[sdiy] Re: WHY?

[Metrophage]

--- jbv <jbv.silences at club-internet.fr> wrote:
> And after all, why Yamaha shouldn't try "to market their pricey
> VL1 physical-modelling synth towards SAXOPHONISTS" ?

No reason! I think it's great to use a controller ergonomic you already
enjoy some familiarity with. The silly thing is that more "synth"
customers by "synths" than do "saxophonists". Of course we know that
these distinctions are arbitrary. Similar thing happened with the slow
marketing of percussion synths towards drummers. The Star Synare, Emu
E-Drum... a lot of manufacturers got burned by marketing to "drummers"
who were considered a separate demographic, with their own sections in
music stores. The Lexicon "Vortex" and Seasound "SoloEX" are units
which would not have gone straight into liquidation if they were in the
"synth/pro-audio" departments of big stores instead of, as they were,
in the "guitar" section.

> What features does a synth need to get some success ?
> Probably a combination of the following ones :

Success can be defined in many ways. In current trends of business only
the most obvious ways! It's a kind of self-perpetuating methodology.
Marketing is only necessary if you are mass-production oriented. You
need to make and sell as many as possible. Reduces your cost of
components and manufacture, etc.

Also, mass-production is only necessary if you are dealing with
components and processes which are time/cost prohibitive for the
individual to do themselves. As computer and DSP technology becomes so
incredible generalized, people do not need the mass-production of as
many discrete components.

The real trend of generalization is NOT the superficial one of
homogenization. The idea that "everybody" wants the same thing in a
product, everybody else is "the fringe"- hence unprofitable. What
happens is that custom equipment becomes more economically viable,
simply because you only use as many resources as you need. The idea
that you need to build as many as possible reveals itself to be quite
limiting, wasteful of time and materials (and if you still use it,
money).

Within thirty years, a computer which is factors more powerful than the
one I am typing on can be microscopically small. Computers can build
other computers out of raw atoms and molecules. The information density
will be as such that the computer can probably easily model my entire
>mind< as easily as it can any acoustic synthesis method (nice UI).

I doubt seriously if mass-production or marketing have any future to
them, but even now I can see that they do not want to vanish so easily!
CJ


	
		
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