Fantastic or Terrible Names?

[rbc]

I've always been a little ambivalent about the way names are used for the Sustainor and Distortion Generator. First off, given that the both are basically amplifier simulators, I always felt like maybe the names could have better reflected their use in the Rockman effects chain. The other controls that had what I felt to be bad names were the treble booster and phase notcher.

I thought that maybe the treble booster could be called the treble compensation, or something else to tip off the user that it's for adjusting the output stage to the kind of amplification it's being sent to. Maybe marking the phase notcher switch with 1x12 and 4x12 is something that could have been done.

After thinking about it on and off for the last 10 years, I've started to reach some other conclusions. Given Tom Scholz's focus on production, perhaps the names better suited how he thought of these devices in the context of fitting in the mix. Maybe he thought the terminology of amps and pedals to be confining and wanted a larger palette of names to call things. Some other ideas that came to mind are using names that he could claim trademarks with. Perhaps they could have been chosen to avoid criticism, if they didn't sound exactly like the real thing.

Anyway, those are some random thoughts I had today. I'd be curious to hear what other people think.