Hardware Synthesizer Sales Figures/ Worst Selling Synths

[Stab Frenzy]

Always is hard for some innovative/prototype or radical products to find a place.

Like the FIZMO.

Also the Hartmann Neuron. Is a shame that such a cool idea like the Neuron ended on that way.

Or very ugly synths.....

the Akai AX 80 is a cool one. But it lacks the massive amount of sliders of its smaller brother the AX 60, and it had a strong competence with the JUNO synths on those years.

But the Roland V-synth has been popular... Do you think it's because Roland already have a name?

The V-Synth is nowhere near as popular as it should be.

You can sometimes find them second-hand for $700, which is what it's worth as a controller, never mind the powerful stuff it can do with samples, the extensive mod options, the innovative control mapping and the decent effects it's got on board. You still see people who don't know what you can do with it even after they've owned one for years (I had one for four years before I used the step sequencer. ) as evidenced by the number of people who think you can't use it multitimbrally.

[Ry-Fi]

And what about the Oberheim/Viscount OB12 . . . A 12 voice Oberheim loaded with tons of knobs should have been a hit. I've never heard one, but the consensus seems to be that it just doesn't sound all that hot.

I haven't heard much of ANYthing about this synth from anyone, but fellow member Jexus did a 2-part demo of this one (usually reserved for the special few) and absolutely lit it up! In my books this is a GOOD synth. I don't know enough either way about how it sold or was perceived, but it should've done well as far as I'm concerned...

[braincandy]

If I remember correctly, the OB-12 is another one of those synths that wound up being blown-out for something like 50% of the MSRP as it didn't sell well.

[tim gueguen]

Probably the OB12's biggest problem, no matter what it sounded like, is that it wasn't what people were expecting when they though Oberheim and polysynth. It didn't look like the second coming of the Four Voice or the OBX/OB8 family synths. And while we're talking Oberheim how about the disastrous OBMx? Had design input from Don Buchla but never reached a truly usable state due to mismanagement by parent company Gibson.

[balma]

Always is hard for some innovative/prototype or radical products to find a place.

Like the FIZMO.

Also the Hartmann Neuron. Is a shame that such a cool idea like the Neuron ended on that way.

Or very ugly synths.....

the Akai AX 80 is a cool one. But it lacks the massive amount of sliders of its smaller brother the AX 60, and it had a strong competence with the JUNO synths on those years.

But the Roland V-synth has been popular... Do you think it's because Roland already have a name?

The V-Synth is nowhere near as popular as it should be.

You can sometimes find them second-hand for $700, which is what it's worth as a controller, never mind the powerful stuff it can do with samples, the extensive mod options, the innovative control mapping and the decent effects it's got on board. You still see people who don't know what you can do with it even after they've owned one for years (I had one for four years before I used the step sequencer. ) as evidenced by the number of people who think you can't use it multitimbrally.

The V synth has some weird configurations that you won't see on actual roland products. It has an uncommon filter icons section, that is an hybrid between effects-filters.

But it has one of the best interfaces ever invented. So easy to find everything. Except for the multitimbre.

the V synth needs an external sequencer in order to be used multitimbrally. In fact, it has no multitimbre section, that one comes on the general options menu, where you can see the patches assigned to the 16 midi channels. You can stack all the MIDI channels into channel one, and layer them on the keyboard.

However, each patch, can have 16 different sounds inside.

With a 16 tracks external sequencer, you can have immediate access to 256 different sounds to play with.

[braincandy]

And while we're talking Oberheim how about the disastrous OBMx? Had design input from Don Buchla but never reached a truly usable state due to mismanagement by parent company Gibson.

Excellent choice. I forgot about that one. I remember reading about its constant stability issues.

[meatballfulton]

I've never heard what the DarkStar actually sounds like. I wonder how such a luscious and wam-sounding unit didn't attract more customers.

1. OS bugs
2. Bizarre interface
3. Too expensive (most were bought after RedSound blew them out)

[nvbrkr]

I'm sorry for not being clear enough that I thought it sounds terrible. That is, judged only by those youtube clips.

[StepLogik]

And what about the Oberheim/Viscount OB12 . . . A 12 voice Oberheim loaded with tons of knobs should have been a hit. I've never heard one, but the consensus seems to be that it just doesn't sound all that hot.

it was "oberheim" in name only. it was a VA and not an actual analog synth. it was buggy and the presets were awful. despite that, i see them pop up quite a bit on the used market so i'm guessing they moved at least a decent amount of units.

[Ashe37]

And what about the Oberheim/Viscount OB12 . . . A 12 voice Oberheim loaded with tons of knobs should have been a hit. I've never heard one, but the consensus seems to be that it just doesn't sound all that hot.

it was "oberheim" in name only. it was a VA and not an actual analog synth. it was buggy and the presets were awful. despite that, i see them pop up quite a bit on the used market so i'm guessing they moved at least a decent amount of units.

No, you're just seeing the same units over and over and over

[StepLogik]

And what about the Oberheim/Viscount OB12 . . . A 12 voice Oberheim loaded with tons of knobs should have been a hit. I've never heard one, but the consensus seems to be that it just doesn't sound all that hot.

it was "oberheim" in name only. it was a VA and not an actual analog synth. it was buggy and the presets were awful. despite that, i see them pop up quite a bit on the used market so i'm guessing they moved at least a decent amount of units.

No, you're just seeing the same units over and over and over

i think you might be right!

[blavatsky]

Already been mentioned of course, but the Alesis Fusion. A really nice piece, but here is some stuff that hurt it:

-buggy MIDI, problems with clock
-OS/interface is not intuitive
-No pattern sequencing or step (I think?) ; hard to edit
-Base soundset (ROM) mostly unimpressive
-The Holy Grail piano; some love it, others say its much worse than Fantom/Motif etc piano sounds
-Great sampler built in - horribly unexplained in manual , not intuitive
-All that space, and only 4 knobs and a few buttons. Not easy to drop tracks in/out during recording
-Huge price drop pissed off the first buyers: went from $2500 to $999 with free monitor speakers.
-When you mention to folks, they think you are referring to a Ford

So it was a huge flop, but those of us who picked it up cheap realized that it has great keys, nice VA, amazing pad/texture type sounds, 80 gig HD for samplesets, etc. Also, some lush soundsets from Hollow Sun and Back In Time Records. The hollow sun freepacks (over 20 of them) honestly triple the usefulness of this piece. Mellotrons, sampled analogs, real instruments, etc.

[Don Solaris]

Yamaha SY33

No wonder it failed, given it never existed.

[bpm938]

I know that Josh was looking for everybody's opinions but I've also been looking for sales figures and market numbers mostly for newer units. Does anybody know of any resources that features this kind of information? For example, where would a music store owner go to see how well certain keyboard brands and units are selling to figure out which ones to stock? I suppose that can go beyond just keyboards. Is there maybe a resource for music gear in general? Does anyone know/subscribe to the magazine "The Music Trades"?

[JB]

All of the Kawai additive synths flopped. The K5 possibly moreso than the later K5000 range. All were sold-off at heavily discounted prices after fairly short sale periods.

Kurzweil K150 additive synth (I think there's a theme here - a limited market for additive)

Akai VX600 - always wanted one and only ever saw one once (it was being used as a controller keyboard to demonstrate the "new" XL sampler range. There was a lot more interest in the VX than any of the new kit at that demo).

OK, so this is a sampler BUT the S1000kb - I have literally just got one (needed a 5 oct keyboard and a dining table, this was on sale and ticked both boxes).

I also heard that the MC202 was also a really bad seller back when it was new, much like the TB303 mentioned earlier. I find this suprising though as the SH-101 was quite a big hit and the 202 is *quite* similar.

Roland Pro-Mars, fairly uncommon as were the SH5 and SH7's. Not sure if these were technically "flops".

There was a very, very rare large-body Korg MS20 (http://matrixsynth.blogspot.com/2007/03 ... d-das.html) but not really a flop as I think it was for demo/instructional use.