[sdiy] Synthesizer by Committee

[Richard Wentk]

I estimated around $3.5k to $4k as a realistic price.

But there are stupid things about the design. The case is *small* and even if you use digital LFOs and ADSRs - pretty much a given - getting everything inside a box that size is going to be a tight fit, and a nightmare to maintain.

A JP-8 is packed on the inside, likewise a CS80. And those are big boxes. Something much smaller really wouldn't be happening, IMV.

You really would need a chip fab, existing assembly contracts with Chinese slave labour and guaranteed sales of >100,000 to have any hope at all of getting the price under $2k on launch. 

Richard

On 10 Dec 2010, at 18:25, Neil Johnson wrote:

> A more realistic design study in modern synthesizers would be John
> Bowen's Solaris:
> 
> http://www.johnbowen.com/solaris-overview.html
> 
> That currently sells for $3,999, and they build them in smallish batches.
> 
> That's not to say it is the "next great thing" (a whole separate
> discussion better held in, say, analogue heaven).  Just that its a
> real product that is being produced and sold, so is a more tangible
> proof-point for discussion about the realities of the business of
> designing, building, selling and supporting a synth than some magazine
> readership's wet dream.
> 
> Neil
> -- 
> http://www.njohnson.co.uk
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