Ok, is it just me or has anyone else noticed old gear being let go for less than a year or two ago? I recently saw a Roland SH-101 listed for $375, a Kawai SX240 for $200 and now this, a Roland Juno 106 for $275. Title link takes you to the sale on Craigslist. I'm begining to wonder if people are dropping thier old gear in favor of new analogs, soft synths, and VAs. If this trend continues I just might get me an SH-101. : )
Maybe folks are just finally realizing that limited sonic capability combined with unreliability producing some elusive edge that few people can detect really isn't worth the pricetag. Nice sounds, yes, but at an equal price to a modern digital synth which can do much, much more? Makes as much sense as using a pricey 50s car as daily driver. As musical instruments, they simply aren't worth the recent inflated, used price.
ReplyDeleteI guess it makes sense...as the people who were heavy into techno, drum n Bass trance etc are getting older now, are having kids and need money... I bought at the right time 1989, sold at the wrong time and am getting back into it at the right time ?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think it's a combination of all of this. If you want analog, new gear is a safer bet as far as longevity. The electronica analog synth scene of the late 90s and early 2000s seems to be gone and people seem to be opening up to other forms of synthesis. It will be interesting to see what happens over the next couple of years.
ReplyDeletein the case of the juno, my guess is because the synth is now very expensive to maintain, and rather unreliable. it does a few things really, really nicely, but it's not very versatile.
ReplyDeleteSome things are going up. Some are going down.
ReplyDeleteJuno 60 has gone down since I bought it. It seems extremely reliable.
I wish I was Guido and bought low and sold high.
I don't have much analog: Juno 60, Alesis Andromeda, and the Modular.
The Modular is digital/analog. It's strength lies in the interface and routing possibilities. I patch digital in/out of it all the time. Great fun.
I had a QMF Filter, which was pretty amazing. Nothing digital I've had has come a million miles to it.
I hope prices for weird analog gear goes down, for some of it is still sweet and fun.
I'm seriously considering buying one of those Muse Receptors and selling a few keyboards while I can to fund it.
the weirdest thing is that the prices on the more toyish casios just keep going up and up. is the interest in circuit bending growing? or just the love of cheese?
ReplyDeleteI think this trend in analog prices is a result of the market adjusting. It's a thinning of the herd I, the classics have started going through the roof (p5, minis, memorymoogs etc...) while the more run of the mill, 80's stuff, like junos are being sold for what they are truly worth. I think the whole analog craze ran it's course and now people are realizing that just because something has "analog" circuitry, doesn't mean it's worth $2000... It's a welcome change for those who enjoy the more awkward of the last gasp of analogs produced in the early to mid 80's, but bad news if you are in the market for the true collector synths from the golden age of the 70's...
ReplyDeleteI think this is also due in some part to the analog aquisition-fest hangover that many buyers are now suffering from. Every respectable ebayer has filled their bedrooms to the rim with "classic" analog hardware, only to find that with a handfull of plugins and a virus KC, all but the most unique of that out-moded pile of circuitry collecting dust in their studio is rendered obsolete. (and yes, with a deft hand at plugin effect manipulation and a keen understanding of a virus-caliber VA, you can achieve sounds that rival true analogs at sounding "analog".
as for circuit bending, this too is a phase in the market, brought about by the now waning lofi-toy glitch electronic music scene...seems every hip indie band needs to lust after a watch company's best attempt at musical instruments to be considered cool these days.
yes, especially digital synths dropped.
ReplyDeletethere are some reasons:
-ppl like software
-software implies being cheaper and for some ears it sounds "the same".. ;)
-ppl being afraid of vintage - no more curtis chips / replacements..
-life got much more expensive over here, so the ppl simply stopped buying / they buy less synths - and: there is no more big fascination behind the "new sound", so its the second generation of ppl that never even heard real analogue synths etc..
and thats only SOME reasons..
and: it's summer!
in germany the tax will go up in 2007, so they buy new expensive things first.. if they plan something new..
and yes: Some instruments are quite expensive (Jupiter8!!) but some are getting cheap (the Junos, etc..)
but imagine they'd sell them TODAY: no1 would pay the price you had to pay those days- so no company will think of re-releasing something..
on the other hand there are some nice new analog synths, too.. the andromeda is quite cheap..
moogulator.
The price bubble on analog gear may also have undergone something similar to what 60s American musclecars have done and are doing in the USA.
ReplyDeleteThese were the cars that kids dreamed of when they were 14 or 16 years old, so when the kids grow up to middle age and reach the peak of their earning level and can afford to get one of these childhood dreams, the price goes up accordingly.
And I agree with the person who noted that digital simulations keep getting better and offer greater versatility and reliability at the same time.
i think it's going more on visual aesthetics, which was always my trip to a certain extent anyway. anything with wooden end cheeks basically is expensive the aesthetics approach is certainly championed by the freely fetishistic approach of matrixsynth and musicthing. after all, even if the sound is the same, a beautiful thing just makes you feel good, and sets a mood like different aesthetics of studio spaces can.
ReplyDeletesimilarly, a strange esoteric device can force you into different ways of working, the obvious example being one knob per function, but less obvious being a quirky arpeggiator, or a difficult sequencer that acts almost as a random composition element (tb303 anyone?)...
Random thoughts....
ReplyDeleteSupply and demand.
For a decade people have been selling off their old analogs online. Newbies bought anything and everything. But they also didn't know much about synths. As learning curves and needs expanded, these synths were sold and better ones bought. Many people also simply grew up and gave up trying to make music. The cheaper keyboards were continually bought and sold and often damaged through shipping, lowering their prices still more.
So, you will see inexpensive keyboards returning to where they should have been all along, while nice examples of classic synths will continue to rise in price.
It should be noted that the new generation of users will grow up with virtual synths, but an ever increasing world population will continue to supply an ongoing analog demand whether new or vintage.
The price will not drop through the floor.
There's a big difference between the low number of nice Minimoogs and 2600's still out there vs a hugely manufactured Juno-106, Kawai or whatever.
There is no shortage of people willing to pay very good money for nice, desirable synths.
Again, supply and demand.
You have to amortize (correct term?) the cost of maintaining old gear into the cost of the gear.
ReplyDeleteIf it cost $100 to fix your $2000 synth 10 years ago, and $500 to fix your $2000 synth now because of dwindling spare parts (and, unfortunatly, dwindling people who know how to fix gear nowadays), and figuring you are going to have to fix it twice in the time you own it, that is a price difference of $200 vs. $1000. So if you calculate repair cost against value, the synth is worth $1000 instead of $1800.
Now, I think most people are doing this on an intuitive level (they are probably not literally doing the math on paper)... but I am pretty sure this is effecting value.
I think I'm seeing prices of things like Optigans, Dulcitones and other 'early' keyboards rise. I've been featuring some of these at my blog Squeezytunes.
ReplyDeleteTom Waits used an Optigon. Totally cool.
ReplyDeleteA TR808 for $500: link
ReplyDeletetime for the drunken useless blog reply which no one will read. good as soft synths may get, utill you can get one with stepless encoding the experience isn't going to be there. ideally we'd all have touchscreen monitors capable of handling multiple, simultaneous input. either that, or a much better midi standard. 128 works for notes and velocity, but a better correspondance is needed for a really good sounding filter sweep. honestly, the closest i've ever come to the analouge experience was a polysix. i sold it to pick up an akai ax60 (fortunantly i can solder, so i picked up a little extra cash in the process). the ax60 should be pretty similar, except with a much ruder filter, faders instead of knobs, a second envelope, a highpass, and vcf/vco fm mod like the matrix 6. also midi without the need of a 500$ or so kenton kit. and yeah, it does produce crazier, eviler noises than the polysix, but i kinda regret the descision. for a cheap synth the polysix still had style. it smelt like an antique shop (i can't describe the smell, almost rosy and oaky. odd considering it was made from particle board), though it was probably just the fumes coming off the old circuitry producing olfactory hallucinations. the knobs were solid. the chasis was heavy. the leds blinked. the sound just had more, here again words fail me, character. when i had the thing set up, it always felt like it was 1982, and it was a beautiful thing. the akai, on the other hand, everything about it is cheap. most frustating is that while, to the best of my knowledge, only having had a quick peek at the inards while i taped one of the plastic display bits back in, are actual pots and not digital encoders. but i swear to god that what actually controls the tone is a scan and quantization of the value. hence a stepped sound and an almost imperceptable, but infuriatingly still there, just on the cusp , lag. the fact that the faders and the case and the keyboard (the polysix keyboard's pretty nasty too, but everything else on it was solid) are just, well, they lack quality. the case is made from uncomfortably thin, poor quality steel. the faders are, i'm certain, the cheapest ones akai could possibly find. i still love it, the sound is pleasingly bizarre, but playing it isn't anywhere near an enjoyable experience as twidling around on the polysix was. while my comparion is of two vco synths, the design ethic is the seperation between analouge and digital. one that caries over into software and will untill a better control interface is availible. digital synths make great noises, but you have to program them a lot more than you can play them. the akai rests uncomfortably inbetween the two. slow enevolpes on the vcf produce great sweeps, but they can't be done manipulating the cutoff slider by hand.
ReplyDeletesorry to change the subject abruptly, but i don't want to hear anyone knocking casio. if they had figured out how to oraganize their menus better and had managed a decent midi implementation they'd porbably still be manufacturing profesional insturments. the fz was pretty much the best sampler of its time. 8 stage envelopes are wonderful and phase distortion really does sound different tha nfm synthesis. casios synth department during the 80's was consistently innovative. and the mt400v.....ah...it's just fun. no matter how shitty of a mood i'm in. if i play with it for 20 minutes, i just feel better.