Dave Smith Instruments SYNTHESIZERS

Crackpot <shifty@...> writes:
> On Wed, Feb 05, 2003 at 11:32:44AM +0900, Miles Bader wrote:
> > [I wonder what proportion of the cost is in the actual voice (as opposed
> > to stuff like case/interface/midi that could be shared among all voices
> > in a polyphonic instrument)...]
> 
> ***rough*** estimate
> "User Intf"/one-time costs
> encoders 8x*3= $24
> plastic knobs 8x*2=16
> buttons w/caps 20*1= $20
> LED display + controller chip 5$
> PIC $10
> metal case $50
> 
> "voice" costs
> DSP chip $25
> scads of analog ~$100

Do you think it's really that much?  The sum of the above is $250, and I
thought typically materials costs were only 25-30% of the final price.
It will be interesting to see what the `store cost' is, since his web site
says they're finally going to be available through normal retail channels.

Anyway, so using your estimate, the monophonic evolver gives them about
50% profit, for direct sales (actually a bit less I suppose, due to
shipping and CC fees, but I think those are usually small).

So if he could make a polyphonic evolver, lets say he can cut down the
per-voice cost to $100 (by sharing some components among voices, maybe
using fewer more powerful DSPs, etc)., and that the `one-time' cost is
double (bigger case, maybe slightly more spiffy display), so $250.
[I think the current UI is fine, so there's no real need to change it]

For an 8-voice instrument, that'd be $250 + 8 * $100 = $1050.  If he
sold them for ~$2000, he could keep the same profit margin.  OTOH, the
andromeda's only about $2500 new these days (that's one thing that makes
me think the above price estimates might be a bit high), and perhaps
that would be viewed as the competition.

Anyway, as usual, just talking out my ass; it'd be nice to have some
real numbers!

-Miles
-- 
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