couple of tricks we're adding that have come up in the process of building the first couple of prototypes. Come over to our website and order n iTar at $200. You won't be disappointed!
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on December 6
Harvey Starr
Posted project update #4The iTar project is alive and well and getting a new home
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on December 3
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectMigration Notice: As our Kickstarter campaign is coming to a close I wanted to say what an awesome experience this has been! I didn't know how people would respond to the idea of the iTar and the feedback has been interesting, inspiring, and successful! While it's tru that we won't hit our Kickstarter goal we had a lot of positive interest from top people in the music, gaming and mobile industries. I was approached with substantial offers of private investment capital and after a compressed negotiation cycle we've put together a team backed by just one major investor so far, a truly magical and talented entrepreneur who is investing sufficient capital to put our first run of iTars together. yay!!!! Learning about the philosophy of Kickstarter and crowd funding has been a huge eyeopener in seeing ways that a community of interested individuals can relate to each other with mutual support and hopefully empower the larger society through technology. It feels very democratic in the true egalitarian, ThomasJefferson-onian sense. I want to particularly thank people who are willing to put in their full pledge for a project they know won't fund. God Bless you. That's nice. Also, especially everyone who offered the many constructive comments on various aspects of the project, a big thanks. The fabulous infrastructure of Kickstarter has brought us offers for services in marketing and fulfillment and we've established new relationships with both gaming and education developers. So I'm inviting everyone who is interested in having an iTar please come to our website www.starrlabs.com , where we will be happy to take your order. For Kickstarter backers it's free shipping, so you can stick with your original pledge at only $200 total. Everyone else will pay $35 shipping in the US. If you like, you can go to Paypal to sales@starrlabs.com. For those of you who were so supportive as to double up you pledge to $500, I really appreciate that. You can stick with those Kickstarter rewards at $500, or simply try the unadorned iTar for $200. Our investor funding won't show up for 4-6 weeks, and your purchase now would mean a lot. At our website you'll be able to follow our progress as we move along. Also, by all means, I invite everyone who is interested, to come to our website to sign up for our newsletter or join the forum if you want to investigate MIDI mysteries or harangue about how MIDI effects modern politics and social order. String theorists are welcome. There have been some minor mutations and refinements to the design to account for the addition of a really nice powered speaker accessory. There were a lot of questions regarding powered speakers so we've put together what we think is an awesome solution for that. The speakers are definitely a cost item and have to be accounted for in the price, but a lot of people use headphones, USB, MIDI, a Marshall stack (ahh, the Brits...) for their sound reinforcement and don't need the speakers, so we're making that an accessory.
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on November 27
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectThere have been several requests for a nice embedded audio solution, but some people are more interested in going straight to an amp. This is going to be a very cost sensitive product and I'm worried about charging some people for anything they don't really want. This might make a nice detachable accessory. MIDI is going to be standard tho'. I wonder if people would mind if the price went to $250 when it gets to market? Cheap for a robust MIDI device but expensive for kids and gamers. ????
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on November 23, 2011
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectAhhh. I wasn't aware they would do that for a product at this stage. They've been very supportive so far tho'. I'm not sure how or to whom I'd inquire about your suggestion. thanks! I"ll investigate
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on November 22, 2011
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectwhat do you mean? Spoken to Apple in what regard?
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on November 16, 2011
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectHI! Sorry for the confusion. I thought I could push us closer to our goal by lowering the price of the iTar , the only way I could figure how to do it. I may be wrong and it may be just too few interested eyeballs to view this project. I know the $150 price isn't going to be easy for us. Anyway, if it helps us to get over the top, I'm offering the lower price, but you'll have to pledge the full $200 as usual and trust me to rebate the $50 after Kickstarter closes. You'll send us an email with the words "$50 rebate" in the subject and include your Kickstarter user-name in the body of the text. Let me know if you have any other questions.
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on November 14, 2011
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectYou people are beautiful!! Thanks for the encouragement. One way or another we'll make this happen. I'm cranking on all the design work. We should be posting a live demo this week or next.
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on November 11, 2011
Harvey Starr
Posted project update #3incredibly busy week
wow! Kickstarter, thanks for the awesome experience! I've had a lot of unusual and vry interesting calls in the last few weeks regarding this project. It seems to have really touched a chord (1/8note-icon here) with some visionary people in the music and mobile bizesses. They see this as a new platform. So I'm going back and forth with people who want to invest in this as an enterprise and I think we can put together a really good team. An awesome team. It's a lesson in building relationships, in a hurry. You learn to trust people or not, based on subtle impressions. The network of the universal mind.
We've landed a video game developer, Machineworks who just released DukeNukem for Android, and they've got a GH-style game they can tweak for the iTar input. I'm pushing them to add support for music styles, country, jazz, and things that weren't covered by the GH/RB genre before they bit it. Lots of cool territory yet to cover.
Also, a top iPad music education developer, MisoMedia, is going to modify their learn-to-play Guitar/Banjo/Mandolin/Bass software to work with the iTar.
I'm getting factory quotes and getting the software finished even though it looks like we're not going to make our Kickstarter goal based on the numbers. Here's my pitch ladies and germs...
I need to make this happen somehow. I'm willing to offer now to provide to everyone a new iTar complete dock and fingerboard, software and performance interface to the iPad and access to many music apps out of the box... for ... $150!! Tell me , "Harvey, thanks for your offer and that's just what I needed to hear to jump on this awesome opportunity to participate in the birth of a new artform", and as God is my witness, I will honor that.
I am not able to edit the text for our $200 reward level due to Kickstarter's well-thought-out interface, but if it can help us reach our goal, I'll try to figure out how to break even and drop the price. For people who have already pledged, God bless you and I think you're wonderful and I will throw in something extra that's cool like a neckstrip.
3 of 5View Previous Comments-
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Derik White on November 12, 2011
yeah, I'm in...I was waiting for another paycheck before I fully pledged.
what do we need to do?
-Derik
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David Fraser on November 12, 2011
HI Harvey,
I am not at all clear on what you are asking exactly??? -
Derik White on November 15, 2011
I find it very strange that your post doesn't even make sense, and when people ask you to elaborate you don't come on here for days...
Way to instill confidence in your project!
dw
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on November 7, 2011
Harvey Starr
commented on a projectThe neckStrip is on the side of the fingerboard and naturally sits under your thumb when you're fretting or under your other thumb when you are tapping notes with the top hand. When you press the strip it sends a programmable message, like Pitchbend or Modulation, an effect or whatever you want. So if you have a bass in the bottom hand and a guitar in the top hand, you can assign the NeckStrip to bend just the guitar sound. Extremely versatile...
Harvey Starr
San Diego, CA
Harvey Starr is an inventor, musician and electronics engineer operating out of San Diego, California. He holds patents in various fields including three for electronic guitars. Harvey was educated at UCLA (Physics, 1972), ETI (Electronics, 1975), an... view more
Best of luck Harvey! Love the concept and can't wait to have my own!