M8 Tracker

Polyend, nerdseq, and this! All good in their own ways. Look forward to when they are all released

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Makes me really wish someone would make a quality tracker for the Nintendo Switch.

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You got my attention ! :rofl:

I donā€™t have time to watch the whole presentation just now, but from whatā€™s being chatted about it seems right up my streetā€¦ note to self to find time to listen to it!

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Sounding pretty smart it has to be said, and the video had me noseying about his YouTube channel which in turn alerted me to his pretty cool Betawave and Blittersynth M4L devices. Double bonus!

This sounds amazingā€¦like straight chills. Wow this thing is a beast huh

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of all the hardware trackers coming out, the m8 has impressed me the most so far. it being open source in the future makes me excited to see what can be done to add to the LSDJ / LGPT tracking paradigm.

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350$

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did they mention a release date there aiming for?

Hot Damn!

Where is all the info about this found?

Itā€™s on his patreon, but its for backers only to read now. I guess we will get more info when its starting to get ready to ship. No idea when that is!

M8 - Planning and Pricing
Got quotes back from both a local assembly house as well as PCBWay for the board assembly of 100 units, without battery, screen, keys, speakers, and nuts/bolts etc. Basically, quotes for parts and assembly of things a robot can do that I would go blind doing myself.

My current plan is to make 100 units, using a mixture of outsourced assembly and my shop, and I will pre-pay for the assembly so by the time I start selling I will have the main parts that take the longest to receive. With the sales of 100 units I get my money back from parts expenses as well as the ability to procure more parts and equipment to sustain a stream of builds or ramp production up completely outsourced based on interest level and sales. There are miscellaneous costs as well, such as import fees and shipping materials.

Full disclosure:

  • Board assembly & initial parts costs: $25 to $47 + any import fees / unit
  • Other parts (teensy, screen, battery, keys, key caps, speakers): $70~$85 / unit
  • Extra bits and pieces (laser cut mid-section, nuts/bolts, PCB backside, 3d printed parts): $14/unit
  • Possible additional extras (nice carrying case and SD card): $10/unit

Total unit cost: ~$110~$156

With this, the first 100 units will be sold for $350. All profit will be put back into fine tuning production, parts and equipment, and expenses unaccounted for. I understand this might seem high for some people with the current global situation, and with the cheap handheld knock-offs from china being sold for a fraction of that cost- Or even more boutique items like the Analogue Pocket and Play Date being sold for less. But the reality is I do not have other products that I am selling to offset initial production costs, nor know the demand for this product.

On the other hand none of those products are open source, and none are a dedicated hardware sequencer. There is nothing on the market that checks these boxes and personally for music equipment I would pay more for less.

If anyone here lost interest because of the price and wants to back out of my Patreon, I fully understand and no hard feelings. :slightly_smiling_face:

I really hope to lower cost (and therefore lower price) but that all depends on demand. I am also considering any physical improvements to the device (shell, plastic bits etc) as time goes on after the 100 units, I may offer very very cheap upgrades for those initial supporters.

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Nice!
350 sounds fair, I think I want one dammit! Looking forward to hearing more about it

So is the first batch for Patreons only?

Super excited for this device! Probably will wait until after the initial Patreon release maybe heā€™ll make the unit even better !

Theres 100 units for the first batch and I think he only has 50 patrons, so guess the rest will be up for sale too.

Also not every patron is going to buy a unit. For example Im a patron and Im not going to buy the device

https://dirtywave.com/

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