Positive and negative inflation

[lovingboth]

I'm watching a series called The Shape of Things That Hum, on the history of various synths. After the MiniMoog, Vocoder and Yamaha DX-7, they're doing the Fairlight.

Everyone interviewed - people like Vince Clarke, Rick Wakeman and Nick Rhodes - said they were expensive, but no-one's said just how expensive.

Well, it was over £20,000. In early 1980s money. You could've bought a house in London with that.

Somewhere I've got a copy of a computing magazine from the time, between the first Frankies singles and the first album, where someone from their record company ZTT says that no-one will be able to make good records at home, because no-one except rich people like them can afford a Fairlight.

Now, the cheapest sound card you can get is more powerful. And the house would be worth at least £250k.

Comments

[vampwillow]

when I bought my first synth (1984iirc) my options included a DX-7. Stupidly I only really associated Yamaha with motor cycles and so I went with the Roland (which had a built-in sequencer and was polyphonic) instead.

[scopo.livejournal.com]

I gave up on synths when the DX7 came out and they took the knobs off! No fun ;)

(oh dear, I suddenly feel old)

Having sold my Roland SH101 and Jupiter 4 to a friend years ago, I'd love to buy another old analogue synth, but 'proper' ones are stupidly expensive now - I might have to go the software route ...