Sequential is pissed

[@BrianRRenfro]

*engineer takes 10 minutes out of his day to google power supplies* Sequential 3 years from now: "We are sorry that our new synth is delayed again but we have never recovered from time lost in our engineering department with the great Espengate Scandal of 2024. Blame him, not us!"

[@paulk84]

😂

[@static-audio]

Standard corporate boll0cks that goes around nowadays. Taken time out from development ... really like 5 minutes. Was sequential taken over by one of the big brands as this attitude suggests it?

[@EspenKraft]

Sequential is owned by Focusrite now.

[@chrismathewsjr]

if the engineering is anything like my job there are 6 program managers who need to do a bunch of paperwork and commit to a plan and bicker before i can even begin researching or designing a PSU for a system, so yeah, there's probably a bunch of puffy vested LL bean PMs that are PMing each other

[@tommymandel]

@@EspenKraft oh wow, didn't know that. Thanks for this intriguing follow-up, Espen! Glad everything is working. Maybe I should clone my SSD too - I'll look for the link to such a video.

[@mattmilford]

"Delay development of new synths" What utter BS. Sequential's management should have plans/people in place to support products that were only discontinued 8 months ago.

[@FormulaXFD]

This is actually a tell when you think about it: It means they have no sustaining engineering at Sequential, only development, which means the support model for anything "in production" is nonexistent.

[@stevepreskitt283]

I would also have thought they'd have incorporated a common, readily available OTS power supply across their entire range to reduce inventory costs. This is not rocket science.

[@fortheloveofnoise]

Sequential is not the same without Dave.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Yeah, like, at the big synth shows last winter they were still selling it! And they said the Focusrite purchase would allow them access to more resources. I know before the purchase they only had, what, 10 or 12 employees? I think Dave Smith said that in his interview with Syntaur. I know Focusrite is apparently leaving them alone, management-wise, but... like. Leverage that to have a 2-3 person long-term-support team, please!

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@FormulaXFD the weirdest thing to me is why anyone is surprised after the Tempest, tbh.

[@smokey5100]

Man... R.I.P. Dave Smith 🙏🏼🎹

[@6581punk]

You can kinda tell he's gone.

[@meneerjansen00]

I'll bet you a million dollars that Dave Smith knew the ins and out of every piece of gear he ever made! By heart. Without having to "sacrifice development time to let an engineer take their own synth apart to see how their power supply is connected". Doctor, yes DOCTOR, Robert (Bob) Moog also knew every part of his synths. Rick Wakeman once told that Bob Moog was at a Yes concert and that his Minimoog didn't work properly. Before he knew it doctor Moog took it apart and was busy the whole evening trying to determine wat the problem was. Now that an enthusiastic professional. You don't ask somebody in your company to determine how the power supply works: the engineering department should KNOW this.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@meneerjansen00 I'm sure that's true for the synths he was selling at the time. But I did watch an interview where he said he normally likes to keep moving-forward, not revisiting old ideas, so he was initially opposed to the Prophet-5 rev4 project. And when he finally came round to it, he said he'd forgotten pretty much everything about how it worked, even though he basically designed all of the digital side entirely by himself, and had to re-learn it all on revs 2&3 to get the specs right for the rev4. But yeah, I'm sure at the time he knew everything needed about the Evolver, Pro 2, and so on off the top of his head. It makes sense to forget some 30 year old Z80 machine code, especially after working on plugins in the 90s then going back into hardware in the 00s. I do bet they had a hard time managing around the office without being able to ask him questions. He only had about a dozen employees when he died, so I suspect there wasn't a super robust digital database of specs when, hey, let's just ask Dave. yk?

[@neilbradley]

@@6581punk Perhaps elsewhere, but this isn't the case, here. He died in 2022, and the synth was released in 2018. He knew.

[@_mickmccarthy]

Ugh, after watching this sub-5 minute video, I'm afraid to announce that my next EP is now going to be delayed by a few months, and you can all thank Espen for this. Honestly though, what a silly response. Maybe if they didn't leave such an information vacuum, others wouldn't feel the need to try to fill it for the sake of the community.

[@slickepinne]

Don't know who you are anyways but good luck with that EP. Will most likely never hear it.

[@NickRobalik]

When a company reaches out only after you've called them out publicly on their shenanigans, that means you're generally correct and they're doing damage control. I can't believe there was a cheap sub-$100 ASRock motherboard in there...

[@MidnightBlueMetallic]

It makes me wonder what is in other modern keyboards these days. I know Korg is using Raspberry PI CM3 (which is a shrunken PI 3).

[@torarinvik4920]

I agree, just like a tantrum of a thief being caught shoplifting.

[@clarenceoveur9497]

This isn't anything new, KORG has been doing it for over 20 years, starting with the Oasys. So, why all the outrage now? Also, keep in mind that Espen initially recommended the wrong PSU, which could have potentially fried a very expensive unit. Be thankful that Sequential reached out and pointed him toward the correct replacement.

[@oblitafier]

What shenanigans are you referring to? Why do you care what motherboard in the machine? Keyboards have had low budget computer parts in them since patch storage was invented.

[@gladlawson61]

Guys. .... Mercedes used to tell customers you needed German oil.

[@Chris5685]

So they abandoned a piece of hardware, and now have a hissy fit when you open it up and make a video about how it has cheapass internals?

[@JimAlfredson]

So an easily replaceable battery dies and Espen throws a hissy fit and calls the unit a "$4000 brick" to get clicks?

[@jimmer3034]

@@JimAlfredson Kinda sounds like he didn't do his due diligence before purchasing?!

[@neilbradley]

@@jimmer3034 Has nothing to do with "due diligence". The issue is when the battery dies, the synth appears to hang forever. That is a terrible user experience. There is no indication to the user (in the manual or otherwise) that it's a CMOS battery, so externally facing, it very much is a "brick" until someone with domain knowledge steps in and figures it out. And yeah, when you're faced with a behavior you can't see why and spend hours figuring out the root cause and it turns out to be a simple battery, that is worthy of a hissy fit. The "troubleshooting" section of the Prophet X makes no mention of it. "battery" and "cmos" and "hang" do not appear in any of the Prophet X manuals. There are PLENTY of people on Sequential's forums saying they'd been waiting weeks and still had no answers. Kind of weird to defend an obviously bad design flaw. At the very least, the synth could tell the user "LOW BATTERY" or something similar. Adjust your biases accordingly.

[@Jimmer3035]

@@neilbradley My due dilligence comment was in response to the title of the original video. My 4k synth is a cheap PC. If you go to the ProhetX spec sheet it tells you what the technology is inside the synth (hybrid rompler with anaologue filters). What else do you expect a hybrid synth to be in terms of technology? Partially virtual/digital, therefore some computing devices of some kind used internally? If Espen buys a 4k hybrid rompler and then complains about it being a $100 PC inside maybe he should have looked into the technology before purchasing? That's was my point. If that synth was made out of hardware chips like the old romplers the technology would probably have cost less than $100. Maybe he got a good deal on the scale of things? How much did the on board 150gb Sample library cost Sequential to produce? For me, there's no way I'd spend that much on a hybrid synth. Maybe 3k at a push on an actual poly analogue, that's about my limit. The battery thing, yes that is unfortunate, that is a shame.

[@Jimmer3035]

Also the title of the video - My 4k synth is a cheap PC - is kind of mis-leading, as one internal part of his synth is a cheap PC, there are also other parts to his synth: The analogue filters, the casing, the key bed, the software, the 150gb sample library etc.

[@FM-kl7oc]

Telling you that they lost development time on this is the kind of manipulation children under the age of 6 would fall for and feel bad about. This attempt at trying to make you feel like a bad 6 year old makes Sequential even look worse in my opinion.

[@JM_2019]

Maybe dealing with 6 year olds is what they thought, when they saw the recomendation for the wrong power supply?

[@AdAsteris]

It's vulnerable narcissism

[@annother3350]

@@JM_2019 They didnt have to act like a bitch. Thats a big turn off for me.

[@ricardlupus]

I'm actually a bit impressed that Sequential took the time to answer, I can't imagine they try to address all bits of incorrect information floating about the internet so they must feel that Espen's channel carries some weight.

[@jeffsymons7084]

And they showed Espen respect by reaching out to him privately, giving him all the power to handle the situation in the best way possible and he still took the low road by making another rage-bait video and trying to make sequential look bad.

[@stickyfox]

@@jeffsymons7084 Sequential made those awful design decisions long before Espen got a hold of that synth. Espen didn't "make them look bad."

[@jeffsymons7084]

@@stickyfox Design decisions? I am talking about the email. What on earth are you on about?

[@clickoppotamus]

my experience with Sequential's Tempest: *Stickied employee forum post (paraphrased):* This is the FINAL Tempest firmware update. We are SICK of hearing about bugs and fixing them. We hate doing this and we are DONE. waaah we made a product and then realized it would take work i guess management changed between then and now but the audio company brainrot is pervasive

[@nayirmada5124]

A musician friend of mine once had a Korg Kronos X which on 1 day, suddenly could not be powered up a few years after he bought it new. The technician at an authorised Korg distributor informed him that Kronos X parts have been discontinued & thus to repair it, it has to be 'upgraded' to the Kronos 2 version, which required the replacement of the CPU main board, the memory card & the power supply unit & the installation of a new firmware version. My musician friend had the Kronos repaired or rather, 'upgraded', and that was when he discovered Korg had used a PC CPU board in the Kronos. After using it for another year or so, he noticed some minor 'glitches' with it & then decided to sell it off. Nowadays, he mostly uses a MIDI keyboard with a PC or laptop.

[@stephencoakley]

> Why not open source the code for the Prophet X? Sequential might want to release a successor to the X in the future, and might want to reuse that code as a basis. In general, source code like this contains the company's trade secret algorithms and such. A traditional company like Sequential is not set up to allow those to become public knowledge and therefore reused in other projects including their competitors'. Sure, some companies go the open source route and I applaud them for that, but generally its something they plan for at the beginning. Experienced DSP engineers are expensive and very valuable, and open-sourcing their work is seen as de-valuing their knowledge by many.

[@hyoenmadan]

Spare the speech about "muh trade secrets" "muh valuable knowledge"... Just the fact they choose QNX over linux for their synth OS... QNX!. That alone should yell very loudly they don't want to have anything to do with open source to say the least, let alone FOSS.

[@informativt]

This is sadly true. It takes some skillset and alignment of the stars for commercial industrial OSS projects to work. If anything they could start with really old products. But it's hard, as you really don't want to do a mountain of paperwork just to at worst inadvertently create a market of bad cheap clones or just waste time.

[@meneerjansen00]

That's what they ask for certain classic games too. Guess what? Sometimes they outsource the development of the software and the source code is lost or not even theirs (Donkey Kong, Ms. Pac Man were one of the first and it continues til today). Sequential was an electrical engineering company, not a software house (that's Arturia). I'll bet you a million dollars they don't even _have_ the source code. ;)

[@hacerclic1020]

Another common reason for not releasing code as open source is that it may contain proprietary code that has been licensed from someone else and they do not have permission to release it.

[@insolace]

People think making your product open source is as simple as creating a github account and pushing an update. Even if there were no IP considerations, you have no idea what state the project is in, how much documentation there is, and how many different codebases there are that have to coordinate with each other. This is bespoke embedded engineering, not some bloated javascript react project that you can hack away at for fun.

[@samprock]

I removed my own appendix and God emailed me NOT happy 😂 (with further instructions and not installing it to next incarnation) Kudos to both Kraft Engineering and Samurai Design! Cheers very much dudes ❤

[@jumpstar9000]

Sequential are seriously out of line with that email. It probably took them longer to write the email than the length of time their distinguished engineer spent in deep analysis regarding the power supply. Probably had to attend a fully paid week long training course by the sound of it. Not to mention the trauma involved of course. So I suppose it is understandable that this has delayed development of their synthesizers. What they should do is open source it like you say, or at least partially. It's abandonware after all. That would position them in very favorable light rather trying to hold on and use heavy handed tactics. Make it a win for everyone. I love sequential, but come on. Personally I would have just replaced the whole thing with something modern. Take it easy man. The shirt looks great 👍🪨😘💕🫴♂️👞🎽👕💯😃

[@HOLODECK-MUSIC-PROJECT]

Espen evolves rapidly to the biggest drama queen on yt😂

[@annother3350]

its a great expose of the childish antics and poor quality of sequential. I think thats valid

[@davidvochocjr1005]

Yeah, having in my memory his “love affair” with the Prophet X few years ago, it is like a weird breakout reality show 😆

[@ZoeSummers1701A]

I’ve never owned a synth by them and I thought I probably never would, but after how they’ve reacted to you, I can certainly say now that I definitely won’t.

[@LunaticDandy]

It would be interesting to see the power supplies of their current synths. I wouldn't be surprised if there are still compromises on quality ! 🧐

[@RikMaxSpeed]

Every single Sequential synth I have owned has had technical faults. From faulty potentiometers, to a P8v2 crashing randomly, broken sub-osc sync in 2 of the 6 voices on the OB6 and a faulty connector cable in the PX. I’ve kept thenPX however, it’s a truly exceptional synth.

[@cinemalulli]

When you realize that many of the things you use are made from cheap and not-so-advanced materials, you might start making videos about most of the things you use daily-from appliances to your car, and even how the house you live in was built.

[@EspenKraft]

I live in Norway and I can tell you that the house I live in is built with extra dimensioning in absolutely every way. We don't mess around with our houses here.

[@annother3350]

This is a synthesizer channel so he might not

[@cinemalulli]

@@annother3350 or maybe a rant channel?

[@annother3350]

@@cinemalulli A warning to others channel. Prophets are not cheap - you want to know the pitfalls soas not to waste your money. Its a common sense channel

[@cinemalulli]

@@annother3350 Look, I have a Prophet 5 desktop, and I’m well aware that, like all modern electronic devices, the company is required to have spare parts available for a certain number of years. I don’t remember exactly how many, but in theory, it should be specified, at least here in Europe where I live. However, complaining about a slow processor, which ultimately does what it’s supposed to do and is cost-effective (fine, I get it), doesn’t make much sense because that’s the logic of the vast majority of companies. Seven years have passed since the Prophet X, and I don’t see what other updates they should be making. Which brands provide spare parts after seven years? Maybe Novation, maybe. But for the rest, I’m sorry to say it, we’re all in the same boat. If you want something (possibly) repairable, the only option is to look at vintage gear because today repairable products don’t really exist. There are only replacements for internal or external parts.

[@tobiverseofficial]

Looks like an actual futureproof setup! Interested in a prophet x now more than ever. All the best, Tobi

[@dfloper]

If they make the source code open it is a bad idea for them. For a start Behringer will make a copy of the synth engine, and also Sequential will not be able to release an improved synth in the future that is based on the existing code.

[@0LoneTech]

That second part is BS. Publishing one way in no way inhibits further development, whether published the same way or not. Of course one-way source drops have a lot less value than cooperative development, but it's a choice plenty have done. There are also plenty of open source synth engines already, perhaps most famously Csound.

[@wallacebillingham9388]

What difference would it make if Behringer used open sourced to make a cloned Prophet X? Sequential has abandoned the product and has no interest in further development

[@matthewcragg3607]

I can see the Prophet-X becoming an ever ongoing mod platform sort of like the TB-303 and the subsequent “Devil Fish”. People could replace the “cheap PC” in it with something more powerful, develop a new and better OS, etc. The idea of a simple sampler (i.e., not some monstrous bloated “workstation”), with an analog filter is sexy as hell. Hopefully it has a bright aftermarket future.

[@mrz80]

I just had a fun thought: rig up a new boot drive, port Zynthian (q.v.) to an Intel platform, and write some glue code to get the P/X's hardware talking to it. That would be a DARNED cool hack.

[@anthonybennett3226]

When a company reacts this way it's usually the TRUTH. And companies hate it when folks realize and start sharing the TRUTH about them and or their products because they don't want an uncomfortable very public spotlight on them revealing the TRUTH. But ultimately it's about protecting their Interests and Bottom Line💰 A good company with INTEGRITY would want to do the right thing and own up to it publicly with no back tracking, blame throwing or excuses bs. They would sincerely own up and apologize then MAKE IT RIGHT. Thats how you earn respect and peoples money. But then as I sad that takes INTEGRITY which this company clearly lacks. My hard earned cash will go somewhere else to a company that has INTEGRITY and has earned that respect and money. So THANK YOU for sharing the TRUTH that "sets us free" from yet another apparently greedy lazy dishonest & corrupt company. 💯😁🎹

[@iswm]

the truth that espen recommended the wrong power supply? yeah, that was true.

[@EspenKraft]

The PSU I recommended isn't technically wrong, but it isn't a DIRECT replacement.

[@Average-AL]

@@EspenKraft If you swap some pins on the cable it would work for a handy person.

[@MaggieKeizai]

You know, after seeing the guts in that last video, the entirety of the prophetX seems imminently cloneable. Code can be reverse engineered a number of ways. It's clearly made from off the shelf components with a few very basic control PCBs, some custom code running on a linux PC or whatever, and wrapped in a nice case. This thing can be hijacked by the nerd community, and since Sequential has abandoned it, I'd argue that it should be.

[@igfoobar]

A company whose products are dangerously badly built will issue legal threats to people who have legitimate criticism of them. I myself was threatened by Reliance Controls for the same reason.

[@Average-AL]

Thank you Espen for this honesty. When I saw the 8Dio logo on the Prophet X I stayed away. 8Dio have a long reputation of mishandling customers so it came as no surprise that Sequential would abandon this product as well and give you a hard time for not liking it. Seems like it was a partnership of two bullies in this project. Sad really cause there is definitely a market for a flexible samplebased synth.

[@Lachenmann7]

I didn't realize that 8Dio had a representation for not handling customers appropriately. They were a little cheap and stringent when it came to not giving me an advertised deal on multiple (analog synth) sample sets for the X, however. Can you elaborate?

[@Average-AL]

@@Lachenmann7 Some years ago there was some issues with the payment options on 8Dios site and some people was charged twice. No refunds was issued. Others complained about bugs and missing samples that never got corrected. But most of all I remember the weird case with a person that heard some high pitched noised and complained about it on Vi-forum. The owner of 8Dio made a video about a crazy oversensitive customer with superhuman hearing. It was a very rude video. Wonder if it is still on KZbin(must look for it). That customer later posted some evidence in soundsfiles. The customer wanted a refund. 8Dio refused.

[@Bonez0r]

1:38 If they found a flaw in their product with the help of your video, they have to fix the flaw. That takes time, so it's not surprising that their next product is delayed because of that. It doesn't necessarily mean they're understaffed. However they may very well be understaffed too. I found that in 2015 they only had 8 employees in their SF office. That was before the takeover by Focusrite though, which has around 550 employees.

[@dojoguitare]

Espen Kraft, scaring little old ladies since 1984.

[@annother3350]

Little old ladies should up their build quality

[@Dolle_Man]

mannn I love this! This only makes Espen stronger

[@djGreenALERT]

I think the real issue Espen is they are embarrassed you showed the world what is ACTUALLY powering their products! It cannot be understated just how old the components are that is powering something that costs so much! If you spent $4000 on a computer for example, and saw connectors on it that were phased out almost 30 years ago, you would quite rightly be horrified!

[@delscoville]

I like Dave Smith/Oberheim gear. I had good experience with support for my Pro 3 SE. After returning the main board, they issued a recall (besides mine, mine was fixed with the mainboard swap). But I am surprised they dropped an ITX motherboard in the Prophet X, instead of integrating the components on a main board. I do like the idea of open software for discontinued synths. But, there's probably portions of that software that's still being used in new synths, and they want to protect it for the purpose of remaining competitive.

[@boptillyouflop]

Sequential Circuits is a synthesizer company, not a motherboard design company. For sure they can design a board for an ARM System-On-A-Chip system, but those are designed specifically to be easy to integrate and are orders of magnitudes simpler than PC motherboards. On a PC board, even just the bus between the CPU and the RAM needs special design done by dedicated specialists just because of how fast RAM buses go, let alone all the other stuff.

[@LordCritish]

I highly appreciate that Espen is so down to earth and takes no BS from anyone! Far shot from many other synth gear youtubers. Kudos for standing your ground!

[@McTroyd]

Surprising that Sequential would even offer selling a power supply for user replacement. Most of the professional AV gear I handle requires equipment with internal power supplies go back to the vendor. It's really kind of stupid, too. They're all attached with connectors, and if they passed basically any electrical certification testing, they're all safe if not plugged into mains. (If they haven't passed an electrical certification, you'll want to replace that supply anyway!) This engineer calls BS on the development time delay argument, too. There are lots of reasons to read white papers and data sheets, even if they're not related to the task at hand. For example, if I find myself stuck on a bad software bug or design issue, sometimes I'll intentionally switch away to something unrelated to refresh my perspective. No need for Sequential to be pithy.

[@aloharay]

Sequential abandoning a flagship product only 6 years after release is disheartening.

[@moonelfcosmo]

30 mins max to analyze the data sheet…. But you certainly saved them a whole lot more time that would have been spent sorting out some support claims Perhaps they should pay you Abandoning support for a synth that only this year was discontinued is criminal. It must mean they had A LOT of these needing repairs.

[@wajnlikewine]

I don't get why they didn't help you? Did you ask before doing all this? They send me an updated motherboard and powersupply right away & did not fail in any way. They are very helpful and do not leave their customers in the dark tbh.. i didnt get the previous video's yes it runs on linux but... it works? the X is a wonderful machine.. I got it for 2000 euros and couldn't be happier. Payed solely the shipping costs for all replacements and they respond very quickly. However I do like your videos & i do like your packs :D keep it going

[@fakshen1973]

Modification and customization of musical instruments is almost a must in a stand-alone piece of hardware. Entire genres of music have evolved from using musical instruments in ways the OG designers never intended.

[@andrew4982]

Good to know, Sequential is forever out of my purchase list

[@jazzmastert]

Did their emails come sequentially?

[@TantrumAudio]

Small manufacturer here 👋. I actually think the use of the ITX motherboard is kind of overkill for this kind of product. A $5 ESP32 board or FPGA would have probabbly sufficed.

[@stickyfox]

I think I mentioned it before... but this is why any synthesizer made in the last 20 years simply doesn't exist to me. They took the word "circuits" out of the name for a reason.

[@TeddyLeppard]

Maybe Sequential should take the initiative and either invite you to interview them or they should send a representative to speak on your channel.

[@TimDaleMusic]

Note if you need to get a replacement power supply from Sequential, they will normally send that for free as long as you then return the original (they will ask for a deposit which they return when they get the original one back), so the only cost to you is the return postage (to the US).

[@meneerjansen00]

Try and post something from Europe to the US, ha ha. You can buy a house for that.

[@annother3350]

But didn't espen say the PSU costs hundreds of dollars? So postage is 'free'...

[@EspenKraft]

In that video I clearly refer to buying the original PSU online, if someone's looking for it. And online it will cost you about $300 used. You can't get this particular model brand new any more. Apparently Sequential has new old stock of it, for as long as that lasts. Who knows how many they have. Problem is they fail, that's the issue here hence my suggestion for another model.

[@GrimVoxTech]

No problem they delay the development of new products. If their customer supports sounds like this, I think customers will delay buying their products too, so a win-win situation really.

[@djbremsespor]

Yeah exactly, lets celebrate with some lemon juice here and appreciate a delay in development of expensive, broken and abandoned synths. Amen! 🤭

[@AdAsteris]

No wonder their equipment is so buggy if they're so understaffed. Even the recommended "fixes" i tried for my secondhand Prophet '08 didn't work

[@sad2804]

Do you know what the pun is here? this could be expected from the Behringer company, because they initially make cheap synths for greater coverage, and this would be fine, but Sequential? Seriously? they either have their hands growing out of their ass if they couldn't supply a high-quality power supply and motherboard... but the answer lies on the surface - savings, you don't expect to see such savings in synth for $ 4k

[@AdAsteris]

The fact it has an actual mini PC inside it, connections and all, it was embarrassing for them to have that exposed to the general public

[@Psychlist1972]

@@AdAsteris Most workstations are built exactly like that. Nothing embarrassing about it.

[@Jabberwocky_McScrugel]

​@@Psychlist1972This is why a DAW and VSTs are pretty much the same or better. Better have a fast computer to blast latency, and you'll be in business. The Arturia synths are ungodly close to the OGs, only a pro would notice the difference.

[@djcolinturnbull]

It’s hard these days with everything out in the open on the net! Everyone makes mistakes. What’s more concerning is the trend of companies going after customers or reviewers. Free Speech is more important then ever! Stig På Espen! 👍🏻👍🏻

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

LOL they are caught and now they are pissed. How very unprofessional of them. What the hell have they done to what Dave Smith created?

[@ericviking4242]

I think Sequentials answer was quite dissapointing, and I also believe they got extra angry / upset since you had the audacity to reveal whats really under the hood, in this case subpar "el cheapo" components for a $4000 synth, more then the actual PSU-issue, and the "delay of development" things is down right ridiculous LOL Ok I understand that R&D costs substantial amounts of money but I still don't think the hefty price tag $4000 is motivated, IMO it all boils down to pure greed from $equential.. 😁 Keep up the good work Espen! Love both your music and your "overpriced synths" discoveries !❤

[@boptillyouflop]

It's not greed. Costs for synthesizers add up FAST: - Distribution and the shops where they sell synths take HALF THE MONEY. This means that out of that $4000, only $2000 goes to pay for the hardware and to pay Sequential. - You'd be surprised at how expensive things like keyboard beds and large numbers of knobs and analog voice cards are. The individual components are cheap enough, but it adds up fast. - Sequential is not a large volume company. Only so many people play keyboards, so the up-front costs like engineering are divided among fewer clients and must take up a rather more substantial part of the cost than on something like, say, a microwave oven. This applies to a lot of other music instruments as well.

[@insolace]

If you think qualifying a power supply for a device that creates low noise audio is as simple as reading a datasheet, you don’t know shit about what you’re talking about. If you don’t understand that the typical size of a r&d team for a company that usually does $10M in revenue is only 2-3 people, so yes tasking one of them to buy some random youtuber’s power supply and put it on a scope to see how it interacts with your product is in fact a significant use of resources… ah nevermind, I’m probably wasting my breath

[@ByronHadley1]

Very nice shirt, Espen! Synth Renegades are definitely a fun bunch to be around!

[@mb2776]

Yeah, that line about the guy looking at the power supply and delay is total BS. I'm a event tech guy, learned the basics of electricity in my profession. Checking the pin out of a power supply takes 2min max. You'll look it up, meanwell is super popular in all kinds of devices, amiga and atari guys use them for their vintage machines too.

[@cakesteak]

Well you were right when you said it was buggy. Make a PWM-mod square, and use sync, voice 0 will glitch, all others will be fine. Found it my first day with it. Now I have a 15 or 7 oscillator synth if I need to use that sound. "To confirm, does the clicking go away once you turn off OSC sync? If this is the case, your instrument is in fact functioning as expected. -Mitch, Sequential" "Great to hear from you that this is intended functionality, I'll let everyone know. -Me" "Likewise! Feel free to reach out if you run into any issues in the future. - Best, Mitch, Sequential LLC | Oberheim"

[@oystercatcher943]

Seems like your advice for go elsewhere to buy the power supply might perhaps give Sequential MORE time to work on new synths?

[@DeathMayBeYourSantaClausz]

I was delayed getting to work watching this video, thanks a lot, they fired me and now I'm unemployed, maybe I could help out at Sequential

[@justinmijnbuis]

Just want to add that 5.2V is at the upper range of many IC's (5.25V), 5.2V seems a bit high for the adjustment.

[@alexjenner1108]

There is a good chance that the low reading might be due to bad capacitors and the peaks are already too high. But yes, I'd probably want to keep things between 4.9 and 5.1.

[@aussierob7187]

Thank you for your persistence and openness to resolve the issues. I guess it’s nice to know Sequential are trying their best to resolve the issues and move forward, unlike Moog.

[@neilbradley]

"Oh no! I had to spend 20 minutes to send an email to a customer! The horror!" Jeez, Sequential. They likely will never release it as the QNX licensing from Intel.

[@hyoenmadan]

The problem isn't the OS license. Just like windows, QNX is pretty self containted. So they don't need to opensource the whole OS, just the software and the drivers code. Then the community can port it to other OS stack. The problem is they don't want to. Just choosing QNX over linux tells the whole story.

[@neilbradley]

@@hyoenmadan Unless you or I have specific domain knowledge of what went on behind the scenes, we can't definitively say what is or isn't the "problem". I suspect you're an engineer as well, and you know there are technical reasons QNX would be chosen over Linux (everything from GPL through realtime requirements and domain expertise to name a couple), so it's not definitive that the choice of QNX "tells the whole story". But I get where you're going and agree. They could release the "app" part and specs for the analog/IO board (which is just a PCIe interface) and it could be ported to other OSes. The trick would be getting the spec for the analog/IO board. Though it has a lot of programmable logic on the analog/IO board, which would make it a tad more difficult to reverse engineer. ;-)

[@iswm]

this comment section is really making a mountain out of a molehill. good lord.

[@jeffsymons7084]

I see a bunch of people reacting to the title and thumbnail without even watching the video. I guess that is what you get when you start making rage-bait videos to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

[@gordonmcwilliams8009]

Sequential embarrassing themselves with their comment that investigating the Prophet X will delay future development of other synths. I thought Focusrite had bought them over to increase unit productivity. The relatively cheap components in the Prophet X was an eye-opener too.

[@quimbas]

It’s hilarious that sequential would say a proper response delayed development. Strange and unexpected.

[@msromike123]

Well if they disagree with your video, maybe they should make their own video. I can see why they wouldn't release it as open source. I would be very much surprised if they start their OS from scratch when developing subsequent products in their line.

[@hyoenmadan]

They didn't used open source, but they also didn't made their OS from scratch. They preferred pay a fee to QNX (which is outdated and cheaper than VxWorks btw) than just using linux... Probably because there isn't much available knowledge and tools to reverse QNX. It says a lot how much they want to protect their software modules, and how much they want to stay away from open source.

[@msromike123]

@@hyoenmadan Doesn't change not wanting to release software, as open source, that they paid good money to have developed. Pay an engineer to create it in house, or buy it from a third party, what's the difference. It still cost them money to develop the product. Even more reason to not release the code if that code could help people home brew or help a competitor get into the market cheap by using their OS/code for free. I really don't see any reason they should be expected to release their source code on a recently discontinued PC based software synth. Maybe I am missing the point here?

[@midphase]

It's such a shame that Sequential is such a shadow of what it used to be. They seem to be more concerned with squeezing as much money out of their customers than providing true innovation.

[@sebastianfeldhof8323]

Sequential has a really good support btw.

[@amigalemming]

2:12 Open Source hardware synthesizer would be really cool!

[@DunnyKruger]

Puts out bad PSU replacement info to 100k people "Why would they have to waste time researching it?!?!" .... really.

[@cosmicaddress7851]

Great albums behind you. Thief is a fantastic soundtrack and Beach Scene especially is sublime!

[@EspenKraft]

I agree.

[@ultrapim1]

Why didnt you just show the email on screen?

[@MazeFrame]

Probably to avoid bogus DMCA-claims as companies tend to do whenever possible.

[@TheMorningIWokeUpDead]

I wouldn't say that your seq was broken, if the bios battery does run out and you have to adjust a screw.. Basic service, like with any other synth.. and now you have delayed the new synths from us! Naughty boy!

[@kitchendezina]

Did Sequential's letter writing to Espen delay development of their new synths as well?

[@AutodafeSynths]

“Will delay development of new Synth” ??? Come on. delay? How much? 1-2 days? A few hours???😂😂

[@famitory]

looking up a pin compatible PSU probably took 30 minutes maximum, 4 minutes minimum. ideally when you engineer a product you're supposed to have a list on hand of Alternate part choices so that if something has supply chain issues unexpectedly you can swap it out for an alternate where possible. also you should probably be aware that the punisher logo is associated with far-right groups in the US and canada, not sure if that association exists in europe.

[@MidnightBlueMetallic]

It's also used by Firefighters, EMS, Police, and both the US and Iraqi Militaries in addition just to being a long standing comic book series about a crime fighter. We probably shouldn't twist our undies in a knot over it.

[@NunyaByness]

No it isn’t. Only pansy asswipes with pink hair say that kind of shit.

[@meneerjansen00]

Sorry guys, but with every synth nowadays you kow you're paying for the knobs, sliders and buttons: the rest is software/firmware. And still I buy 'm... 😉

[@newsoundagency6729]

We at the New Sound Agency stand with Espen. Sequential blaming Espen is very telling as to their current condition.

[@jacob_andersen]

Let me know if the OB6s are working flawless or if they are fawlty? Thxs

[@QuestionMarkComposer]

I appreciate the video and the discussion. And after having dissed Behringer for delivering fantastic synths for all of us, and having bashed Sequential, Oberheim and Moog for making expensive, super instruments with cheap components, and after having disliked Thomann for being so good in delivering them fast and cheap and with good service too well, and after having criticized Roland for not respecting their analog heritage properly and for pay models I do not like, and for finding all the small companies too esoteric, and having mentioned that Apple only produces overpriced luxury items, and that Arturia lacks own ideas, since their collection mimic iconic classics, maybe it's time to attack Yamaha for a change. Their instruments are too good, some of them are reasonably priced, they sound great-I don't like it! Let's bash them! Or, erm, eh, well, maybe I should make an actually good track with some of my dozens of synthesizers, polish it and finally release it. Maybe this time not only simple a-minor sequencing? No! Let's talk bad about Yamaha!

[@toi_techno]

Unbelievable that they don't take the criticism on board and just do better

[@synriser6742]

The X might be great for gigging, but I don’t see much point in using it in the studio. With a quality MIDI keyboard and excellent VSTs, you can achieve far better results. For example, you could create your own samples, load them into Unify, and layer additional VSTs for a more customised sound. By the way, I just watched a video introducing the Behringer JT Mini. Interestingly, the presenter was wearing the same T-shirt, but in black."

[@eddfromearth]

That would be powerful but wouldn't sound the same without all the analog components.

[@synthsamuraiproductions]

Synth Renegades 🏴‍☠️ 4 Life. You da man Brother

[@samprock]

🏴‍☠🖤

[@Gerald_Daniel]

I find the criticism of Sequential for the alleged loss of time to be quite petty, calculating, if not a bit vindictive. 🙄🤢🤮

[@PeterLoof]

Any how, I love your extremely nice LP in the background! ❤

[@TheMachinesWon]

Espen is a synth renegade, love to see it! 🦾🤖🏴‍☠️

[@samprock]

🏴‍☠️ 🖤

[@TheMachinesWon]

@@kierenmoore3236 😭😭🏴‍☠️

[@samprock]

@ 🤣 Not a cult… a sect (a sect is a group of people who share a distinct set of beliefs or practices that differ from a larger organization), right?

[@jackpijjin4088]

We need to remind companies that they work for *us.* They can try to scare us, but they should be afraid of what *we* can do.

[@georgegeez8708]

Get'em Espen. You shook their feathers. Renegades unite. 👍👍👍👍👍

[@HappyQuailsLC]

They may also require direct purchase of replacement power supplies in order for purchasers to maintain warranty coverage of their synths.

[@annother3350]

You probably break the warranty by opening the case

[@pthomas36]

Makes me think of the Access Virus Ti which was easily emulated in software because it's essentially a software instrument to begin with. It makes me feel that the Prophet X could see similar treatment in the future which is very intriguing.

[@tommy2nes]

I still can’t get over that motherboard! 😂

[@TheDarkLandsMusic]

was that what it was?

[@oblitafier]

What exactly is wrong with using off the shelf parts which are potentially easier to source and replace if necessary?

[@hyoenmadan]

@@oblitafier Yeah, what is wrong with reaping money from the buyer with of the shelf parts in a clearly overpriced product? Ofc nothing.... If Apple put the example and does it, then there is nothing wrong with it.

[@robertsmithshair4199]

The noose in the thumbnail is a bit unnecessary Espen!

[@EspenKraft]

When given the opportunity people will always complain about something.

[@RoaldvdM]

If the PS has the right voltages but on different pins, it is always possible to swap the pins in the plastic connector. BTW, the PS shown looks likea run of the mill, 13 in a dozen modular switching powersupply. It would surprise me if it delivers any other voltages than a regular computer power supply (unless the dedicated analogue parts need them)

[@tombasports]

Now we need teenage engineers to anti up about a song mode in the ep 133

[@EspenKraft]

TE is very bad, very very bad. (said with the voice of Babu Batt)

[@AlexAldorf]

Halla espen! hva synes du Take 5 ? ser noen gode tilbud på finn, men er usikker på om jeg skal gå for den eller rev 2

[@EspenKraft]

Begge låter fint, men umulig for meg å si hvem du trenger/liker best. Spillestil (antall tangenter) og variasjon i lydmuligheter er avgjørende. Prismessig er ingen av de å anbefale slik jeg ser det. Begge er overpriset og byggekvalitet tvilsom.

[@davidharrison6208]

Updated my OBX8 and has never worked correctly since. I'm going to try to reinstall using a windows computer instead of Apple when I get back from holiday to see if that fixes it.

[@MrLukescheybeler]

You know what’s hard Espen? Designing and making products. You know what’s easy? Making clickbait BS on KZbin whining about nothing.

[@EspenKraft]

Of course. That's why I make videos instead of synths. I'm smart.

[@lootacow]

Crazy to think that there are complaints about what components are used by people who don’t own a synthesizer company.

[@theokingshango]

they didn refer to any of the “cheap stuff inside” remarks? 😏😏😏

[@St0ckwell]

I have a PX that was briefly bricked. I bought it secondhand for 2000 dollars a few years ago. My experience with it says it is a very useful tool for rapidly getting the highest quality synth sounds in a way that doesn't consume CPU. I enjoy it, but I would not say it's worth the money I spent, much less the factory price tag.

[@synthmaven]

Sure makes you wonder about a lot of recent synths.. maybe Espen is revitalizing the vintage market, whether intentionally or not.

[@pfmmodule5144]

Thanks for the update. What should the 5v be set for and what direction do you turn the adjustment screw? Looking forward to the source code being available somewhere in the future.

[@EspenKraft]

I can't remember what direction. I think it's clockwise seen from straight below the screw, but with a multi-meter attached you'll see if the voltage drops or rises. Be careful as this shouldn't really be done with no load and it could also be inaccurate if not done correctly.

[@pfmmodule5144]

@ thanks. So far it’s working good.

[@arnoxable]

The good news is that it is possible to play Doom or RPG with a prophet X (BOX)

[@deconline1320]

Not sure what's on the other side of that PCIe connector... but I'm assuming a custom I/O and audio interface. If it is running on Linux and is linking a custom driver against the kernel, they are obligated to provide the driver source code as per the GPLv2 license. On the other hand, their synth code is probably running in user space and won't require them to publish it.

[@deconline1320]

I missed the other vid with the connected monitor before viewing this one... It's QNX and not Linux. They don't have any licensing obligations to publish their source code.

[@FairchlldMusic1]

I have that Thief record, it’s amazing.