Fishman SoloAmp: One Of The Easiest Line Arrays You May Ever Carry Yourself
The high octane world of acoustic coffee shop just got a little more jacked up with the introduction of the Fishman SoloAmp. It covers the trifecta of singer / songwriter necessities; it's portable, lightweight and provides everything you need in one system.
Not to mention, the SoloAmp boasts high quality sound and works in venues of many shapes and sizes. The speaker design is a compact line array in one enclosure, and the design ensures wide horizontal dispersion and more penetrative sound than your average combo amp can deliver.
Fishman throws in a 220 Watt Class D power amp to get your caffeinated crowd all hyped up as well as ultra-high excursion drivers and servo power amp utilization to do away with any need for a subwoofer.
The SoloAmp includes two mic / instrument input channels that both have three-band EQ, phantom power and the quality preamps that accept mic, instrument and line level sources. Each channel also provides independent control of reverb (four digital reverb effects in all), effects loop and feedback fighting phase and notch filters.
Other ins and outs on the SoloAmp include a monitor input / output, an auxiliary stereo input with dedicated level control, and a pair of balanced XLR outputs on both channels. You'll be able to get the SoloAmp in and out easily as well. It weighs only 25 pounds and even comes with a carry bag and stand to make sure transport and setup are a snap.
SoloAmp Not Fishman's
This is one of those tricky topics to address in public, but I feel I need to do so. I am actually the original developer of the SoloAmp -- the concept, the name, the fundamental industrial design. I licensed the project to Larry Fishman in November of 2005 with the objective of seeing the product fast-tracked to production for the Summer NAMM Show in June 2006. I provided a project ready to take to final production engineering and tooling, including custom developed drivers and one functional engineering prototype. Larry did not want to agree to a substantial percentage royalty, nor pay a substantial up-front fee. So, I agreed to simply accept a running monthly payment from him for the rights for whatever period of time the product was active for Fishman.
July 1, 2007 Fishman terminated our rights agreement and stopped paying me, yet continued to develop the product. Now, the company has publicly announced the product, still without paying me.
I have just come out of a disastrous employment catastrophe working for a Chinese company (yes, in China), so simply do not have the money to attack Fishman legally at the moment and secure my rights to this I.P.
I have a pending trademark registration for "SoloAmp," as well as a pending US patent application for the self-contained portable line array amp system for guitar-vocal usage, with a documented development trail extending back to my first shop-built prototype in February of 2003.
Interestingly, Fishman has heavily *******ized the product concept I presented in 2005. The product as launched is larger, heavier, more expensive, and much more complex than my original version. All along the way I have counseled Larry against these wrong-minded distortions of the pure original SoloAmp. And, as Fishman has taken 2.5 years to do what should have been concluded in 6-months, I have continued to explore further development and have drastically improved from where I was in 2005 with this product.
I have the choice now of spending precious cash on either (a) an expensive legal fight, or (b) bringing my current, state of the art "SoloAmp" iteration to market. So, I am choosing to take my newest design to production and leave the inevitable legal battle for the future.
I will be launching my product at NAMM Show in Anaheim in January. It is 70% of the size of the Fishman product, 60% of the weight, has basic 2-channel mic + guitar I/O with reverb, and improves on the SPL and sound quality of the Fishman version -- including improving bass response. It will retail for $499.
Anyone buying a Fishman SoloAmp between now and January will have their heart broken by that choice as the Fishman product is destined to eventually be killed by legal action, and (b) my January product at $499 will exceed the performance of this Fishman product.
I'm not whining. Fishman gambled that I would remain out of the country and not fight this battle, and decided to proceed without honoring our contract terms. However, I am back in the USA now, and am not letting this slide. The purpose of this post is simply to put the truth into the public eye, before the readers here, and make it available to Google.
Finally, anyone immediately hopping to Google to see who this Jack Campbell guy (me) is will discover a crazy period of nastiness where I was regularly accused of being everything but a decent human being back in the 2003 - 2005 period as I was running a very controversial Apple accessories manufacturing company. I am not a popular guy, and I carry a horde of detractors around the web with me. I think Larry counted on these factors making his contract breach more palatable to the guitar community.
In any case, the SoloAmp is too big, too heavy, too complex, and way too expensive, and completely misses the mark I set with the original project Fishman licensed from me in 2005. Compared to other options, it's still a great choice... only about half as great as it should have been.
I'll be fixing those problems at the Anaheim show.
Tokyo Connection
Hi, I have been reading about your plight, which I hope you resolve soon. Never was a fan of Fishman products.
Keep me posted of your own product development - I'd certainly be interested. I'm bilingual (Jpn/Eng), and could be of some help to you with the Japanese market, having lived here for 19 years and been involved in various aspects of the music/recording business. I'm also, as you may have guessed, an active musician, involved in events throughout Tokyo.
Sincerely.
Robin Watson.
Is this necessary?
It seems that Mr. Campbell has polluted many other forums and product comment with his tale of woe (and interestingly enough, has since removed many of them.) This forum should be a vehicle for those who have experience with the product once it hits the consumer market, not a forum for sore loosers.
I ask the Moderator/Webmaster to remove this thread and let it start with comments that have value. If Mr. Campbell's product is better than the Fishman product, we'll know for sure by NAMM 2009.
Absence of ID tells the tale
I find it interesting that while, quick to critize Mr. Campbell (who willingly identifies himself), you seem loathe to identify yourself... Which would tend to discredit you, instead of him.
Quick note:
We won't remove comments unless they are racist, bigoted, or obviously spam/advertising.
Remove this please
As I asked specifically back shortly after this was posted, please remove my original comment. I shortly after this reached an agreement with LArry Fishman, part of which was my agreement to take down public complaints like this one. Other forum operators have honored our request, as is the decent thing to do. Now, nearly a year later, this post is still inappropriately being shown -- despite both my and Fishman's desire to see it taken down. Again, the matter discussed was amicably resolved, so the complaint I posted here is no longer valid.
Please be a courteous web site operator and honor our request.
Don't air your dirty laundry in public
When you air your dirty laundry in public on a site that you don't control, guess what? You don't get to decide when or if something is removed. Whether you're telling the truth or not, I don't know and I don't care, YOU took to the streets with guerrilla warfare tactics against Fishman and posted here. You had no complaints when you were allowed to do so.
Apparently it didn't hurt your relationship with Fishman. In fact it's apparently turned a soured relationship into an "amicable" one..... Maybe you should thank gearwire. From where I sit they helped you get that payday you were seeking when you posted your original complaint!!!
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