Logistics cost, storage cost, assembly cost, and many others
The BOM is usually not the most expensive part. It is everything else involved in creating, maintaining, supporting customers, employees etc etc etc.
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Interestingly the gotharman instruments have prices for memory upgrades, and they’re not that much compared to the whole instruments: gotharman_shop | gotharman.dk
They’re expensive small batch instruments, but adding more memory doesn’t seem to be a huge cost 
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Yeah, it’s a bit hard to compare to Gotharman, since he builds those systems to order. Personally I would love if more instruments were customizable like that! I think it’s awesome that you can order a sampler and then decide how much I/O to get, which analog filter boards are installed and also get a choice for the amount of memory. You definitely pay a premium for this boutique ordering experience… It probably wouldn’t add up otherwise
Parts are just one component of the overall cost of any kind of computing device. The software that it runs is a major cost (good developers are expensive) so companies have to make their development cost back as well.
They also have to fund their headquarters, promotional materials, warranty process, attendance at trade shows, investor returns, and probably loads more cost categories.
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I guess my phone has 4gb ram and 256gb storage and a powerful processor that can run anything from a basic synth to a full daw so it’s not beyond possibility that similar tech could run a sampler?
and to add to this, they need to earn enough money too fund next project.
Yep, that’s basically what something like an MPC is.
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I am not familiar with the older MPC`s . Were they in a RAM + Storage or just RAM?
512MB. This would be superb nowadays. 256 or 512 of RAM would be amazing to have
It is somehow to be expected that phones will evolve as they are basically mass consumption devices.
Music involved people even though we are a lot worldwide, we are only a small minority still.
However what I find more fascinating than what memory my phone has is how much the memory of , cpu , storage of phones multiplied over a relatively short time span compared to , say how hardware samplers RAM evolved in the same time. Always having “in Proportion to one another” in mind.
This is what I am basically trying to understand with this post.
I mean the majority or at least many many people buy 16gb ram, 512gb storage computing “monsters” in order to read email`s write some text and watch YouTube.
However RAM for samplers seems to follow a different logic. One I don’t quite get tbh.
And no I dont consider “you dont need more” and “people back in the day made amazing things with less” as useful information on that subject. You could just as easily say “you dont need a modern computer. Buy a 10 year old one its more than enough” which in many cases is true is the funny thing.
But I see that if only I and 2-3 others are curious about it then I am
a minority inside a minority.’’
Ps: dunno why some portion of the text looks different and greyed out or if its only me seeing it on my end
Yes, 3-5 times cost is about right, although higher than this is desirable. Tax is one of the biggest burdens on any business, so that has to be considered also.
As part owner of a UK software business, here’s a breakdown of what my company earns and what ends up in my pocket:
Let’s say we turnover £10,000 in a particular week…
- 25% of that goes to HMRC due to Corporation Tax
- 20% of that goes as VAT (which can be offset if you spend a similar amount, but ONLY if you spend the money)
- When I employ staff, I have to pay around 13% of their salary in Employer NI contributions
- If I pay myself, it’s the same, obviously plus any PAYE tax (approx 25% average)
- If I pay myself via dividend, from profit, it’s up to 37% tax on that
So for every £10,000 my company turns over, what actually ends up in my pocket (as a major shareholder and investor in the company) is around £4,000. Then of course if I spend, save or invest that money, I pay tax on it again somehow.
It’s tough out there!!
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Thanks for the insight.
…and UK taxation is not even that high compared to other eu countries. Free market is the problem of the world, they say. That’s just imperfect socialism.
RAM.
Extra storage could be in the form of internal HD or external USB drive/stick.
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Do you by any chance remember what the cost was for these kind of upgrades? Meaning what it cost to go to 256 or 512? Just to get a feel of what we are talking about
Google “Akai MPC4000 z4 z8 512 MB RAM”. These upgrades are still available and pretty cheap.
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Because you used backticks like this. Maybe you meant to use ’ instead.
Edit it to remove the ` characters
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Jesus I have so much to learn. Did not even know the term “backtick”
Thank you
There’s a pile of good how-to advice in this thread:
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OMG: 
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