There are schools of (microeconomic) thought that would encourage them to raise prices even further in order to reduce demand to match their supply capability. If the second-hand market prices a good higher than the original seller, that's a very clear signal to increase the price. At least that way the profits end up in the manufacturer's pocket (which they can use to increase volume) instead of a speculator's. That is all to say, their raising prices is ethical, legal, and moral.
You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price. Even absent the above, it makes perfect sense that they could be losing money on a product, and then re-introduce it at a higher price so they stop losing money.
Now, should they have been losing money at the lower price point? You talk a lot about CoGS, but that completely neglects things like design and development time. The OP-1 is, by all accounts, extremely well-designed and built. Economies of scale let companies like Apple pick lower margins because that R&D time is amortized over a huge number of devices manufactured. Boutique operations can't do that.
All that still ignores squishier questions like choosing to keep a price point in order to fund other projects (that may never be built) with increasing margins over time, or hell, I dunno, paying bigger bonuses to employees. Clearly people are willing to pay it, and they're under no obligation to price their goods according to any objective thing at all. Maybe the CEO is a mystic and likes the numerology of the new price better.
> You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price.
This is typical behavior of a certain large class of musicians, particularly electronic ones.
The message boards are full of people complaining that these companies charge "too much." They will also then complain that Behringer sucks for "stealing" ideas and pricing them affordably.
Meanwhile, it has never been cheaper to buy music equipment and software. And there are tons of high quality free software out there.
I would hesitate to enter into the business of selling music software or hardware. It seems pretty thankless.
If it were truly possible to create and sell the OP-1 or an equivalent device for under $1000, some company would have done it already. I'd gladly buy a Behringer copy of the OP-1 for $500, and I bet loads of other people would as well.
It could even be twice the volume and be ugly AF.
I don't know why it's so difficult or unattractive to put a sequencer, a sampler and a synthesizer in one box with a keyboard on it, but the OP-1 seems to be the only successful implementation of that idea.
The Behringer thing is really confusing to me. I know there are other personal/ethical reasons to dislike them, but cloning out of patent devices is not one of them. That's what patents are for and why they're only valid for a defined period of time. It makes even less sense to criticize them when the originals they are cloning aren't even made anymore.
I don't think Behringer only creates clones of "out of patent" hardware but also current gear that is still being sold. I guess the latest example is the Behringer Swing that is obviously a clone of the Arturia Keystep.
There are only so many ways to arrange three knobs and transport controls on a keyboard.
This is like two mobile phone companies putting their volume buttons in the same place.
This is another weird aspect of the (often amateur, electronic) music production world - making something simple and obvious seem like a mysterious and unique breakthrough.
This is a community that likes to use the terms “aleatoric” and “euclidian” instead of “random” and “evenly distributed”. Yes, I know the origins of those two terms but I don’t care - I eyeroll every time I hear them.
> There are only so many ways to arrange three knobs and transport controls on a keyboard.
You're joking right? There are thousands of combinations of where to put things to make a clone less obvious, but obviously they didn't care to do anything of that.
> There are thousands of combinations of where to put things to make a clone less obvious
Disagree. This is like saying there are thousands of combinations of where to put doors on a car or volume controls on a phone. There are really only like one or two, and I doubt any of them are like, copyrightable.
These are simple devices with simple features, not a single one which was invented by Arturia.
If I slap an arpeggiator on a midi keyboard, do I have to put the knobs on the right hand side to not infringe on the Keystep? And at that point, can no one else put an arpeggiator in a 25-key midi keyboard because all layout combinations in that form factor are "used up?"
I just don't get the outrage over this other than I think it comes from people who already hate Behringer.
> I just don't get the outrage over this other than I think it comes from people who already hate Behringer.
Then you have your first counter-point here, because I don't have Behringer, I simply think some of their practices are shady. But no hate, and I have nothing against people who chose to buy their gear. I don't want to, because of their shady practices, but that doesn't mean I hate Behringer in total.
And no, if you have an arpeggiator on a midi keyboard, you don't have to place them in a different place than the Keystep. But if you have exactly the same features, and you put them in the same place, with a so similar design that consumer could be confused which one you have in front of you, then it starts getting into a territory that me myself, is not comfortable with.
If you remove the Arturia and and Behringer logo together with the text on the Swing, you think most people would accurately be able to separate which one is which? I think not, and that's when you're infringing on someones copyright.
>There are only so many ways to arrange three knobs and transport controls on a keyboard.
>This is like two mobile phone companies putting their volume buttons in the same place.
In this case I think Behringer directly copied the look and feel of the keystep because of its amazing success in the low budget controller space. I don't expect much innovation in the budget controller space, but this one seems to be a clear case of trademark/copyright infringement if "rounded corners" can be protected.
You seem to be seeing something nefarious in their discontinuing the OP-1, and then re-continuing it at a higher price. Even absent the above, it makes perfect sense that they could be losing money on a product, and then re-introduce it at a higher price so they stop losing money.
Now, should they have been losing money at the lower price point? You talk a lot about CoGS, but that completely neglects things like design and development time. The OP-1 is, by all accounts, extremely well-designed and built. Economies of scale let companies like Apple pick lower margins because that R&D time is amortized over a huge number of devices manufactured. Boutique operations can't do that.
All that still ignores squishier questions like choosing to keep a price point in order to fund other projects (that may never be built) with increasing margins over time, or hell, I dunno, paying bigger bonuses to employees. Clearly people are willing to pay it, and they're under no obligation to price their goods according to any objective thing at all. Maybe the CEO is a mystic and likes the numerology of the new price better.