Resale value of digi devices is fair to some and a bit low to others

The Lounge General Discussion
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I think it’s the few profiteers at the top controlling a highly consolidated privatized internet, radio, record label and other music promotion ecosystem that reward sameness and traps the majority of people who do not choose the inconvenient path of resistance into a closed loop of homogeneity.

To make good, compelling, innovative, expressive music is inherently, always, every time, a struggle. This has nothing to do with how much instruments cost. Music being more expensive means people with lower income afford less. Creativity is not related lol. Musical social darwinism is not it. I’m glad for people getting good instruments for less money. Sorry to all those who lost resale value! Hope they had fun actually making music though.

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I think that people are taking the word investment and running with it. I don’t think that (most) people expect a return above what they paid on musical instruments unless they are resellers who start with the objective to flip for profit.

Most people expect a fraction of that initial money spent on return, however buying something and being able to resell it at a reasonable price is objectively more common of an occurrence than the people feeling good about passing along their gear at a low cost so that someone else can enjoy it. You only need to look at Reverb or Ebay or even Craigslist, places where many people even here have probably sold things, to confirm that.

It is an investment in yourself and any money you spend is in that regard an investment, however people are getting hung up on semantics and being pedantic.

Take the topic and run with it if that’s the angle you want to take but the original sentiment was perceived and stated by several people: that it’s an absurd value in what you get for the price and the secondary observation is that these boxes are not holding up well on the resale market.

To idealistically deny the existence of a resale market because you want to make a point regarding the ethical and artistic choices we make as creatives is walking blinkered without observing the reality which exists on either side of you.

One does not have to participate in something to acknowledge it’s existence and while I’m not much of a buyer or a seller, even I observe that if something can be sold private party or traded to a store like guitar center, then it has a monetary value. That’s what we’re talking about. Not forecasting futures.

If people expect digitakt or any other modern, overproduced instrument to appreciate in value, that’s not living in reality and you’d be better off discerning a way to use it as part of your setup, which is how I’ve been approaching this because even when not used as a sampler, digitakt is a fine hardware compressor and effects box.

I’m personally left with a situation where my 2 digitakt setup is no longer a centerpiece for my music making so I have 1 digitakt too many, however me feeling that $300 is too low of a return on a hardware purchase is not the same as thinking I’ll make a profit on what I spent. It’s also not an ideological denial of the fact that a secondhand resale market exists, from which many of us purchase gear. It’s just interacting with reality, reasons for the low resale value aside.

At a certain point however, I may have to change my feelings regarding the merit of that $300 and that is also simply living in reality.

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I dunno. Those same profiteers at the top existed before hip hop, house, and techno were born, and people were not controlled by them to make the “underground” sound. Sameness has been rewarded for a long time. People made it anyway, on their own. People started their own labels, people discovered music at events. I know. I was there. It wasn’t easy. It was difficult. And being difficult made it special. So, your point is only partially true in my opinion. I cannot attribute those at the top for leading to the ADCOM. People after all must consume it. If the people don’t want it, the elites won’t make it.

What IS true, is that art and culture, in general, has been replaced for decades by disposable globalized entertainment.

But my point wasn’t that it should be made more expensive, it’s that the low bar to entry does not result in better music… There is NO bar to entry if you have a computer. Free daws, free plugins, prolific cracks. Phone apps are cheap.

By your argument (as much as I would like to agree with it), with the essential zero bar to entry, we should be in an era of amazing music, since so many more people have access to making it. But I don’t see that. I don’t hear it. I search for music on Bandcamp, Youtube, record stores like Hardwax and Juno.

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not to mention the same fucking sample packs and splice loops

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I understand your point but I do not think that individuals have as much agency as you are suggesting given the genuinely new media landscape of algorithmic recommendation and neurologically addicting endless scrolls, the insertion of monetization into every layer of social life in some places. Death of diversity is not the result of human nature and neither are market forces in capitalism.

I don’t necessarily believe that lower costs lead to better music. I think lower costs lead to more music, which makes it more probable that people who end up being highly innovative are able to make music in the first place. Someone absolutely awesome is going to get their hands on a DTI that wouldn’t have been able to afford it before and their music is going to rock. I’m glad.

I do not think that with zero bar to entry we should be in an era of amazing music. I think we are in an era of increasing privitization and top-down control of music sharing ecosystems. I think we are in an era where landlordism and profiteering are making it harder and harder for small music venues to survive. I think we are in an era where funding for the arts even in healthy economies like Germany is veering more and more toward austerity. I think we are in an era where people are losing their homes and studios due to unprecedented climate catastrophe. I think we have less and less access to each other’s creativity because we can’t even see our own friends’ posts anymore over the blaring boosting of the algorithm.

The more things are cheap and free, the more music we’ll have - and the more awesome people will be reached and enabled to make music. Whether or not it gets recommended by Spotify is not what I am talking about.

Looking forward to meeting someone out in the real world who picked up and rocked the shit out of a cheap used DTI! Seems more likely now.

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Thanks God.
Public funding shifts artistic incentives toward committees, political trends, and institutional tastes, reducing independence.
It creates soft ideological alignment and pushes artists to chase grants.

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Not sure I agree with that.

Otherwise the funding is purely mega-commercial and the populace is force fed corporate muzak.

I like attending small gigs, and the odd time, if there’s a government agency behind some oddball jazz kazoo ensemble, I feel government isn’t so bad after all.

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I get what you mean, but public funding doesn’t actually solve that problem. It just replaces corporate incentives with political and bureaucratic ones. Instead of chasing a label, artists chase committees, grant criteria, and whatever ideological theme is currently fashionable.

If you want diversity, weirdness, and risk-taking, the best engine tends to be decentralized support: small venues, local communities, patrons, crowdfunding, independent labels. That’s where genuinely experimental art thrives.

Government agencies don’t fund “oddball” projects because they love risk; they fund them because they tick cultural checkboxes. It’s a different flavor of gatekeeping, and it quietly shapes the output.
Corporate filter vs. state filter. Either way, it isn’t freedom. The most vibrant scenes usually emerge outside both.

Btw, I’m going off topic here and I don’t want to drag politics into this place, so I’ll leave it at that :stuck_out_tongue:

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I actually agree with you on most everything except:

zero entry → more people enabled → more music → better music
Which is my point. And crucially my point isn’t that better → Spotify.

I come from a world where better meant precisely NOT on the radio. Not on Spotify. Or rather, not DEFINED by being on the radio or streaming. Could possible be.

Since you actually aren’t claiming that, I think that even though we agree on some of the fundamental dynamics of modern society (death of art and culture, rentier dominance), I think we have a lot more access to each others creativity. The algorithms don’t control everything. You don’t HAVE to rely on the algorithms. I have YT subscriptions I can access directly. I don’t NEED Google’s suggestions. I can go directly to Bandcamp. I don’t NEED Spotify. We have discord servers, or even communities like this. I can share my tunes directly on Soundcloud. These are all choices I make, and others can make.

The grip that technofeudal overlords have on our minds is only as strong as we allow it to be. The thing is, it’s easy to allow it to be strong. But all it takes is a tiny bit of willpower and it shatters. Don’t use social media, for one. Keep the phone in black and white, two. Continue to cultivate community, virtually but especially in real life. It’s very difficult to reject the technofeudal infrastructure, but we can prevent them from taking over our minds. We have more agency that you give people credit for, IMHO. So, while that sounds utopian, the implication is that I place the burden more on the people themselves. Sometimes the better road is the path of more resistance.

Anyway, I enjoyed talking to you. You and I actually share a very similar perspective on fundamental social dynamics that affect a broad range of human experiences. I’ll keep an open mind, and question my “absolute” conviction.

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Yes that’s a helpful point. With the broad claims we are making about society, I thought discussion of the zeitgeist was pointed toward larger populations, the “era,” etc, which in terms of population is definitely the algo.

I agree with this and the following sentiments on an individual and interpersonal level and try to proselytize among my peer group as much as possible. I don’t think it carries over well in terms of large populations and policies though, so I think that there should be a restructuring of how we do these markets - and yes I think part of the restructuring can be individuals advocating for alternate paths!

To jump here for a moment, having lived in multiple countries with and without funding, I agree a bit and think it’s underacknowledged how much these public funding schemes that I have known such as the German one actually do exert creative directorial control. The grants are juried for crying out loud! Many people learned in 2023 just how censorious and political these processes actually are.

However, in other countries without funding, the art scene is almost completely dominated by rich people. Whereas in funded countries the entry-level grants allow newcomers to test out ideas and conduct research without family wealth. For this and many other reasons I am definately in strong support of public funding especially with reforms like the elimination of juries and transition to basic income - for all - not just artists.

@abluesky I was just thinking the same thing about enjoying the convo, thanks for the thoughful exchange, I do appreciate it as well!

And I’m thankful to the mods for letting us veer off topic a bit because it’s been interesting and I do think it’s quite connected after all to this discussion about market, sale, music, etc.

But will let others get back to the matter of kleinanzeigen and reverb and so on.

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I feel OP’s pain but this is par for the course. It sucks, but I happy the prices are lower so I can try new gear out without breaking the bank.

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Public funded arts sponsorship is still challenging though.

Ultimately who decides what is ‘good’ enough?

Simon Powell’s wonderful multi-year network TV expose of human frailty exposed how many people think they are talented and the world needs to hear them, but objectively they are not.

But let’s say we are talking about an ‘accomplished performer’ - how did they get to that stage? Gigs, recordings, online presence?

Whilst I very much support public funding for the arts, it is essential in any developed society - (perhaps rightfully) complaining that the ‘jury’ didn’t recognise your talent, is an interesting obstacle.

Is the jury itself lacking in talent, vision, appreciation of things-new (very possible)?

Are there other ways to help the jury understand they need to think outside the box when reviewing your proposition (eg. underground following, online recognition etc)

Expanding the theme - I think in the near future music will need a certification programme to distinguish it. We’ve already had the corporate manufactured music for a few decades, but we need a better, well-controlled label for the humans

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And, as mentioned above, we’re way off topic, but maybe the mods allow the lounge to travel laterally!

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I believe in variations on a basic income scheme for all people. Since I am not an activist, politician, or other expert in civil service or social organizing, I don’t know point by point how that would be supported and set up. Yet, I certainly believe in it.

Right now we live in a world where you get to eat and sleep somewhere because your profession earns you money to buy food and shelter. The arts don’t operate quite like other professions in terms of market and so on. It doesn’t make profit the same way. So public funding comes in there. Still, when I have seen my peers advocating for why public funding for the arts should continue to exist, in demonstrations against cuts for example, sometimes I have felt a bit disappointed that the argument takes the form of casemaking for the market value or quality of life value of arts to society. When I think really, we need money to live because we are human, not because we are artists per se.

So, I am not against juries on the basis of merit or rejection, but rather on the basis of who gets to have money to survive.

That said there is also the matter of project-based funding beyond the sustenence income I’m talking about, and I think that’s much more related to your questions. What if there were other ways to imagine this? What if more people had time off of work, and their basic needs met, and there were more free public places to do rehearsals and so on? Would project funding be as imperative in that case? I wonder what other ways we have yet to imagine to enable creative fluorishing.

We have gotten way off topic. I wonder if there is another thread growing here to be broken off, not sure what I would call it. Or where to bring it into a pre-existing thread.

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This is my situation, which may be very different from some or most of the other people on this forum. I don’t need to sell my older instruments to fund new ones, so I mostly don’t. And I am also not a gigging musician and have plenty of space in my home to keep stuff. So, it’s a rare thing for me to part with something I’ve purchased related to music. I either give them away to someone who wants them, on occasion, will trade in smaller items to get a discount on something, or in nearly all the other cases, I keep them. I think of them all as tools and toys. I like having a large collection of stuff, so I can return to things later, re-learn them, and have a great time. I’ve considered selling my OT MKII multiple times, but then I watch a video, find it inspiring, and dabble back into it. Some of my equipment is 25 years old, and I still use it, for nostalgia, or because it feels new again (e.g. my Roland JV-1080, loaded with expansions). Still fun!

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I made a new topic for the secondary discussion going on here:

@mods, please have at it and move things if you want.

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Circling back to the original topic

  • gear costs money, and
  • for those who have an economic interest to earn a living from their investment in gear, this matters, and
  • making money in music is very tough, and
  • others are journey-people who buy gear as a personal exploration

In sum, over the past 10 years I’ve kept gear. Haven’t sold anything in ages.
I am planning on selling some items in 2026. Partially clear out for personal focus purposes, partially items that have maintained or increased in price that I am not using.

Essential point for me though is, I like having items on the shelf as options. I doubt I’ll ever be in a situation where I don’t want options.

And on the OG DT - it remains a phenomenally useful great machine. DTII is that by some multiplier, but doesn’t take away from the OG as doing a hell of a lot, very very well. OG has endless potential, and if you are making a timeless classic, you can do it on the OG.

Last point - individuals personal musical interest does morph and change every 5 years or so. If you were a techno head and loved the OG DT, but are now at jazz acoustic folkster, OG DT remains exactly what you want.

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I’ve been honestly thinking about picking up a OG DT at these crazy low prices! Never tried one. Love the DN so I know it would be an easy transition. I’m just trying to keep my sampler addiction at bay!

Also trying to keep my other addictions at bay and I’m failing massively, so what’s one more!

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This sounds like you’re complaining that something provides good value at a good price. I mean, I’m sure a seller will let you pay more if you ask.also, the return on the purchase price is the music you make isn’t it?

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Selective hearing.