[sdiy] making 2 or 3 dollars an hour on synth building?

[Tom Wiltshire]

On 2 Dec 2008, at 14:59, Ian Fritz wrote:

>
>> BUT i was just HOPING there was a way to supplement my income with  
>> electronics. it is NO big deal though if not ;)
>
> I have a friend who makes cellos violins, etc.  She makes and sells  
> several a year.  But you can't even *look* at one for under $20k.   
> That would be the only way you could make decent money.   
> Unfortunately, there isn't much demand for analog synths, since  
> people have cheap software alternatives.  Simple supply/demand  
> economics.

I think synthesizer makers have really screwed themselves here.  
Musicians who play classical acoustic instruments expect to pay £500  
for their first instrument, before they can even blow/pluck/scrape it  
tunefully. By the time they are good enough to play professionally in  
some orchestra, they're using an instrument worth many thousands.

Contrast this with synthesizers - these have attempted to become a  
mass-produced item, with the cost-cutting that implies. You can buy a  
brand new synth like the Roland Juno-D for £400. Consider the amount  
of work that went into it - electronics design, DSP coding, waveform  
production, sampling, etc etc - not to mention the actual manufacture  
and assembly, plus the cost of parts. This is only possible for large  
volumes using highly sophisticated technolgy (robotic pick-and-place  
machines for surface mount boards). If someone told you you could get  
a similarly sophisticated 'cello for similar money, you'd laugh at them.

I occasionally wonder if there would be room at the top for some  
exquisite, hand-made synths, to compete with the finest instruments  
of other types. I'm not talking about your average rompler in a black  
plastic box, but a craftsman-made, really beautiful instrument. That  
sort of thing is *not* something that a software alternative could  
replace. That's like saying that you don't need a stradivarius  
becuase you can get a sample disk of one.
You could build a few synths each year and make a reasonable living  
that way, I think. The only question is whether you can find enough  
professional musicians to buy them.

T.