Yeah, a handful of people buying them at inflated prices once a month does not meant they are popular enough to sustain a profitable business.
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Some companies do actual bring back old products that enough people still want, and make a success of it.
KORG is a good example. They invested real money in bringing back the Odyssey, the 2600, and the MS-20. The MS-20 has sold well enough, despite competition, that KORG made it in varieties of colors and sizes and still sells it.
Sequential is another company that revamps oldies but goodies to resell.
As others here observe, it comes down to how doable remaking the product is, the real volume of demand, and how much people are willing to spend.
If there is enough demand of people willing to pay a premium, some companies continue to sell a product. Mellotron.com, has four levels of digital Mellotrons, which they quietly continue to sell at a premium. They even have a competitor who makes very similar products.
And there is also the opportunity for a company even if they don’t want to produce an older product themselves, to sell off the name and rights to a company that wants to produce that product. A good example of that is the new Rhodes MK8 Piano being manufactured again, using the technologies created in the 1950s.
So it does happen.
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Just wait a few years…the Digitone Keys will be a classic for triple the new price in a ten/twenty years from now on…
Roland! You forgot Roland! Bringing back old wine in new cases…i actually like the Boutique series. SH01a…TR06…
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…cause they wanna give Uli B. a chance to bring them back to life - Frankenstein-style (too lazy to post a meme).
The OP-1 was once disco’d….
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…and came back with a whooping 750€ price increase…
I would love to buy a NIB Korg MicroSampler but can you imagine them trying to sell those today?
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The miniKORG 700FS is another example. Can we say the Waldorf M enters that category?
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Yes, this is the reality in at least some cases. This is why there are no new Access Virus synths in the pipeline. The DSP manufacturer discontinued the chips.
A monosynth, imagine trying to sell that.
It’s called Future-Retro.
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I have one reserved at my local store. It’s so beautiful and sentimental for me (I grew up listening to Kitaro).
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I used to work in the skateboard industry. Things get discontinued for a few reasons.
Sales would be number one. If the product doesnt sell, no point making it.
Profits would be number 2. If the profit margin isnt there, then its either cut costs, or ditch the product.
Parts availablity. Obvious.
Korg Monotribe, Electribe. All brilliant, but discontinued. Id say not enough sales. Same for Elektrons monomachine and machinedrum.
Running a business and being a synth nerd are two totally different things.
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Not to say it doesn’t happen, just that I doubt there is generally enough market for something so boutique in the first place, but yeah, plenty of reissues out there for staple vintage gear. It can happen, I just put why it generally doesn’t.
People can make enough noise to elektron and something can happen, Moog was able to do a limited re-issue of the Model D and it sold. Sure these machines in my opinion are just as landmark but would they really want to put the financial side and support side together for the reissue. That’s the clencher. But yeah anything could happen.
A lot depends on a company’s business model. A few weeks back i was looking at a company’s on-line catalog. They are a small modular maker in Lawrence Kansas — Free State FX — that makes MU ( Moog Unit ) sized modules. They have a fairly large catalog of 18 different modules, mostly repurposed open designs made in MU size. But they also have a tab on their web-site labeled, “Custom Shop”, that has a few other older designs that they don’t regularly make, and this:
Free State FX will professionally build your synthesizer DIY projects for your convenience. We take pride in our excellent communication, and world-class assembly skills.
So if you presented them with an open design, like for instance one of the ones AMSynth published for an Arp 2500 module, Free State could probably quote you a price and build it for you. And they also can bring back an older product they made in the past and build it again.
There’s another company Yaeltex in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the only thing they do is build custom MIDI controllers. Everything is custom one of a kind, built just for you ! That includes everything and their designs can be rather complex. They even have a utility to generate a different MIDI layout for the devise if you change things later. But that’s their business model, and they are able to deliver top quality custom products at a fairly reasonable price.
These sort of companies are more the exception than the rule, but there is a philosophy here that i really like of no product being discontinued, it just become more expensive to buy.
Related to this is a practice that some companies have of putting their product design in escrow, or releasing the design of a product if the company fails and goes out of business. I remember reading that Waldorf did this for at least some of their products when they went bankrupt, and users of those products made bug fixes and improvements after Waldorf failed
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Well on the contrary a Korg Microkorg is still in business after how many years? Ten?
Microkorg released waaaaaay back in 2002, so just about 20years.
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MD and MnM secondhand prices where around 500 euros the last few years before they got discontinued
Missed the chance.
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what if Arturia recreated the Origin but instead included all of the V Collection
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Couple of reasons i think, A. it’s still considered IP/an asset that they can choose to reimplement in the future, and B. the code or atleast parts of it could be central code for all/many of their products (ie also current products) and thus not something they want to release freely to the rest of the world
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Let me guess: it would cost very much, right?
