Over the last years inflation hit hard, especially during the pandemic. But also some gear got very expensive. Remember the massive increase in prize of the op-1. Elektron Stuff jumped quite a bit at one point, so the rytm got very expensive. Dave Smith Synths are almost 1000€ Euro more here in Europe.
On the other Side there is Cheap gear and its becoming cheaper. Korg Stuff is coming down. Got a Minologue XD on Sale and its even cheaper now than it was.
To be honest I think Im not going down the Route and Pay more and more Money for Gear. I wont go as far as supporting ulli B but I think all those greedy price hikes are a pretty bad sign. If there is shortage of materials, fine. I have a few things on my List now. If they jump in price like the microfreak or some Eurorack Modules I would not buy them.
What do you think about gear going up in price? Would you stop buying?
It’s just greed.
One or two manufacturers bump up their price, everybody follows.
I’m not falling for it.
I only buy used, so it’s not really my problem anyway
Component prices have risen considerably. Even bloody cardboard prices have increased massively. All that makes synths more expensive. And with the recent price adjustment, I guess manufacturers are factoring in expected future developments influencing their production costs. I’d hesitate speaking of greed.
(While I certainly don’t mind affordable musical instruments, as with a lot of things, one could also argue that all this stuff is way too cheap and there’s far too much of it being produced. This is all unsustainable.)
There are many different methods that can be used to set a retail price. There are also many factors that affect the cost for making a product. Companies themselves are in different financial states too. Changing of any of these factors can happen at any time.
All these affect retail price and are almost always rational decisions. They’re not out to get you. If something doesn’t calibrate with your cost values buy something else that does.
GAS, envy, ego, advertising, cool videos, etc, may make us feel we need that thing. We don’t.
Creativity and pleasure and self-worth aren’t bought and sold, despite whatever we are told.
Its not always about GAS when we talk about gear and certainly not about selfworth or something like this.
What you need or not need to buy is on a different page and has nothing to do with this,
There seem to be fair companys and there seem to be companys that just try to cash in. The OP-1 for example was 1400€ at one time. They doubled the price. Because it was so in Demand at that time. Not a great move. Will never buy that one for that reason.
Another explanation is changing from a model to build a business, to one more consistent with maintanence.
I did say “almost always”. There are definitely predatory pricing practices. That happens less frequently, especially when applied to discretionary purchased, open market goods like synthesizers.
The best hedge against inflation is useful and productive skills.
Be able to DJ, compose popular music, or just pilot a delivery vehicle and the worst that inflation can do to you is wipe out your savings.
Keep an eye out for grandparents and others on a fixed income. Inflation usually hits the elderly hardest. First in their retirement accounts, and then in their difficulty in finding and doing productive work.
Pretty much all of my photo and music equipment has gone up in value over the last decade. Inflation may be part of it, but there is another factor. I’m from the tail end of Gen-X, which is a smaller generation than either the Baby Boomers as well as the Millennials. Anything that Gen-X likes is going to be in scarce supply for Millennials and later generations simply because there are fewer of us and more of them.
Something to be cautious of is real estate. COVID has largely ended the desire for high growth companies to have fancy campuses. Plenty of other businesses that previously needed offices also find that most of their office workers can do a better job from home, or from a local cafe.
On the other hand, there is motion towards both coastal cities and rural homesteads. Suburbia could be a big loser here, but there are still plenty of people who don’t want 10 acres out in the sticks nor do they want to try to squeeze into an urban studio.
As far as crypto goes, or any other hot technology: the most reliable way to ride an economic wave is to sell “picks and shovels”. Back in the gold rush days, most prospectors showed up broke and left even more broke, often dead. The people who made the most reliable money were those selling picks, shovels and mineral assays to the miners. Howard Hughes is the best example here - his fortune was based on selling drilling tools to oilmen. He took the money and rolled it into film, inventing the push-up bra, fast planes and ultimately a satellite business that still exists today. If you can program complex beats on your Elektron machines, you can learn python and make silly money working for just about anyone.
When behringer’s stock decreases their prices will increase too. So many countries in lockdown up en down… someone has to pay the bills. I’m afraid if the corona media curtain falls everyone who didn’t realize wil wake up and counter the next epidemic called inflation. If gear makes you happy just buy it no matter the costs as long as you can eat en live
Probably not stop buying but resell faster. With age the time I have for music fun also diminished (while the wallet grew a bit with the gained responsibilities that come with fam life).
It feels it was never as “cheap” as it is these days. I could never afford an MPC in the early '90s,…
There is also less hocus pocus around getting an album out,… getting listeners was always the main hurdle.
Anyway, I love the 202x’s Good times!! Whatever the media, govs or anyone tells me! Great times to be alive
Good point though – stock valuation are part of a “company’s financial state” that i mentioned earlier, and can make a company more short term focused regarding price and profitability.
ADDED : October 2022, Bloomberg is reporting that according to sources, MusucTribe is considering an IPO. The article ( behind a pay wall ), feels a little tentative, and i could find no other report, so taking this with a grain of salt, though it is possible.
Shipping is also playing a part in the price increase. I watched a report on the shipping issues, and this guy was saying that he used to spend $4000 to ship a container from China, now he’s paying $30,000 per container. That is a huge increase. There was another guy saying the same thing, and that his shipping containers got stuck at the port for months because they were backed up, and other shipping containers got stacked on top of his. On top of all that, they were charging him storage fees of tens of thousands of dollars, even though he didn’t want them sitting there, and he just wanted his product delivered. So, shipping costs have skyrocketed, and it’s still a mess.
