V Synth GT End of Life

[BillySynth]

Does anybody know anything about this? I've heard Roland have stopped GT production, prices in Australia have dropped significantly.

Regards
Billy

[PauloF]

Hum...interesting

[Artemiy]

Could be true... unfortunately. I wonder if Roland will ever release a new V-product, maybe something in a cheaper package? I'd love to have something like the original V-Synth but smaller and lighter.

[PauloF]

Like... In an ARX format ?

That would be cool

[Artemiy]

ARX would be a top seller for G users for sure, but I'd love a dedicated machine.

[PauloF]

The only thing that I can tell you for sure is that I "love" my V-Synth XT !!!

It is a hell of a board !!!!!

But if I had a second one or a GT... Well... In that case it would be the "best of both worlds"


EDITED: Just imagine the possibility of having al the power of a V and the D-50 available at the same time...
;-D

[Jim Stout]

It does not surprise me either. It came out in 2007 and it's 2010. That's about the product run for Roland.

I really hope they continue the V-Synth line, but... With the way the economy is and every manufacturer moving to "cheap gear" I don't see them keeping a $3500 digital synth in the line up.

I really wanted them to expand the V-Card concept, like remake the JD-990 maybe they will move that to the ARX line.

If they were smart, They would make a D-50 iPad app!

Or start making VST versions of the Vocal Designer and the rest of the cool digital instruments like Korg did with the M1 and Wavestation. I don't see that happing either.


I really hope I'm wrong.

[Nord72]

I agree the tendency goes this way probably....
Btw 3500$ is a hell of a lot money, at least for me, its almost a year salary here...
I ve been invested in a Corei7 Asus notebook (secondhand:) rather, because if someone already has some keyboards the more important things are the more ram and more power these days, daw software development is growing significantly, there are a lot of free stuffs and macosx is available on x86 pc hardware already quite well, so the future for Roland probably will be desktop synth related or maybe a new generation GrooveBox series (SSD bootable, etc...)
But we will see what the future is holding for us.
Time will tell....and time's never wrong.....Time will tell....but time takes so long

[motorhead9999]

This has been floating for a while it seems, and I suppose in the end, I'm not surprised. The V always seemed to be a specialty board. As stated earlier, it seems the trend among all the major manufacturers is to make more affordable lite versions of their flagship workstations (M50/M3, PC3LE/PC3) and even Roland seems to be following that trend with the Gaia.

I'm glad I picked one up and at a reasonable price. I have the feeling that the V will end up being a prized synth, because I think a lot of people will only realize what this synth can do after it is out of production, and store shelves dry up.

That having been said, I really REALLY wish Roland had make a rack version of the GT. I control mine through my Kurzweil, so the board itself is actually just sitting there for me. A rack unit would have been great for me spacewise.

[PauloF]

@motorhead9999,
Have you considered a XT ?
it loses AP synthesis, simultaneous Vocal part and the 2nd Tone (upper/lower) to the GT, but it is Multimbral, and includes a D-50 !!

[motorhead9999]

I originally did consider getting an XT over the GT originally (mostly due to price at the time). While I suppose I could trade off certain things, the fact that you'd have to do a reboot every time you wanted to switch say between the vocoder and standard was a real deal killer for me. I love that in the GT, I can do whatever I want, when I want it (mostly).

If they made a GT rack specifically, I'd buy it in a heartbeat (with a heartbeat meaning a fairly good bit below MSRP

[PauloF]

My reasons were the same (money), as the GT costed 1300€ more than the XT, so...

But I agree with you on the Vocoder. it is a pain having to restart the machine...oh well...we can't have everything, can't we ?

[dudestar_99]

For those like myself who have spent much recent time researching the V-Synth with the intention of purchasing one of the models, the potential GT End of Life brings up challenges and opportunities .

I've noticed that, here in the US:
- prices on new V-Synth GT's have not yet come down
- some online retailers have surprisingly few V-Synth GT's in stock (which made me wonder if its End of Life were close)
- new V-Synth GT's with some minor issues (e.g., refurb) are currently available starting at about $2,300 (as 2010-07-21, with a bit of luck and research). Of course having a warranty with new equipment is an appealing element.
- used V-Synth's are currently available starting at about $900

Thanks to wonderful resources available online, I'm familiar with the differences in features between V-Synth 2.0 and V-Synth GT 2.0 (I'm not currently interested in the XT, although it's clearly a wonderful instrument). I'm on the fence as to how much extra I want to spend for the additional GT features.

Questions:
- what would you do if you were me, given the possible End of Life, and given current prices - e.g., buy a V-Synth now, buy a V-Synth GT now, or buy the V-Synth GT in 6 months? I haven't seriously considered buying a "V-Synth + V-Synth XT" (i.e., 1 unit of each) setup now because I'm thinking that, if I decide to spend the extra money, I'd like the GT features.
- We know that after the V-Synth GT was released, new V-Synths were available at Guitar Center for $1,100 or so in the US. Does anyone with a crystal ball care to predict how much prices will fall for new GT's within the next 1 year, 2 year, etc.?

If Mr. Stout (thank you for all of your great work!) and the clan are correct, the entire V-Synth line could retain quite a bit of value as people realize how amazing it is.... after Roland stops producing it .

[Nord72]

" I haven't seriously considered buying a V-Synth and a V-Synth XT now because I'm thinking that, if I decide to spend the extra money, I'd like the GT features. "

First it depends on your money that You actually have (and 6+ month later).
Think it over, the good old version is multitimbral, if You need it as a master keyboard/central controlling surface of your studio its deffiniately a good choice.
But if You need the vocoder (FL Studio Vocodex almost unbeatable these days) and the not so 'real' D-50...than You will have two choices XT or GT.
I think You need to think it twice and keep the balance right.
If I could walk in your shoes I would pick up the original (OS V2 of course).
Cheap, reliable, stable as hell... (there are some minor bugs but You can live with it usually or there are some workarounds...)
I dont want to confuse You with my premonition but the prices will be growing higher and higher exponentially (just a few years and the V-synth orig. will be classic and a collectable item)

[dudestar_99]

I apologize... I did not write a few things clearly in my last post, so I edited the post, which now states:

"I haven't seriously considered buying a "V-Synth + V-Synth XT" (i.e., 1 unit of each) setup now because I'm thinking that, if I decide to spend the extra money, I'd like the GT features. "

I am seriously considering buying either a V-Synth or a V-Synth GT. I'm just not sure (like all of us) whether prices of the V-Synth GT will come down in the US over the next few months.

If my budget is $2,300 and my intent is to eventually get a V-Synth GT, but I'm flexible regarding the timing, here are some interesting options:
- I could buy a $900 used V-Synth now and hope that V-Synth GT prices will fall to $1,400 within the next 2 years, and then I could buy a V-Synth GT. In this scenario I'd have 2 boards, and a spare board is always useful for playing live (even though Rolands are quite reliable)
- I could buy a new/refurb V-Synth GT now for $2,300 (which is quite a bit less from the current US standard price of about $3,300)


Of course the first option is based on a prediction, which may have no relationship to future reality . None of us know what the actuality will be, but I'd love to read opinions on what clan members would do in my situation.