I have a friend who wants to start buying analog components to build modular modules and start a business selling them on platforms like Kleinanzeigen. I‘ve talked a bit about this with him and am highly skeptical but would live to hear some thoughts from those who actually know a bit more about the Eurorack market and building this kind of stuff.
It’s hard to tell what he even wants to build or sell honestly. As far as I can tell, he has no clue about how a synth works and what the basic components of a classic signal flow are. He also doesn’t think that these are instruments but electronics. Therefore, he doesn’t think it’s necessary to first learn the basics of synthesis or even build his own little rack to test out whether what he builds even works or sounds like it should. He thinks testing that with an oscilloscope max is enough, probably not even necessary.
I‘ve told him that he should be upfront about this because I‘d like to know if the person I buy from isn’t a musician and doesn’t even play a single note with what he builds. Maybe he’s just thinking about modules that do stuff like panning and volume. It’s hard to tell since he doesn’t really talk specifics. Afaik, he got the idea asking GPT how to establish himself in Europe as someone with technical skills. The result only quoted befaco as a source
All of this doesn’t sit well with me tbh as I‘d like to think people building instruments are passionate about music and know what they’re building. I also think it’s crazy to build a business for something you don’t know anything about. Sounds like AI thinking or rich kids with money to burn. I also suspect it’s hard from a practical standpoint to promote the midules if you are completely out of the scene or answer any questions or deal with people asking for refunds or repair.
He is far from a rich kid though, so I want to be fair. He has technical and programming skills and grew up far from being rich. He has that scrappy mentality of wanting to build a business and likes to tinker. I respect that. And maybe there are modules where you don’t have to be a synth guy or play them to build something that works, sell it cheaper and make people happy? I think I!d be fine to ask a friend who knows nothing about synths to build an ISE NIN for cheap, if no musical skills are necessary and it’s all transparent, to give a hypothetical example.
So it boils down to:
Is there even a market for this with all those cheap Behringer modules?
Is it fair to sell modules that you haven’t even tested by making actual music?
Will none of this matter as people will only make fart noises at best anyways and never noticed he built trash?
Curious to hear your thoughts, made me think all day.
This is interesting, I have a friend in a similar position — she’s been building and selling electronic parts for many years, and is now considering moving into synth modules, even though the whole arena is somewhat new to her. She has some very interesting ideas though.
At the same time, I have another friend who is designing/building modules and his products are very cool but also perhaps a bit esoteric or advanced. Like, you have to already be kind of a synth sicko to appreciate what he’s putting out there. (I appreciate his stuff a lot since I am just such a synth sicko.)
I’m mentioning these folks just to add a couple more data points to the discussion. It’s hard to say how synth or musical expertise correlates to what products people come up with, let alone how successful those products might be in the market. But I do think there is a market and I don’t think you have to be an expert to enter it.
One more data point to add — I can think of at least one module that came out in the past few years that seemed perfectly tuned to market demand, like the exact module so many people had been clamoring for, and it didn’t end up doing very well. So yeah, this stuff is hard to predict, but I fully support more people making stuff and seeing how it does.
I realize that editing my answers to be curt like this kind of kills the potential for discussion but honestly…. This is a hilariously poor idea on your friends part.
I‘d like to think of myself as a constructive member of this community and am seriously interested to discuss this. I‘m not after shitpostibg or hot takes. I want to see if my gut feeling is right about this to make sure I‘m not being a condescending dick to my friend. I‘d like to keep him from doing a very stupid thing that might hurt him or his family.
OK to give a more constructive answer… your friend doesn’t know how synthesizers works and doesn’t care to test his builds but he wants to make modular synthesizers? Nobody is going to want to buy something from an unestablished brand if it’s untested, or if it doesn’t showcase something interesting and novel.
There’s no universe in which he can do this at a scale that makes anything even resembling a reasonable income for the amount of time he spends - the time learning signal flow, synthesis, how instruments work, etc. will completely negate any earnings he makes for a long time. And that’s not even talking about prototyping and testing… which if he’s not going to do those , see point one. And he can forget ChatGPT for this kind of thing, it would probably take more technical expertise to correct and troubleshoot the schematics and instructions it generates than it would to make his own.
I got into DIY electronics like a lot of people in 2020. I got out by the end of 2021, and the only thing I had to show for it was a handful of DIY kit modules of varying degrees of workmanship on my part. It’s an incredible amount of work and if it’s not something that you’re passionate and interested in, you won’t get very far.
Thanks, that’s basically what I was thinking as well. I guess he wildly overestimates himself and wants to skip the whole learning the basics of synths part. Which is the only way to even make anything resembling a profit if you value your own time. So I‘m correct in assuming he won’t even be able to build the most basic DIY kit thing for which plans are open source if he only knows things like repairing amps or pedals when it comes to music stuff?
I think he probably could do this piece - if he has just a couple hours of practice with a soldering iron that’s plenty of experience for DIY modules from like AISynthesis or something. I came in with no experience and a gimp hand and my modules all worked. The tricky thing is there’s no way he could sell those at a profit, the whole point of them is that they’re both dirt cheap and an entry point into building physical hardware. I also wouldn’t buy something from someone with my experience level for quality reasons (testing and such aside, which would also scare me off).
This part is interesting to me. So you‘d say it can help to be an outsider but only if that leads you to innovate instead of copying stuff?
Good point. I guess it rubs me the wrong way that he seems passionate about doing something but not about modules or synths. He says stuff like synths aren’t instruments, sound doesn’t matter and it’s just on or off and electricity. I‘d like to encourage him to do something he actually wants to learn more about and appreciate the culture of.
ive been building my own modules from scratch and the idea of “what if i wanted to sell these” crossed my mind but immediately recognized that the modular market is incredibly saturated, undercutting prices just means a bunch of time sunk into the work for little if any profit, and unless im making interesting modules beyond basic synth building blocks, why would anyone care?
How long would it take a skilled person to buildcthis? How long until he is skilled? How many people would potentially buy thst from him?
I also told him that a friend of mine once built a vintage fuzz pedal that was ridiculously expensive on the used market. Might be a better idea for him, as he’s at least playing guitar?
i guess the biggest boundary will be knowing what people want in a module, in terms of sound, function and ergonomics. may be challenging without any experience
He probably won’t make money because the industry is saturated and small, but I don’t think not already bring a musician is a huge barrier honestly. Leo Fender never learned to play guitar.
I don’t think your friend has the right attitude about it in any case.
It’s not just the basics of synth building, but also about having developed an experienced ear and a sense of sculpting sounds to make them shine in musical compositions. All this with very limited resources. A lot of synth designers are amazing engineers, but missing the latter is one of the main reasons their synths don’t sell.
I‘ve been trying to tell him that he’s potentially dealing with people who spend endless amounts of time wondering about minutiae of an analog filter sound. And that dismissing this altogether might be a bad attitude to sell niche products to nerds
I just read the history of Fairlight in the mid 1970’s. I don’t think i’d have given the three people involved much of a shot. And yet they stuck to it, made their mistakes, tried again, got sued, worked through some more problems, completely changed course, and eventually made a breakthrough product and history.
( I also know the state of technology at the time so i have a context on their challenge. )
Some people only learn by slapping their hand down on a hot stove burner.
One of the things to keep in mind is that music business is a fashion business.
Musicians are audio meme-makers that come in and out of style, and their equipment goes in and out of fashion as well. Your friend might get lucky and design something so cool that people really want it, but fortune favors the prepared. In this case preparation involves knowing the market. Your friend doesn’t need to be a musician himself but he should be able to understand and appreciate what musicians do with equipment similar to what he intends to make.
Another thing to keep in mind is a little counterintuitive, and might cause a lot of people’s blood to boil: never invest (much of) your own money in your own projects.
Bankers like to see you put your life savings into a project because then they know they own you. But if you can find outside investors who are willing to back your crazy project than at least you know you have some sales skills. You might not sell a single synth or module to a musician, but you might be able to sell the wreckage of the business to B* for pennies on the dollar at the end.
Finally, to paraphrase an old joke: The easiest way to make a million bucks in the music gear business is to start with two million bucks.