[sdiy] Ways for innovation

[Rutger Vlek]

Hi guys,

I've been reflecting on business and innovation in the music branch a lot lately, and also discussing with friends and I thought it might be nice to see how people respond here.

The thoughts were basically coming from an evening of joy with my Nord Modular G2, which I think is one of the most ground braking synths in recent years. With ground braking I mean... musically. Recently synths have become more affordable and more portable, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about really new sounds, new ways of musical expression, a next step for the synthesizer as a musical instrument. However, the Nord Modular G2 sold rather badly, and production was stopped prematurely if my sources are correct. Recently, prices on the second hand market have been going up again, so in time the innovation is appreciated.

This leads me to believe that the market for an truly innovative product is very small, until it has really been adopted as the new standard (MiniMoog anyone). This also means, financially, there's very little motivation for companies to innovate. So I was thinking, what about crowd-sourcing innovation or making a platform that supports this? In a way, this is already happening with all the open-source projects and knowledge sharing on fora like muffwiggler. But I feel a hardware platform is lacking for these innovations to reach the less scientific of us who just like to "play"!

One of my personal pains is the lack of alternative to MIDI. Why, in this modern era, is there still no high-resolution version of MIDI standardized? 

The other is: why is there so little hardware that helps integrating the hard work of the many DSP hobbyist making great code. Where is that hybrid synth with an open-sourced FX engine?

Why does my 150 dollar phone have a better screen than my 3000 dollar synth?

And my last personal pain: why is hardware life span so short on present commercial products? If I have a synth with a great keyboard with aftertouch (which is removed from more and more keyboards as a cost-saving measure) and a lovely set of controllers, why throw the hole thing, while the only part that needs an upgrade is the CPU board + DAC to support the latest audio quality and CPU-hogging new algorithms?

I like to be realistic about things financially, but this is my musicians heart speaking.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts! 

Rutger