What are the sales numbers of their hybrid synths compared to the analog ones? I am curious what constitutes poor sales.
I put the blame squarely on 8DIO for not holding up their end of the bargain and leaving Sequential and users hanging. I enjoyed it while I had it, but its release and subsequent lack of evolution seemed like one of the few Sequential stumbles. Shame because those stereo filters were lovely. Maybe the tech will live on in a future Sequential/Novation synth.
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We can only make educated guesses, of course. The only hard evidence we have is what modern synths have been discontinued. We have to make the assumption that one does not discontinue successfully selling products, and thus discontinued products must not have been selling well.
The modern discontinuations are:
- The P12s
- The Pro 2
- The PXs
- The Evolvers (in which I include Mono, Poly, and Rack)
- The Tempest
- The P08s
- Mopho/Tetra
Of these, the P08 was clearly redundant, explicitly replaced by the Rev2. So Iâm not sure it even counts. And you could make the argument that Mopho/Tetra, being P08 voices, are in the same boat (though I, personally, think theyâre more about the form factor, and that has not been revisited).
But even if you keep them all in, thatâs an overwhelming number of hybrids vs, essentially, just the extended family of P08 boxes.
Going by informal surveys of serial numbers in P12 forums (which is beyond anecdotal) Iâve never seen a desktop serial number over 1500. Being less expensive, I assume they sold better than the keyboard, but even if the keyboard sold double thatâs still well under 5,000 P12s over its lifetime. Not sure we can extrapolate a whole lot from that â and again, truckloads of salt around sample size and methodology. But it doesnât seem like a lot to me.
edit forgot the Pro 2. Thanks for the reminder, @Mumdad!
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The Pro 2 lasted even less time than the Prophet 12 too. I think the announcement of its discontinuation came about 4.5 years after its release.
I always found it a bit sad that Dave Smith seemed to enjoy pushing into new areas but the market constantly told him âNah, weâd prefer more or less the old thing again pleaseâ.
The Pro 3 still has some sauce but itâs a lot more conventional than the Pro 2.
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The Prophet 12 may have an ARM-based successor in the future. I donât think that this storyâs over yet. As for samplers, who knows âŚ
On the other hand, Focusrite may also want to push further into the lower price segment. Personally, I find the Take 5 to be an impressive achievement, in terms of price, sound and features.
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Ok, so just speculation then. So we donât know if they had poor sales, or what even constitutes as a poor selling product to a company like Sequential.
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Thatâs probably it. Mini-ITX in this day and age is like what - no, there is a better way that also makes more business sense by now.
Iâd guess this isnât a goodbye forever, and that this product concept gets updated and improved to reflect some of the feedback they got and the expectations of the current time.
I⌠guess? Maybe I should put it another way. Sequential has a demonstrated history of discontinuing their hybrid synths much more frequently than their analog ones. Like, 5-to-1. To the point where their lineup is now all analog with the exception of the Pro 3. And all of this except the PX happened before the Focusrite merger, so there was no corporate overlord pressure being applied.
Given these non-speculative facts, there are any number of speculative stories we could tell to try to explain them. But any spun around the premise that these synths sold well and were a profit center for Sequential would have to confront the question of why anyone would intentionally choose to stop making money?
All the answers I can think of to this question range from the nefarious (malfeasance?) to the ridiculous (parts shortages that struck different lines over the course of decades that couldnât be swapped out despite all the profits incentivizing redesigns that also never touched any analog silicon for some reason?), so I think itâs an unlikely explanation. And thus speculate they just werenât making money â however thatâs defined at the Sequentialâs scale.
But if thatâs an inferred bridge too far, fair enough.
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Without having any inside knowledge, it looks to be specifically the CPU that is EOL in this case.
Mini-ITX is still a standard form factor, with several specific use cases.
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This is my dream⌠I dream of this everytime I see a px, I know they want redemption from the tempest⌠They have all the moving parts⌠it could be the groove box of all groove boxes!!
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People are jumping to a lot of conclusions about large corporation evilness and whatnot. Iâve not seen Novation get shafted by it so they should be fine
Sequential could even be working on a PX2 for all we know, and mightâve had to discontinue for scarcity of parts before they could get anywhere meaningful with the replacement.
Or, as others point out, they just up and left it like they have with other products in the past even before joining focusrite
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Good to see clear communication of support for it - mine isnât going anywhere except maybe to Sequential for repair if ever needed 
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Right, so we donât know if some of these models were discontinued due to poor sales, still just speculating. Although, we do know that the Prophet X was discontinued due to the âunavailability of several key componentsâ, according to Sequential. So thatâs one that we do know.
What Iâm curious about is how this fact is measured. It reads like this; for every 1 analog synth discontinued, there are 5 hybrid synths are discontinued quicker or have a shorter lifespan.
Always have hoped against hope for a Pro 3 module, but seems like that ship has sailed. T5, too. Yet Iâm guessing neither of those will be discontinued anytime soon.
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Okay, but if it was not selling poorly (i.e. if it was making them money) why discontinue it? âWe ran out of partsâ doesnât make sense. Parts being discontinued happens a lot and workarounds/replacements are found. Iâd wager the current P5 is not made with all the same SKUs as one from 1978, for example.
If a thing makes you money and you run out of a part, you are highly motivated to find a new part. That didnât happen here. Why?
It may be speculation, but if no plausible argument can be found to even speculate about, we can discount that as a possibility, right? I think we can discount the âP12, PX, etc. were actually making Sequential tons of moneyâ theory.
Yes. Exactly. Since the rebirth of DSI, they have discontinued 4-5 hybrid architectures (depending on if you count the Pro2 as a part of the P12 family) and have only discontinued 1-2 analog architectures (depending if you count Mopho/Tetra as part of the P08 family). Just look at their product page vs their legacy page. The split between analog and hybrid is stark.
It depends on the cost. Not all parts are as easy as switching out a screen or a pot. Someone above mentioned that there is basically a mini PC in PX, which makes sense since it is sample driven and loads huge amounts of data very quickly. If that PC hits end of life, and you have no viable plug and play options, then you are looking at a large redevelopment cost that either you have to eat, or, if you want to keep your margins, pass it along to the consumer. A similar thing happened to the original OP-1. It was off the market for a bit because the processor they built it on wasnât available anymore, so they had to upgrade, redevelop, and the price rose about 35%. Thatâs a large chunk of change to eat or pass on to the consumer.
Yes. Exactly. Since the rebirth of DSI, they have discontinued 4-5 hybrid architectures (depending on if you count the Pro2 as a part of the P12 family) and have only discontinued 1-2 analog architectures (depending if you count Mopho/Tetra as part of the P08 family). Just look at their product page vs their legacy page . The split between analog and hybrid is stark .
Well sure, the earliest DSI synths were all hybrid. So they have been around longer, and have had more iterations, which means more will have been discontinued. There was a whole generation of hybrids before the P08, and two more generations before the P6. The original Evolver lasted 13 years, the Tempest 9 years, and the Prophet 12 lasted 8 years. Those are three architectures right there that had respectable lifespans. Of course, the P08/Rev2 is at 16 years, the P6 is at 9 years, and the OB6 is at 8 years, and they are still in production, which is impressive. Anyways, I guess it doesnât seem that stark to me. I can certainly see the analogs outselling the hybrids, because the last decade has been the analog revolution pt.2, but it also doesnât mean that the hybrid synths had poor sales.
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Indeed, the observed life spans are impressive, in particular if we compare those to the lifespans of Korg, Roland and Yamaha products. The latter often do not reach half the lifespan of the PX or the P12 before they are replaced by a significant hardware update.
But who cares? What difference does it make? Maybe the PX was losing them money - ok then discontinue. Or maybe they are simply telling the truth - ok then discontinue. Whatâs the difference in the end?
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It likely matters a great deal in predicting whether or not we will itâs like again soon.
Heheh, i doubt weâll ever get closer than 50/50, no matter how educated our guesses will be. Thereâs just too many parameters to take into account, none of which weâve been privy to.
For me itâs more about the fun of speculation.
If you let these speculations influence your financial decision making or future bets youâre setting yourself up for disappointment 
Itâs like with the DT2 speculations. If you use it to decide to wait buying and they donât release a DT2, you might just have to try to source a used DT on probably increasing prices.
If you buy a new DT based on it and then they drop a DT2, youâre going to feel like you shouldâve known better.