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Musicians don't throw instruments away like other markets throw their gadgets away. I have a room full of 30-year old synths that still work the same as they d

Musicians don't throw instruments away like other markets throw their gadgets away. I have a room full of 30-year old synths that still work the same as they did the day I bought them, and they're still awesome - I will never 'upgrade'. They're instruments. It'd be great if the other realms of electronic gadgetry could accomplish the same degree of uptake as electronic musical instruments - however, the anti-patterns that make modern consumer gadgets so appealing to the people who market and sell them, are a smell to musicians who have very little patience for designed obsolescence. Musicians don't tolerate that much .. anyone attempting to induce it in a product intended for music-making will find that they won't get far in this industry.

stfwn 8y ago
Hm, I don't agree fully. There is zero hardware innovation for digital keyboards at least. Some old electronic instruments are 'vintage'; what makes a Moog is the vintage Moog sound, so yes, you can't upgrade from there. But most digital tools are not instruments in that sense and definitely have the corporate gadget-marketing schemes going on. - Yamaha's Motif XS has some sounds that were adopted as signature sounds for some subgenres of funk, soul and gospel, but these are just samples that the upgraded versions XF, MX, MOXF have as well for this reason, and I don't see anyone with the XS anymore. - Nord clearly limits the features, storage and processing power of each keyboard they release so that they can upgrade it slightly the following year (the latest 2018 flagship model has 480MB of sample memory vs. the preceding 2015 model's 380MB). - Korg rereleased the Kronos with an SSD instead of a HDD and marketed it as a new machine. You could open it up and DIY for 80 bucks and save yourself ~$1.5k+ upgrade costs. - Roland still slaps the Juno brand name on random iterations of digital instruments that just have an extra button for this or that function that could have been added with a software update if they wanted to. New digital keyboards these days are just software updates that model familiar sounds slightly better, packaged in "new" hardware. The $3.5k pricetag for flagship keyboards that have barely changed in size/shape/material for years is a clear sign. I wonder why no manufacturer has just come out and said "this is our flagship keyboard until 2030, buy it for $2k and subscribe to software updates for $10/month" or "new software verson at $100 every year". That way what buyer's pay for would be much more closely connected to what they are actually getting.
- fit2rule 8y ago
  None of those devices are being thrown away and many of them will be re-surfaced and cycled as 'classics' within a few years and used in mainstream music again. You can't say that about our computers or mobile phones, except among the hoarding/collectors scene.
- pea 8y ago
  What really flummoxes me is how my Yamaha SY99, which is a digital FM synth from 1991 with 512kb of memory and, by modern standards, a tiny, tiny CPU, manages to do things that are really CPU intensive on a normal OS (like large plate reverb, tons of polyphony, on 12 tracks at a time) without ever lagging. The only real limit I've hit on it is loading in proper samples, versus waveforms, though this[1] insane project seems to have hacked memory expansion boards for the old SY/TG random. This is a piece of purely digital equipment that is now 27 years old, and yet my phone doesn't last for more than 2 years without feeling obsolete. Why is this? I've always wondered if these golden-age hardware FM synths provide any benefits over software (people talk about the super HQ DACs, etc., but I'm not sure if I buy that these components are better than modern commodity equipment?). The thing is, to my ear, the SY99/SY77 etc. do sound a lot better than e.g. Dexed or FM8, but is that just because Yamaha patented a bunch of the FM algos and architectures, and, with a retail price of £3,000 in 1991, they put more care into a complete end product than a VST FM developer realistically would? Or, can really low memory, low CPU, super purpose-built hardware somehow win against a modern OS? [1] https://www.sector101.co.uk/waveblade.html https://www.sector101.co.uk/waveblade.html
  - cat199 8y ago
    > manages to do things that are really CPU intensive on a normal OS Dedicated circuits. This isn't all in CPU - the CPU on these synths mainly sets parameters for the sound generating chips. not the same chips, but something like this probably: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_chip#Yamaha_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_chip#Yamaha_2
  - pooppaint 8y ago
    >
sebazzz 8y ago
Even if those synths stop working, it is usually some capacitor that has failed or some other easy-to-replace part and it's good to go.
ken 8y ago
Most fields don't throw their gadgets away like we do with computer hardware. I regularly with electrical equipment older than that.

stfwn 8y ago

Hm, I don't agree fully. There is zero hardware innovation for digital keyboards at least. Some old electronic instruments are 'vintage'; what makes a Moog is the vintage Moog sound, so yes, you can't upgrade from there. But most digital tools are not instruments in that sense and definitely have the corporate gadget-marketing schemes going on. - Yamaha's Motif XS has some sounds that were adopted as signature sounds for some subgenres of funk, soul and gospel, but these are just samples that the upgraded versions XF, MX, MOXF have as well for this reason, and I don't see anyone with the XS anymore. - Nord clearly limits the features, storage and processing power of each keyboard they release so that they can upgrade it slightly the following year (the latest 2018 flagship model has 480MB of sample memory vs. the preceding 2015 model's 380MB). - Korg rereleased the Kronos with an SSD instead of a HDD and marketed it as a new machine. You could open it up and DIY for 80 bucks and save yourself ~$1.5k+ upgrade costs. - Roland still slaps the Juno brand name on random iterations of digital instruments that just have an extra button for this or that function that could have been added with a software update if they wanted to. New digital keyboards these days are just software updates that model familiar sounds slightly better, packaged in "new" hardware. The $3.5k pricetag for flagship keyboards that have barely changed in size/shape/material for years is a clear sign. I wonder why no manufacturer has just come out and said "this is our flagship keyboard until 2030, buy it for $2k and subscribe to software updates for $10/month" or "new software verson at $100 every year". That way what buyer's pay for would be much more closely connected to what they are actually getting.

fit2rule 8y ago
None of those devices are being thrown away and many of them will be re-surfaced and cycled as 'classics' within a few years and used in mainstream music again. You can't say that about our computers or mobile phones, except among the hoarding/collectors scene.
pea 8y ago
What really flummoxes me is how my Yamaha SY99, which is a digital FM synth from 1991 with 512kb of memory and, by modern standards, a tiny, tiny CPU, manages to do things that are really CPU intensive on a normal OS (like large plate reverb, tons of polyphony, on 12 tracks at a time) without ever lagging. The only real limit I've hit on it is loading in proper samples, versus waveforms, though this[1] insane project seems to have hacked memory expansion boards for the old SY/TG random. This is a piece of purely digital equipment that is now 27 years old, and yet my phone doesn't last for more than 2 years without feeling obsolete. Why is this? I've always wondered if these golden-age hardware FM synths provide any benefits over software (people talk about the super HQ DACs, etc., but I'm not sure if I buy that these components are better than modern commodity equipment?). The thing is, to my ear, the SY99/SY77 etc. do sound a lot better than e.g. Dexed or FM8, but is that just because Yamaha patented a bunch of the FM algos and architectures, and, with a retail price of £3,000 in 1991, they put more care into a complete end product than a VST FM developer realistically would? Or, can really low memory, low CPU, super purpose-built hardware somehow win against a modern OS? [1] https://www.sector101.co.uk/waveblade.html https://www.sector101.co.uk/waveblade.html
- cat199 8y ago
  > manages to do things that are really CPU intensive on a normal OS Dedicated circuits. This isn't all in CPU - the CPU on these synths mainly sets parameters for the sound generating chips. not the same chips, but something like this probably: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_chip#Yamaha_2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_chip#Yamaha_2
- pooppaint 8y ago
  >

sebazzz 8y ago

Even if those synths stop working, it is usually some capacitor that has failed or some other easy-to-replace part and it's good to go.

ken 8y ago

Most fields don't throw their gadgets away like we do with computer hardware. I regularly with electrical equipment older than that.