OPx4 for 79$ this week

jabberwalky wrote:Quite tempting...hmmm. That should be the regular price however!

What are people's thoughts about this rapid U-turn on pricing, or do you think they always planned to offer such huge discounts so rapidly? Keys collection 78% discount? Fabric 60%?

I don't think I've ever seen such big discounts so soon after launch.

MPC-Tutor wrote:do you think they always planned to offer such huge discounts so rapidly? Keys collection 78% discount? Fabric 60%?

Yes, I truly believe that was always the plan. It's basic business 101 - you charge top dollar and snag early adopters willing to pay, and later lower the price to snag the holdouts. If they had started out low, then they couldn't offer discounts. I've seen countless VST devs do this sort of thing (Reveal Sound, U-He - to a lesser degree since Urs is so anti-sale - iZotope, etc).

It's not that they planned to eventually offer discounts, it's the speed at which they've done so, and the size of them. 78% discount after 8 weeks.

Cheeky launch offer, some sneaky promo codes, crossgrade and upgrade deals, etc, this is 101 stuff, not announcing OTT pricing and then knocking nearly 80% off within a few weeks. If you are going for the heavy discount model you still have to be a bit more restrained in the early days to not piss off the people who purchased a full price and to also cement the perceived value of the products. IMO it just makes these RRPs absolute twaddle, what's the point? Black Friday coming soon, they should have waited for that, everyone expects the big discounts then.

EnochLight wrote:

MPC-Tutor wrote:do you think they always planned to offer such huge discounts so rapidly? Keys collection 78% discount? Fabric 60%?

Yes, I truly believe that was always the plan. It's basic business 101 - you charge top dollar and snag early adopters willing to pay, and later lower the price to snag the holdouts. If they had started out low, then they couldn't offer discounts. I've seen countless VST devs do this sort of thing (Reveal Sound, U-He - to a lesser degree since Urs is so anti-sale - iZotope, etc).

MPC-Tutor wrote:
What are people's thoughts about this rapid U-turn on pricing, or do you think they always planned to offer such huge discounts so rapidly? Keys collection 78% discount? Fabric 60%?

I don't think I've ever seen such big discounts so soon after launch.

I think they've made the discount for the people who are still sitting on the Fence to reel them in quickly before they put the prices back up to the original prices so they start all over with these ridiculous prices when they drop the new firmware for the AKAI Force.

MPC-Tutor wrote:It's not that they planned to eventually offer discounts, it's the speed at which they've done so, and the size of them. 78% discount after 8 weeks.

78% off their launch price is more in alignment with what these should have been sold for originally, IMHO. That it happened within 8 weeks I guess is unusual, but who knows - maybe in this post-Covid world, it's the new norm. Between what's going on with Russia/Ukraine and most of the world suffering from some sort of economic catastrophe in some shape or form, they're probably throwing as much at the wall as possible to see what sticks before we all go to hell in a handbasket.

bitermc wrote:

Lampdog wrote:Less about FM and more about new sound design possibilities for me.

LivePsy wrote:Moog and FM, covers all the classic synth sounds. FM basses and FM pads are *chefs kiss*

Yeah, totally agree, the sound design possibilities are endless. Pretty much like with modulars.

The thing with FM -for me- is that almost everything ends up having a metalish 1980s sound characteristic to FM. I personally prefer a combination of subtractive synthesis and sampling for sculpting my sound... but, again, that's just me

I agree with that metallic comment too. You need a filter after the operators even though they couldn't implement it for the DX7 era. Two filters is even better.

EnochLight wrote:

MPC-Tutor wrote:do you think they always planned to offer such huge discounts so rapidly? Keys collection 78% discount? Fabric 60%?

Yes, I truly believe that was always the plan. It's basic business 101 - you charge top dollar and snag early adopters willing to pay, and later lower the price to snag the holdouts. If they had started out low, then they couldn't offer discounts. I've seen countless VST devs do this sort of thing (Reveal Sound, U-He - to a lesser degree since Urs is so anti-sale - iZotope, etc).

That also applies to hardware, selling at top price and then reduce it killing the second hand market

MPC-Tutor wrote:

jabberwalky wrote:Quite tempting...hmmm. That should be the regular price however!

What are people's thoughts about this rapid U-turn on pricing, or do you think they always planned to offer such huge discounts so rapidly? Keys collection 78% discount? Fabric 60%?

I don't think I've ever seen such big discounts so soon after launch.

Honestly I was surprised. I though Akai will lower the prices after launching the plugins for Force , not so soon and not individually , more like a black Friday/cyber Monday huge sale

I guess if you were gonna buy them seperatly. To me, I bought the bundle the first day, and two months later they are a little under a hundred bucks cheaper. To me that is not bad, and a hundred bucks is what I spend on a good dinner or filling my car twice.. that is not a huge deal to have them that much earlier.. I have made some awesome stuff with them..
The bundle price was always the base price though, no way I'm spending what they wanted for them individually. I think these sales will come and go.. none of them are astronomical prices though..

What are the chances a license will work on the Force, if they ever gonna release OPx4 on that platform? Just wondering if I should buy it now while it's cheap or play it safe and see what happens? Did Akai even ever hint at making the latest MPC plug-ins available to the Force as well?

LivePsy wrote:
I agree with that metallic comment too. You need a filter after the operators even though they couldn't implement it for the DX7 era. Two filters is even better.

Yeah, there's a vomit inducing side of FM for me too. So much of the 80's was great, but some of the sounds I can happily never hear again. FM seems to be at the centre of them. But I do think the DX was capable of not sounding that way too, even without the added filters. This guy programmed some patches I love and some I don't into the DX format reface, with a few inbetween.


The OPX4 is quite heavy modulation based too, so it will be interesting to see where that can lead.

I was tempted by the Reface DX, but then saw Korg OPsix (which included filters) and that sounds amazing. The OPX4 looks pretty intuitive with the matrix, and having that inside the MPX, has knocked the Korg OPsix off my radar.

I've had a look at a few of the demos and reviews on the OPX4, but to be honest I don't think there are that many of them. I wonder if part of the reason for the short sale of this, is to get more in circulation so people start to see more potential. Discuss it more, create more content. It seems to me as though the pricing and release of so many things at one go, has fallen a bit flat marketing wise.

Neodymium wrote:Yeah, there's a vomit inducing side of FM for me too. So much of the 80's was great, but some of the sounds I can happily never hear again. FM seems to be at the centre of them. But I do think the DX was capable of not sounding that way too, even without the added filters. This guy programmed some patches I love and some I don't into the DX format reface, with a few inbetween.

OK, that surprised me

I don't know what shocks me the most, if the quality of the sounds or the fact that the guy is playing Stevie Wonder's chords and basslines in such tiny keys.

Sh*t!! he even plays green onions there without a mistake

The trick with FM is to use (some) fx, in particular delay and reverb.
A patch may sound boring if played dry, but suddenly comes to life with the proper setting. No need to drown it in reverb, it‘s about more subtle aspects of the FM sound structure (dynamic and harmonics) and how this interacts with the fx processor.

I hate the Whitney piano, too... but will always keep my Yamaha TX-7
It can do so much more

I'm certainly not going to complain about these price drops. I'm glad I didn't buy it for full price when I was almost ready to. I have all the plugins available for my MPC One at this point, both free and paid for. I was about to spend $699 on a Roland Gaia and I don't feel a need to with these plugins I have. I can make so much musically it's insane. Using OPX I lowkey made the Terminator 2 theme just testing it out. My Arturia keystep, MPC One, and Tascam Model 12 are all I need to pretty much make anything I want at this point. That makes me happy.