You want to build a product? Great, here's the list of what you can't get this week. It's different from last week, next week will be different too. Good luck!
Parts that used to cost $0.50 are now $5+ (various ADCs and DACs come to mind as one I've been dealing with). God help you if you want trailer axles. Etc.
There's only so much you can do with flexibility and "Redesign every few weeks for what's available for this batch" before your design costs and parts cost increases chew up all the available profits, even if you've designed for flexibility. "We can use any uC in this entire line!" "That line is on 54 week lead time. Yes, all the variants."
I'm a co-founder of a niche multi-effect pedalboard company and we're filing for bankruptcy in Germany this very week.
It's not only the crazy price changes and random stocking issues. Small players have zero leverage with suppliers and are a much weaker link in this whole chaos. Good luck trying to find investors willing to put money to drive growth.
Hardware startups is absolutely brutal. No surprise so many fail after a "successful" Kickstarter campaign.
I'm actually surprised we're only going under nearly 30 months after the pandemic started. I would bet that millions of people will be unemployed because a gazillion of small companies will shut off in the next 18 months.
I'll never start (or work for) a hardware company for the rest of my life. Software is so much a better business to invest that makes me cry just thinking how much money and years I lost of my life.
Every big fall I had ended up being a huge improvement in my life in hindsight, after a year or two. You couldn't have foreseen these issues and should feel proud of the experience you had. I hope everything works out well for you.
I appreciate the sympathy, really. The thing that I probably regret the most is really the time invested. That's the only thing I can't make up for. Even if I try to look back fondly of the learning experience I'm still severely burnt by it.
What I did in fact learn was to give absolutely tons of respect for people who pull this off. There's a lot of trash talk articles about Peloton and other struggling hardware companies but they have no clue how freaking difficult it is. Now at least I can say I do.
The future is still bright. I was lucky enough to have two business going and the second one is a thriving consulting software company. Sorry if it looked like I was in a dire situation personally. Not really the case.
I fell you! I am thinking about nice 3D sensor for robotic applications. I have hardware prototype and rudimentary software. However no parts are available for sale, so I am not able to advance to production ready version. Very frustrating! Happily I can fund my development from other sources and have long runway. I dodged a large caliber bullet not going all in with this single project 18 months ago.
I don't want to deposit fear into your dreams. You should follow what your heart tells you. But not going all in was probably the smartest decision you've made. Good luck!
The EEs are spinning alternative designs, the SWEs are writing cart sniping bots, the Supply Chain guys are trying to figure out if anyone with chips can be compensated for their consideration, ASML is desoldering chips from washing machines so they can make machines that make more chips, Influencers are using clout to beg for chips
Maybe they are... alternatively maybe they aren't and it's simply easier and faster to tell troops to chuck washing machines onto trucks rather than spend time dismantling them and learning how to identify the relevant parts and remove them without damage, not to mention Russia has a lot of spare fuel now.
I find the connection to acquiring electronic parta dubious. No one would transport washing machines on tanks when other transportation means exist. Plundering by badly disciplined troops looks much more likely.
I laugh when people claim chips are desoldered by anyone at all, even Russia.
Anyone with a minimal amount of knowledge knows that it would cost tons of time and money (and be impossible for anyone not well educated/experienced in the craft) to:
1) design a new circuit board around the chip
2) print said circuit board in sufficient quantities
3) Write software (from scratch) for the chip
I personally know people in low volume industries where they have pulled parts from prototypes, rejects and devkits to keep production moving.
It absolutely gets done when it makes sense.
For example with FPGA's.
You desolder to avoid 1, 2, and 3. That's why it makes sense. Washing machine has the stupid microcontroller you need and costs half of scalper prices? Washing machine it is.
Obviously the economics only work in low volume / high NRE sectors -- like semiconductor tooling.
steps 4+) get new electronics through FCC, UL, CE, etc. certification, which is slow and expensive, strongly motivating keeping the components the same
We use smart PLCs (programmable logic controllers - basically an Intel Atom powered realtime platform with modular high-speed analogue/digital I/O) for a lot of our projects. For one project, we were planning on deploying a cheap PLC plus a thermocouple module and some SPI modules. Because of availability, that turned into buying thermocouple and SPI interface chips ourselves, and designing a custom PCB to interface those to a Raspberry Pi. And now of course Raspberry Pis are impossible to get, so while we managed to get hold of enough for the first run of deployments, we don't have any more of them - we even had to ship our tester Pi! It's a real scramble, and we've definitely lost a bunch of money on that project.
Yep, that's a fair point: both the Raspberry Pis and the smart PLCs were indeed absolutely overkill for the project. However, they're what we know best, and minimising development time for a small prototype multi-site deployment was more of a concern than using expensive-ish hardware. For production, obviously we'd move to something less ridiculous.
That depends on how fast you're sending it, how you are sending it, how precise it is, and if edge calculations have to be run, and calibration workloads.
When it comes to sensors and latency, you can use a 200mhz cortex m3 with a bespoke runtime you write in a couple weeks, or you can throw a real OS on top of multiple Ghz and cores in order to make up for the overhead of having a real OS.
SRAM running at 200mhz with 1 cycle latency can perform what looks like miracles when placed side by side with DRAM running at LOLWTF Ghz that is stuck behind 100 cycles of delay talking to the CPU that first tries to work its way through multiple steps of onboard cache and lookup buffers and all sorts of fun things.
Embedded controls can do stupid amazing things with very little resources because all of a sudden you have removed a huge constant delay from all memory accesses.
Throughput, however, they don't do so well on throughput. :-D
Yep. DRAM latency is no joke -- ask your fancy 32 core 5GHz super-duper-scaler CPU to chase a linked list and it turns back into one of those old beige boxes with the turbo button, but with the turbo button not pressed!
And in the last 30+ years do you think that maybe some of what we do with temperature data has changed? Or how we interact with a network? Or the data that sensors can produce?
If you think you can answer parents problems without even knowing the problem space, you're behaving foolishly.
OP described remote temperature sensor for a PLC. What you might want to do with data might changed, but how we gather it only got optimized down to specialized controller chips. Amplification, compensation, linearization - all taken care of by dedicated interface chips, something like AD849x, MAX6675/MAX31855 or ADS1118. There is nothing left to do at the remote end that cant be done further down the line. Measurement is pretty much Push Button, Receive Bacon to the point you can build your own soldering station with arduino, one of those chips, mosfet and a display module in 100 lines of code.
I designed a small circuit back in January. I ended up going with a PIC microcontroller because it was the only thing I could find that supported USB and was in-stock. I ordered enough parts to build four, from Digikey.
Now, 6 months later, I want to build some more, and about half of the BOM is out of stock on Digikey. I was able to source most stuff on Mouser instead, but the switches I used weren't available anywhere and I had to go to a different manufacturer, driving the cost from $12 of switches per build to $18.
Huge pain in the ass, but at least I was able to get it done. I feel for the people who designed around particular parts and are now starting at 2023 "in stock" dates.
bonus fun if you're in a regulated industry and any BoM change is going to be, at the minimum, an external test-lab redoing all your certifications, and in the worst case, a brand new product you need to submit to your regulating authority.
No wonder there are some $5 MCUs going for $500+ each (and apparently selling well at those prices, even)
That’s not a bonus, that’s the entire point. Regulations hamstring companies and then deny them the ability to even comply with the regulations because other regulations have hamstrung the supply chain after regulations forced everyone onto vulnerable supply chains in the first place.
So instead of people getting rich by innovating and making other people’s lives better, the people getting rich are the ones taking bribes (“campaign contributions” they get to keep forever) for reducing the impact of those regulations.
The thing is, those regulations were put in place to solve a problem. They might not have been the best solution, but there is no way to know without going back and researching exactly what the problem was they were trying to solve.
That’s on top of the fact that we are always dealing with incomplete information.
Umm, I'm pretty OK with medical suppliers not being able to sub in no-name or grey-market substitutions that may have unknown silicon bugs. Regulation isn't always bad, and being in a regulated industry had some of these problems even before the component shortage.
Sure, subbing a MCU for an unknown supplier in a kids toy isn't likely to cause any serious problems, but in anything that can hurt or kill people it's objectively a good thing that there are regulations in place to prevent safety issues.
Ive heard the same complaints about food regulations, but it's objectively a good thing that a consumer can purchase anything (that isn't expired) from a grocery store with near certainty that it won't make them I'll. That same surety can't be had in countries with more lax food standards.
Look at one of the other child responses to the parent - someone who used to work on medical devices.
That this is heavily regulated is a good thing, because in the not so distant past we had people die due to the Therac-25.
I get wanting fewer regulations, really, I do. But just because YOU don't see the point to regulation a, b, c or d doesn't mean they're not necessary, just that you might not realise WHY they are necessary.
Problem is most of the world was in "just in time manufacturing" and having no inventory.
Then there were supply issues, and everybody is not only trying to get their hand on the parts they need, but they also try to stockpile some components just in case.
Essentially marked changed completely, and is throwing off all kinds of estimates and people are still trying to figure out what is what.
Buyers are trying to stockpile as much as they can get, I know at least one company that bought run of 50k stm micros, not for any particular project, just in case they will need them.
Hardware companies are claiming they are increasing capacity, but are doing it reluctantly, because they think it will be blown over, and they will have a lot of extra capacity, that they wont be able to sell.
I used to work in medical device supplier quality and incoming inspection and I am so happy I don't work there right now, it must be an absolute shit show with different/new part numbers, probably tons of first article inspections, and spec changes galore.
Jason, the cofounder of Schiit Audio (its pronounced exactly as you think it is) regularly posts updates about the company to an audiophile forum, and his posts regarding the supply chain problems they've fought in the past 2 years are fascinating:
Now there's a name I haven't heard in a while. I enjoy the company's no-nonsense designs, but as Audio Science Review and NwAvGuy have proven, objectively higher quality audiophile equipment can be bought or built for much less money than Schitt is asking for.
The newer stuff (magni/modi 3) has fixed the Audio Science Review guy's complaints and he now recommends those models. I went through all this when I was shopping for reasonably (to me) priced gear.
> Both Topping A30 and Schiit Magni 3 are recommended for budget friendly choices in headphone amplifiers. Let your preferences in looks, usability, etc. guide you in your selection.
>The newer stuff (magni/modi 3) has fixed the Audio Science Review guy's complaints and he now recommends those models.
Now, I might be cynical, but this can also happen in a shakedown (bad review, money exchange, oh, good now) scenario - whether with updated version of the product in between or not. It's not like thosr are uncommon.
Objectivity and audiophile in the same sentence always makes me suspicious, especially when you are looking at the 100s to 1000s of extra dollars for 3-5% improvement on measurements (and good luck detecting that in an ABX test).
I moved to a modi/magni stack from a Fiio portable and I don't know if I'll ever bother to upgrade again.
At least from this one sample they look legit, if anything counter-audiophile, in the sense that it is objectively measuring the lack of improvement.
I'd also call the basic schiit stack (which I also have) counter-audiophile -- it is just a nice, solid piece of kit. (and an immediately obvious improvement over my PC's built in stereo jack, haha).
> Objectivity and audiophile in the same sentence always makes me suspicious
While we can't detect all the things that people talk about or rave about...
There's a whole lot of things we can measure pretty well; THD+N, intermodulation, frequency response, jitter & phase noise, etc. If something measures better on those simple measurements, and we're not deliberately looking for some warm distortion, etc-- we can know it's better.
His point is that cheaper equipment performs better on objective tests that Schiits. The "better" may not matter, but the point is that cheaper and better is a more desirable combo than more expensive and worse.
I mean human hearing is well known by now. We have a pretty good understanding what makes up certain sounds. Yet, given the nature of the subject on the fringes of perception people start to develope a lot of fantasy, like a child walking through the dark woods seeing monsters and mysterious creatures everywhere. You can surely measure everything, but you also have to do it.
Where audio stuff gets the hardest (and what makes the most impact) is room acoustics and the conversion from and to sound waves (so: microphones and speakers and their position within said rooms).
The power amplifiers, preamps etc. can then either be adequate or inadequate to drive those speakers or amplify those microphones neutrally. If you want everything else than high fidelity (e.g. the subtle crossover distortion and warm sound of a class AB tube amplifier) this is a different thing, but don't call it high fidelity.
More expensive and worse wins if it enhances your perceived social status. For example, Ferraris are not the best track cars, they're not the worst either, but they are a potent status symbol. In any case there exist much cheaper options which can outperform them.
I use my iPad for ear training and I can absolutely tell the difference between my DragonFly red and the Apple USB-C DAC. I'm just better with the DragonFly.
Don't get me started on the Bluetooth headsets. For music they are ok but there's really basic interval training that I score 100% on with the DAC and like 80% with Bluetooth. Consistently.
I use Complete Ear Training for interval training, with the grand piano or the Rhodes sound pack. I switch pack every once in a while. I also use TonalEnergy Tuner to sing intervals or scales to it and see if I'm in tune.
In something like a year I went from "telling apart major and minor thirds is black magic" to being able to sing the major scale right like 60% of the time and I have an 80% success rate for all intervals up to a fifth. It did improve my piano improvisational skills by a lot.
It would likely be quite easy if you could compare them back to back, as in swapping from one to the other and playing a controlled source with a hi-fidelity amp and good headphones. The analog side of digital-analog conversion is an art unto itself and I've found a lot of variance between DACs, even though I'm neither a sound engineer nor an audiophile. If you are just playing a 64k AAC file on your EarPods, probably not.
The Apple USB-C dongle is actually pretty well regarded as an inexpensive step up from onboard audio for “normal” headphones, and some folks will use it as a starter DAC to pair with an amp for less “normal” headphones …
That's interesting. It looks really tiny on their site, so I guess the analog signal must be generated in the computer? So it seem more like a "PC manufacturers typically put more effort into their USB implementation than their 3.5mm implementation" sort of thing, I guess?
Schitt's good [1] if that what you already have. Unless you made your purchase a decade ago or feel dissatisfied with the product in some way, Schitt isn't a bad choice. One plus is that Schitt also provides paid upgrades for some of its higher end boxes. My "issue", for lack of better phrasing, is that Schitt is not the most optimal in terms of performance per dollar.
As far as recommendations are concerned, there are many on this webpage:
If you have a particular featureset, utility, budget, design, genres of music, etc. I'd be happy to offer what I can, but I'd also recommend that you take the time to review what works for you. After all, it's your ears, not mine.
I'm very happy with Schitt. I just asked out of curiosity because the person mentioned equipment that is cheaper and better. My Fulla E was $120 so I was curious what is good in that price range! All good though. I'm very happy as-is.
RME ADI-2 was and still is my endgame DAC + headphone amp. Requires a funky adapter to use in dual output balanced mode, but boy does that make the HD800S sing.
Ended up going with a Topping E30 instead and Neve RNHP. Price to performance of the E30 is almost too good to be true (if you can deal with the limited outputs).
RNHP, while pretty to look at, did not perform as well for the price (at least it’s appreciated $200 since purchase).
Upgraded to a Topping D90 DAC and A90 Pre-Amp when I added the Audeze LCD-2 to my stack.
The D90 has been nothing short of amazing since I plugged it in. SINAD is like 20 points over transparent - no color to your sound at all. Inputs are extensive and it outputs both XLR and RCA. Can utilize absurd sampling rates like 384k or 768k (even arcane formats like DSD).
The A90 hardware isn’t as pretty as the Neve, but the volume adjustment and proper “audiophile/fool” I/O beats it handily. What sold me was I finally had the ability to “peak” my LCD-2’s. First time in my life to experience 120db with no audible distortion (don’t worry these aren’t extended listening sessions :)). I also plugged in my Genelec 8030C, which can be easily directed output via switch to pre-amp mode.
My RNHP, while striking and built like a tank, probably topped out at 105db. This was even utilizing XLR and balanced cables.
All told I’m very happy with my audio chain and pretty much “end-game” until I can make a living that would justify something like a Benchmark Amp or the LCD-5’s, and some Genny One’s (Revel and KEF if I ever want to be a masochist and deal with a passive chain).
Check out Drop.com there is a fairly large audiophile community + products.
Disclosure: I was an early employee of Drop and I remember our team trying to get Schiit listed, but he didn't want to offer the community a discount. So there are a lot of alternatives to Schiit out of spite.
On the whole the Schiit Audio origin story and growing pains one can read in those threads is very educational to anyone considering running a niche hardware company.
Tons of real world experience on what worked and did not work.
Not too much info on running hardware companies out there.
Running a business is not easy. Weathering a storm like this is not easy. Synth company or not, we're in difficult times. A lot of businesses will close but the people who are patient and can manage to wait it out, be flexible, and figure out new ways to innovate when the whiplash effect swings back in our direction will push forward the next generation of amazing instruments. Prices will go up, as they naturally do, and we'll have new winners and losers. No reason to get all doomsayer on it all at this point, kind of a few years late on that one.
I'm curious about the technical expertise that goes into making a good synth.
If economics force the synth-making hardware / software engineers into other industries, how long does it take to replace (or restore) their expertise once the economy recovers?
The difference is people in our industry are typically already taking a huge pay cut. People shuffle in and out but usually they end up back in the audio industry because... well... it's freaking awesome. How many other places can you work where you regularly get rockstars inviting you to hang out backstage because they love your work?
Typically we have more people willing to leave a high paying job just to work in our industry than we have people leaving but, just like any industry, losing experience and contextual knowledge always hurts.
Thanks! I understand your point about there being a ready supply of great talent.
My question was more along the lines of, how long does it take a good engineer / programmer, who hasn't developed synths in e.g. the last 5 years, to become highly productive?
It depends on the team and the way things are organized I guess. I've only worked at a small company where we are all obsessed and I couldn't imagine anyone coming onto the team without a similar level of enthusiasm and excitement, so relatively quickly. At a larger company I'd expect it would be the same as any other onboarding time.
Now to be truly great at this? Much longer answer. When I get there I'll come back and answer it properly.
My opinion is that someone who is comfortable with graduate level signal theory can reach synth mastery in one year. The physics and math are shallow and can be picked up quickly. The psychoacoustics takes more time for experimentation and reading research papers.
Whereas, audio professionals who avoid mathematics because it looks hard, like complex analysis, do not ever reach an acceptable level.
"Synth mastery" is not just mathematical or psychoacoustics... let's add some things:
Dave was routinely pushing the envelope when it came to these boundaries but many times it was too ahead of its time. The ARTISTS never really adopted the tech until decades later. Some things that I consider really obvious are still not widely adopted. The art here is to understand WHY artists don't want to use those tools and features. Whether or not YOU know math and psychoacoustics, it is more important whether your users can leverage that knowledge without the same knowledge, so being a teacher+performer+producer is very important to knowing your user base
Then you also need to be able to do market research. Asking questions to people and getting solid feedback all the time. As an ENGINEER!! Because it's the subtle differences that add up to a really amazing whole and you cannot know the difference without learning from every angle. To paraphrase you above, 'audio professionals who avoid making music because it looks hard, do not ever reach an acceptable level' and 'audio professionals who avoid talking to lots of musicians/customers because it feels hard, do not ever reach an acceptable level'
... and there are a LOT of people who never do these things
And let's add 'PERFORM music' to this list as well unless you are making a solely intellectual instrument or mixing/mastering tool. Since we're talking synthesizers, this is very, very important.
This is also why the vast majority of music instruments, including software/VSTs, are designed for producers and not performers. Having the set of skills necessary to design a successful instrument is very, very difficult. You cannot be a master of one.
Sure you can 'master' the DSP and signal portion of audio but I can tell you just by looking at the UI almost instantly how much effort was put there vs. making it an enjoyable instrument to play
I can add a lot more of skills I find very important to being successful in this industry but as an engineer, that's what I would focus on first.
At some point maybe I should update my blog with stuff like this
Recent developments are often interesting, and that means the information comes from research articles.
You don't want to read research articles; they are long, difficult, and usually misleading. Books and surveys are easier. You can evaluate the quality of a book by checking the citations: "is this book citing recent articles?" For example, I read a chapter of "An Introduction to the Psychology of Hearing" and found it to be useful. I haven't seen a sufficient diversity of books to give an accurate recommendation, however. There may be better books. They'll generally look scientific and dry. For example, "This Is Your Brain on Music", a pop-sci book, will not be useful.
Surveys are where an active researcher talks about what everyone else is doing in the field, and what the important developments are perceived to be.
Experimentation: keep a global goal in mind, such as: "I want to classify all possible timbres and put them on a manifold", or "I want to understand the full mechanics of how a human turns tones into perception". Then you can try synthesizing sounds in pursuit of this goal. Right away, you will find all kinds of strange nonlinearities, and that simple models work poorly. For example, if you hold down sine tones at 400 Hz and 600 Hz, then play an 800 Hz tone, you'll note that sometimes the 800 Hz tone has an attack and sometimes doesn't; this will lead to learning about transients, place vs periodicity, FFR, ITD, and phase sensitivity of the ear. You'll also notice that there is a "click" at the beginning of each note, which will then lead you to discover gammatones, derivatives, and envelopes. This method works because whether your predictions succeed or fail, you are either learning something cool (a mistake in a model) or building something awesome (a great theory).
> The Sequential where you work for today is not the same business entity that made the famous synths of yesteryear.
The first synth I ever played was a "vintage" Prophet 5 in the 90s, now I have a reissue Prophet 10 from this "not the same business entity", as you very much are correct to call them. Even if they are not the same business entity, I know a lot of the people involved in making my Prophet 10 are (or where) the same people making the famous synths of yesteryear. When you play the Prophet 10 you can also tell.
I am really sad I can't say the same thing about my Moogs.
And I am sure that long experience goes deeper into Sequential’s talent pool.
Having veteran leadership who hat been through it all before might be why the new Prophet won’t follow the old.
The current Sequential is also an established company, so it is better positioned to launch new products, negotiate with suppliers and customers and to sell gear at higher prices even if not at higher margins meaning it needs fewer sales to survive.
Oh mine can sound as vintage ones alright if it's working and if one of the very weird MIDI implementation idiosyncrasies or deeply hidden global parameters is not getting in the way, and then my 30 minutes of practice include 15 of diving in the manual. The later happens so often that I'm seriously thinking about flipping my Matriarch for a Pro 3, and the Matriarch is one of the things that gave me the most fun in my life up there with my ski gear.
My Matriarch is also my second unit, the first one broke. Some uC decided it was not working anymore and the delay and some of the other buttons would randomly switch state. It did that after I had had it for three months while I was playing live for a small group of people, it was the first time it was on for more than an hour or so but besides that nothing had happened to it. I didn't even moved it and I'm religious with dust covers and all that.
I had a Moog One for a few weeks! I figured it was so backordered that I could buy it and try it an flip it, which I did after three weeks of utter frustration.
Unless you just use it as something like a poly memorymoog, it's rough. I can see how a really virtuoso synth player with the right programming can probably play the score for Blade Runner on it or something without any other instrument, but the programming is a PITA. I think it's kind of like a engineer-designed instrument. For the semi-modulars you can tell they had input from really good players for most of the features and ergonomics, but the One is just "let's do everything we can on a single instrument" and it just doesn't fit.
It also really does everything. There's a guy on Reddit that has like just a One and a laptop and that's his studio in a tiny apartment. If you are working in the box but want to record analog sounds and have an ADC that will do the Moog low end justice, I guess it's great. I can't justify that money on something that doesn't give me utter joy when I'm playing it like the Prophet 10 does, the One feels more like I'm playing with an Elektron box, which I do enjoy but when I want to play synth I want to play synth.
Damn, yeah that's unfortunate. Yeah, I was going to say, if you were looking for sound, a rev 4 or an OB-X8 can't be beat... But if you're looking for a synth with deep functions but not a One, the Polybrute is growing on me. At first, the SP filter seemed too harsh for me, but their ladder actually does a pretty good Memorymoog sound. Arturia also hired the guy (sorry I forgot his name) that built mod matrix tables to make synths sound more analog, and it really can nail it.
As someone eagerly waiting for his Prophet5 Rev4 to arrive by mail by the end of the week, this reassures me :) Been playing on software versions of the Prophet5 for years and I finally made the jump and bought "the real thing".
After I got mine I had like four months where the only thing I wanted to to was sit down and play it, it just feels great. I had like an impasse with it but the mere fact that it exists in my room inspires me to try new musical things every once in a while. I suppose you saw the J3PO videos? If you have the money and the skills for it I really recommend you take lessons with him: https://www.julianpollack.com/lessons
It's a REALLY hard business. Roger Linn repeatedly tells people that the easiest way to lose money is to build a synthesizer and he's certainly right. Then again, I ignored that advice. I think we're all just a bit crazy and hopeful that it will all work out in the end.
If you make synths, at least you don’t have to sell to enterprise.
Making synths seems to be more the life of an artist than many other possible pursuits.
The standard formula is the best way to make a small fortune is start with a large fortune and do X.
In the first version I heard X was build a golf course. It was from people involved in building golf courses. The money was in the lots along the fairways.
It isn't easy carrying the torch of a legend but standing on the shoulders of giants is how we move things forward as a species. I'm confident I can speak for the company when I say we are doing our best to keep his legacy going.
Well if it helps: I was a sys admin before I quit in a huff and decided to never work again unless I was in the audio industry.
Doing that was the single defining moment of my life and the one I am most proud of. Took a MASSIVE pay cut in financial terms but a MASSIVE improvement in my overall well-being and life satisfaction.
It's difficult to overstate how bad things have been for the past 1.5yrs. Automotive and Industrial microcontrollers and components in particular are impossible to source. I have a friend at one of the big US semiconductor companies. His team exhausted their main competitor's evaluation boards stocks on various sites to strip them for components to populate their own boards (which are hand delivered to selected customers). For non-critical applications they're using grey market Chinese components and even Chinese clones of some of their less complicated parts. Even then it's far from enough.
ASML, who makes some of the most advanced products on earth for semiconductor manufacturing, have apparently purchased washing machines to harvest components. [1]
> ASML, who makes some of the most advanced products on earth for semiconductor manufacturing, have apparently purchased washing machines to harvest components.
Your link doesn’t support this claim. It says that other companies are doing that, not ASML itself.
Feels like this is a golden opportunity, and possibly our last chance, to re-onshore supply chains to the west. Will anyone take it, or will we just wait around until China sorts itself out and resumes its steady ascendancy?
> That is, if their government and society even survive the decade's transition as their quality of life stagnates and people begin to question the CCP.
That's about as likely as our government and society surviving the decade's transition, as our quality of life stagnates and people begin to question both Washington, their local state capital, and the mayor's office.
Youth unemployment for higher ed has been issue for years, reality is PRC scale is still generating more talent than it can absorb. QoL stagnanting like west is questionable, vast majority of PRC is still poor enough that modest income redistribution can push up their QoL for forseeable future. For example spending 90B / 10% of PRC's 900B growth from last year can double income of the 600M poor on 1000rmb per month. Realistically that will be titrated over years via various transfer programs so QoL for masses will keep ticking up. Top % of PRC human capita drives a lot of growth and education system is pumping out excess even after brain drain. The income disparity (thanks Deng) is so large enough that "common prosperity" drives should more or less maintain social stability vs west where new gens' have meaningfully degradeds QoL relative to western boomers. Meanwhile PRC also has highest savings rate in the world, parents in better position to care for themselves. Nor are there same expectation for social services from country that is poor before rich vs rich before old, i.e. Japan actually has to funnel massive state resources to take care of elderly because that's expected. Not to imply PRC will experience smooth sailing or reach western QoL standards, but income disparity and expections = PRC is structured to have sufficient talent and resources to (likely) handle the transition without stagnation. It's still going to be rough, and PRC will still be pressure cooker society, but IMO chances becoming stuck like JP is low. That's without going into how military/strategic posture benefits shedding 100s of millions of people have on import dependency while huge industrial base where 2% military spending allows effective aquisition pipeline. Bluntly, PLA military is currently massively modernizing on a budget but that's still enough to to keep accruing more favourable force balance over time since it uses comparably little resources (both funding and human capita) that it's one sector that won't stagnate. Room to even future increase in military budget is not out of the question.
You can distribute it to india,vietnam,south america but onshore isn't happening. Especially not in a pseudo-recession where you can't pass on cost to consumers like before (at least not more than what is already).
I think it is already too late. This should have been done 5 years ago, at least. There is no financial incentive to do anything in the US, and the infrastructure is worse than at any previous point in time. For this to change, the Federal government should plan and start investing enormous sums of money, at least as much as China did in the previous 20 years. I don't see this happening at least during this administration, which will make this impossible for another 3 years.
Rather than the Federal government turning to central economic planning, a better approach would be to remove the artificial barriers to domestic production.
While unemployment is indeed quite low, the labor force participation rate is extremely low; much lower than even the aftermath of the great recession[0]. There are plenty of additional workers in the US, the catch is that they aren't willing to work a demanding job for poverty wages.
If more companies were willing to treat and pay their employees well there wouldn't be a labor shortage. Corporate profits have been shattering records for decades now, so it's not like the resources aren't there. Unfortunately, many believe it's easier and more cost effective to whine about folks being lazy and wait for the Fed to crash the economy and generate a fresh supply of desperate labor.
I'm not so sure about that. I suspect the mismatch in labor participation rates pre vs. post COVID is mostly accounted for in early/normal retirements. All those boomers that they were warning were going to eventually retire just happened to do it at the same time. They won't be coming back to the labor market.
Anecdotally between my parents, aunts, and uncles I have eight relatives who retired in the past two years (between that ages of 55 - 65).
That's a good point, but the low unemployment is not a great sign for the US, unfortunately. The majority of these jobs are low wage positions. Factory jobs would be far more beneficial. Unfortunately it will not happen.
In reality, if the west views Russia as a threat, then inevitably conflict will arise. The western sanctions locked Russia out of the financial system, which Russia and China had been preparing for. So Russia switched to the Chinese financial system. At this point, Russia has tons of resources and is feeding the Chinese production. China in 2019 was producing 30% of the worlds goods[1].
With Russia locked out of the west and China looking to advance into Taiwan, I don't really see a way that long-term China doesn't cease to produce goods for the west. When they move on Taiwan, the west will sanction them and the west will be unable to produce a large number of goods. Alternatively, Taiwan will fall and be taken without a fight and the west will be subjugated by China.
> And I don’t understand why you comment so much about Russia, this is about China, no one cares about Russia
Because, as I stated, Russia and China signed a strategic partnership? They basically created an Eastern challenge to EU/NATO. They also are self-contained in that they can trade easily and can be less dependent on the West.
I do think a lot of people discount China's willingness to destroy it's economy and kill half it's population to achieve questionable goals. As you're article points out it's going to be really interesting watching China fall out of the top 10 of GDP if it really goes down this route. It was a poor country before but once the population gets a taste of success I can only imagine it ends in revolt.
This is patently absurd. That China would have a "willingness to kill half it's population" is something that only the heavily propagandized would believe.
Eh, 10 million here, 20 million there, I guess you have a point. Not such a big deal since there were 500 million more where they came from. Gotta break a few eggs, amirite.
Pushing Russia steaight into Chinese hands is a blunder of an epic scale. Now Chinese have one of the biggest raw resource and energy producers who cannot sell anywhere else but to them. Massive win for China, massive loss for the EU.
But why on Earth would China stop producing goods for sale to the West? Its a trumendous opportunity for making money
Thats the crux of it. Russia aligned with the EU would produce a superpower relationship that even China couldn't confront. This is intolerable to the USA, so: undermine the EU, it is...
I don't think that world would have any economy to speak of, in this case. That, or Taiwan would just share the fate of Hong Kong where it would be handed out.
No they won't, because fabs are long-term investments and anyone who onshores because of this crisis will be fucked over when things return to normal and their costs are suddenly many times higher than the ones of their competitors who stayed in China.
Re-onshoring requires massive, permanent subsidies from the government to be a realistic proposition, and it is far from clear that we have the will to do that.
Many fabs are not in China, and you can't just magically snap your fingers and build a chip fab.
The capital requirements are huge. You need vast quantities of ultrapure water. You need a friendly government that will look the other way to you dumping toxic waste somewhere. You need lots of highly technical staff. You need lithography machines that are some of the most complicated and expensive electromechanical devices made. And...lots and lots and lots of capital.
I'm also interested in this - is anyone working on it?
I know that in Australia we have Rode Microphones, who brought manufacturing onshore over 15 years ago and (according to this article at least) no longer import any Chinese parts except for some shockmounts. Also worth noting that since they brought production onshore, part rejection rates fell from 50% to less than 3%:
While it's nice to have microphones, it seems more critical infrastructure parts need to be made here. Apparently China completely dominates the world production of solar panels and solar parts, and I can't think of much that is more critical than power generation & supply:
I wouldn't know where to start with any of this myself (nor would I be the right person to do it), but I often think that if I changed careers, working in that area might be a direction I would look into. I love software but it is useless without the actual hardware devices it runs on.
I think you're blindsided by American media. COVID lockdowns are not nearly as big a problem as they are presented in the West. First of all, any lockdown is for at most a few weeks. Second, China has dozens of huge cities, and they are all working extra when a couple of cities are locked out due to COVID. The Chinese are doing this in a planed way that will have a minimal impact on the economy in the long run. The fall down of Chinese economy due to lockdowns is just another fantasy of US media.
As someone living in Shanghai and who experienced the lockdowns here, the US media (as biased as they may be) picture is much more closer to reality than what you are saying.
The economy is in worst shape since 1992, Food and beverage industry is expecting to lose third of it's companies, property market is collapsing and going down first time for ages, Apple moved production out of China first time ever, several Fortune 500s moved their "tech hubs" etc. out of China, smaller rural banks are going down and preventing people from getting their money out, third of European companies are considering moving production out of here etc. and all this is just tip of the ice berg.
Maybe the government will find a way out of this mess, but right now things are darkest they've been for a while and we are now hearing rumors there is going to be another massive lockdown.
To be fair, hasn't Apple dabbled with manufacturing in Vietnam and India for a while now? It would make sense for them to swap some more manufacturing out if they already have a base elsewhere. (Not trying to dismiss the rest of your comment just making an observation)
The supply chain problems in the US are caused by the lack of US infrastructure. The reason is simple: the amount of imports into the US increased a lot in the last few years, especially after COVID (check the trade balance numbers), but the infrastructure is lagging at least 10 years behind. These problems will get worse, and China cannot do anything about it.
Before any of the "data from china are fake" guy turning up, customs data can be collaborated with other country's data, do it with your U.S. or europe data to see whether imports from China have any significant change.
Even without Covid etc., the synth business is very challenging from a supply chain standpoint. The quantities and margins are not great. The highest selling synth of all time was the DX7. It sold ~200k units. Most stuff sells much fewer units. It's part of why you will see several models that use similar parts so that they can leverage some scale. Even if a company manages to combine the BOMs from several models to improve buying power, unless you are Yamaha, Roland, or Korg, it's unlikely that you have enough overall volumes to get allocations from component suppliers. The consumer electronics and automotive are going to be way ahead of any synth company.
What's the current prognosis for supply chains returning to stability?
The last I heard, the main culprits were (a) COVID shutting down Chinese factories; (b) cargo-ship related shipping delays; (c) COVID-related demand for work-from-home electronics; and (d) follow-on problems caused by hoarding.
My impression was that (a, b, c) are largely behind us now. Does that mean we just need to give things a little time?
I would add e) - if the whole western economy depends on a single country as a supplier, and this country wants to become the world leader, then it is in the interest of the said country to make as much economic problems for west as possible, but not so much that the countries would again develop local supply or import from elsewhere. Excuses a), b), c) and d) are very handy for this and allow the said country to walk the fine line. It helps if the country is tightly run. Genius and scary to watch.
What do they observe, and how do you think this will help?
Note that I don't blame the unnamed country, they would be stupid not to bank on the fact that they are the major / only producer. The trouble lies with our shortsighted greed where it is more important to save money on costs than to manage risks (IP theft, depending on a single entity). We'll see, hope (but doubt) I'm wrong.
Of course it does, since you developed it to fit the data. Try making a prediction about things you don't know yet instead of creating a hypothesis for observed data, which is easy to make fit.
Humans are great at developing arbitrary stories for observed data, nut nearly as good at making predictions (other than linear extensions of currently observable trends).
If your theory only "predicts" the data you used to develop it it's just a story.
I don’t think a or b have eased up much. Zero-covid means that ports in China can still lock up on a moment’s notice; Shanghai had a total lockdown for months, and is China’s largest port.
I'm an EE and I do a lot of my own supply chain management. Some suppliers are saying 2024 while others are refusing to answer the question at all. Not encouraging.
You are the problem if you wait two years for F7 instead of retooling.
>We have open orders for thousands of microcontrollers from NXP and Microchip. The problem extends far beyond processors. Texas Instrument power switchers used throughout the industry are in very short supply; we use them for pulling down 15V supplies to 3.3V or to generate +/- and 48V phantom power rails. We also cannot get some ESD protection parts, power MOSFETs and a number of somewhat obscure analog switching ICs. We’re also paying 30-40% more for metal cases and packaging.
Meanwhile less reputable Chinese branded replacements are plentiful and cheap.
This one was a surprise to me when I went looking. I'm building a custom audio processor for someone and I couldn't find something as simple as a 2-up dual mux in stock anywhere. I ended up finding a handful of DIP-package dual multiplexers in a drawer in my lab and using those. Luckily it occurred to me to check availability before doing a PCB layout and I only needed 3, but seriously! A basic analog switch was the last thing I though I'd have trouble finding.
You got lucky. Sometimes part evaluation comes out all nominal within datasheet spec, until 6 months later it isnt because someone found a "clever" optimization at the fab, or ran out of particular part and decided to temporarily substitute, cha bu duo strikes again. Even Apple is not immune https://www.macrumors.com/2022/05/04/apple-drops-boe-display...
> Meanwhile less reputable Chinese branded replacements are plentiful and cheap.
Not on the power switchers, oddly.
DC-DC Buck/Boost regulators have been phasing in and out of existence like ghosts. Yes, even the Chinese ones. Even worse, changing a buck/boost regulator generally has lots of knock-on effects--the inductors change size so you just wasted a bunch of inductor stock, your swicthing fdrequency changes so your EMI is all over the map, etc.
We buy what’s available in stock, design with these parts small runs(500-2000 units). And then the run in 3 months is being made with completely different parts that were available. It’s emergency solution. But it’s better than being out of business.
I'm out of my depth here, but I'm under the impression that synthesizers just don't work that way. My source is a housemate of an old friend, whose profession was restoring a certain sort of mixer popular with house DJs, for whatever that's worth.
Analog synths, at least, just won't sound right if components get swapped. The TR-808 was discontinued, and replaced with the 909, because a critical component went out of production, and it wasn't possible to deliver the sound without it.
It's the difference between a wood shortage for a cabinetmaker and for a luthier. A cabinetmaker can use mahogany where he would use ebony, a luthier is out of business if she can't get certain woods until she can again.
This could be totally inapplicable to modern synths? I wouldn't bet on it though.
> Analog synths, at least, just won't sound right if components get swapped.
I think this is true in some cases for particular analog synths. But my impression is that most synths aren't using unobtainium chips like this. I think you generally can redesign the circuit using alternate components and get to a fairly close sound. But that redesign process is iterative and time-consuming.
By analogy, imagine there a shortage in "compiler invocations". You have a giant program written in one language, but you can't run a compiler on it. Could you port it to another language without a shortage? Sure, but it's a ton of work, and if you end up in another language that has its own compiler invocation shortage, you're no better off.
>… a luthier is out of business if she can't get certain woods until she can again.
I learned the other day there are people who’s job is to troll antique shops and other related places looking for old furniture to turn into tone wood for the luthiers.
Plus, pro audio gear needs to be on the same order of reliability as industrial equipment. For instance, an artist that has a piece of gear fry has potentially wrecked a contracted performance (which can affect revenue as well as reputation). This could also heppen during recording, which ruins very expensive studio time that may be pre-paid for. For most of the software devs here, having a computer fry would be at most a 1 day loss of productivity and a neglible effect on overall company earnings. Not so true when you have a booked venue and your amp or synth just blew up during sound check hours before the show opens.
It's honestly not that dissimilar to how industrial equipment can cause huge revenue effects from a failure due to lost productivity.
512,000 cycles per poll is probably plenty but I think the SRAM might be a bit small for that code. Could something be made to fit in that and still do the same things? Probably but it likely wouldn't be as easy on either the software or hardware side. Sometimes a lunch is worth more than the extra hassle of optimizing.
The Teensy 3.2 was fast enough; we're running matrix math for remapping the stick gates and a modified Kalman filter at 1000 Hz, and bitbanging the GameCube protocol meanwhile.
Teensy 4 is overkill and we've been clocking them at 150 MHz to reduce power draw.
I looked in to the ADC issues and decided it was fine. It has slightly lower effective resolution because certain ADC values are more likely to occur. It looks like in the end not a huge deal.
Can some one in semi conductor industry explain which chips there is a shortage of and what kind of industrial capacity needs to come online to create supply?
I'm familiar with CPU / GPUs (i.e. very expensive equipment, facilities, etc.), but curious if most chips will do with using cheaper and older generation as sufficient. For example power MOSFETs, microcontrollers, etc.
"Wafers", i.e. the capacity of fabs to process silicon into chips. This capacity is more or less fixed at time of fab construction; if you want to expand, you need to buy more wafer processing machines from ASML. There is a queue for these as well.
The nastier problem is that most of the microcontrollers are probably on older wafer processes (e.g. 65nm), and nobody wants to build a new old line.
So it's up to the part suppliers to rework the design for e.g. 22nm if space becomes available on newer lines.
Analog subsystems will require rework from scratch; digital can usually keep the same HDL, and its associated test suite, but changing to much smaller standard cells completely changes the timing properties. So all the timing closure and layout work needs to be re-done. Budget about 50% of the original cost, approximately.
Digital as well. Even if the overall design is similar, layout is dependent on the node size. Plus, the masks have to be remade at a not insubstantial cost.
All positions can be challenging now, to the point it's incorrect to call it chip shortages. There are shortages of passives, FETs, diodes, connectors, ferrite cores, cables and so on. It's not a technology issue. Welcome to post-globalism!
I kind of wonder what this means for our prospects of being able to make complicated products in the future. Presumably this will all settle out and we'll eventually settle back into a working supply chain that's maybe a little less centralized and with more redundancy. But that's not guaranteed.
In order to deal with climate change and maintain a decent quality of living, we need to replace a lot of ICE vehicles with electric replacements over the next decade or two. What happens if major manufacturers just can't make cars because the parts aren't available, and we're basically just stuck with the cars we already have for as long as we can keep them running? This has already happened to some extent thanks to Covid-19 and poor logistics planning, but it could be a lot longer and a lot worse if, say, China were to attempt to invade Taiwan or there's some new, unexpected catastrophe (natural or artificial).
Time for virtual synth to rise and shine again? So far I feel like softsynths sound amazing, but the hapric of a real device with knobs makes a huge difference in using it.
Now, I wonder if it's time someone comes up with a fundamental different interface approach for a soft synth that lowers this creative barrier.
They more or less can, but people like the physical gear for the "feels" (see also: vintage guitars and valve amps). It's increasingly absurd given that more and more synth modules are almost entirely digital and microcontroller-based. I find it hard to have a lot of sympathy here.
Well, there's a lot of MIDI controllers that can approximate that. I use AKAI MPK Mini for example.
There's even some dedicated MIDI controllers that look a bit like miniature hardware synth, but they're not worth it, in my opinion. Usually costing around a price of a real synth.
After reading this article went to Sweetwater to check out synths and nearly every single synth has a price drop icon above it. So it can't be too severe?
Is part of the issue non musical electronic devices all moving digital? I imagine there's a lot of analog IC's that were previously used across a wide range of industries are now moving far less units.
There's still a lot of analog music happening, especially in the modular synthesis world. They're a tiny part of the whole market for electronic components, though.
good side of current supply chain issues is this encourages hardware manufacturers to make the transition away from using domain specific computer chips and to instead rewrite that logic purely in software to get executed in today's super fast super efficient CPU/GPU ... decades ago it made sense to design hardware to do the compute yet today that strategy is more costly and risky ... and yes software is eating the world and where it isn't it will be so make this jump now
... And the amount of ads on this page was just killing the user experience there.. I like to keep the ads enabled to help to support small sites, but no way in that case.
Similar issues can be found with drones too - STM32 flight controllers and gyroscopes are both in short supply. The prices have lept up and supply has dwindled.
With the advent of modern software emulations and MIDI controllers, I'm surprised many of these companies are still in business. There have been so many blind tests where audio experts can't tell the difference between pure analog and pure digital modeling. I know some people like the knobs and buttons as a catalyst for exploration, but anything you might do with an analog synth knob you can ultimately do in a software model. And when good synths cost $3,000 and up, the value just isn't there unless you're just trying to impress people that walk into your studio.
It isn't about the quality of the audio, although in some cases it is. For most, navigating a physical device is still a much easier workflow than navigating software synths. There are so many advantages to software synths, but also working within the limitations of hardware forces you into a creative head space you might not get with software. I always felt uninspired by software at least until I discovered VCV Rack, but even then sometimes clicking around and zooming in and out feels tedious.
Midi controllers are great, but setting them up can be a negative experience. The other big issue with software synths honestly is DRM. Some have DRM that is just as bad as video game DRM. I got locked out permanently from a VST I was using to generate melody data, and when I reached out to support they told me nothing could be done and I would have to re-buy the VST again. What happened was I had to keep inputting my license because occasionally, the license info would become disassociated with my VST. What I didn't know was this counted towards the max number of installs my license was capable of.
The other big issue with VST is you end up in a situation where you cannot update your operating system because over time, VST's become unsupported and will not run correctly when you update your OS, DAW software, or audio drivers. This is an absolute disaster in terms of security.
I would rather work within the limitations of synth hardware than deal with all the pain that comes with software. I still use VST software though. Aside from VCV Rack Serum is outstanding and will do almost anything you could possibly need a synth to do, and it does not have crazy licensing issues.
I think most artists use a hybrid hardware/software workflow, but there are definitely disadvantages no matter what path you choose.
I'm a newb to synthesizers in general. It appears to me that freeware/FOSS synths are giving paid synths a run for their money lately. What would you say the killer (paid) apps are? Are they killer enough to put up with the licensing BS? (Which I 100% agree with. Anything that mentions iLok might as well not exist to me.)
I have plenty of software synths that can easily match or exceed my hardware synths' capabilities or sound. But there's just something about the hardware. Plus, it's nice to look at something other than a computer screen sometimes.
That said, I still primarily prefer software. Hardware is a "nice to have," a nice change of pace, but if you have deadlines, relying too much on hardware is a pretty bad move.
You just presented a fact: these companies are still in business
And a hypothesis: this should not be because analog/digital modeling is very close in double blind tests
However your hypothesis is already false because the fact exists.
Which means: consumers don't care about double blind tests, there are other things going on here
The value is there, you just don't understand the value proposition
Just because you CAN do something with a product doesn't mean it is easy or obvious to do those things. I could go on for hours about this topic but if you're truly interested in it all I can recommend is make more music!
What a strange reply. Of course I fully realize that synth companies exist...why on earth would you feel the need to point that out? I simply expressed surprise that they do, and gave my own reason why they do: that people like to impress others with their cool looking synth cockpits and keyboards. That, I think, is still the most likely answer, since they don't offer anything sonically (in fact, offer much less for the money) beyond software synths.
Right, I'm saying that is incorrect. Very incorrect.
Some people do buy synths as sort of an art piece but they are rare
Hardware synths absolutely still do have sonic capabilities that are difficult to emulate in software (we're getting to that crossover point, but it's still some ways away). Let's just assume that you're right and software can do anything hardware can...
Some of the critical factors that make hardware more enjoyable (and thus valuable) for a musician:
You don't HAVE to use your eyes. Don't underestimate what a huge part this plays. The context switch that you go through when switching from the largest part of the brain (visual processing) to audio is substantial. It removes you from flow state. Artists will pay high premiums to stay connected to what they are doing emotionally. Clicking a mouse on a computer is one of the fastest ways to get out of emotional flow. Hardware is one of the easiest to stay in flow.
Physical performance. Just because you can do something with a mouse and values doesn't mean it's easy to do something that you would hear a human doing in a performance. It is far, FAR easier to just... perform it. Eventually we'll have humanization algorithms that blur this but again, we aren't there yet.
Software is also far, FAR too flexible for many musicians. The design of software often times gets you out of the sweet spot of the instrument. Typically when you buy well designed hardware you can't do anything that makes it sound bad. That's a magical thing. Typically in software you can make a sound EXCELLENT (often extremely excellent) but it takes a ton of work to get there. Different ways of doing music.
There are a lot more things I could go into but those are a few of the big ones
While digital synths sound good now (and have low latency) you still need a UI that is suited for making music (a good midi controller). Since you already need a DSP to hook that stuff up to a USB port it's not a stretch to just up the computing power a bit and also run your synth software on the device.
Also: while a generic computer has more power, you need a dedicated machine to not run into software issues (especially music software on mac often doesn't survive upgrades). An integrated synth just makes more sense to me.
Some people like musical instruments. Some people like general purpose tools that can be applied for different purposes, such as music-making or checking email.
There is a big world of difference between a tool and an instrument. Musicians explore those differences intrinsically as they develop their skill. Its not so easy to develop skills on a device that pushes upgrade notifications on you in the middle of a session, though ..
>Like why do they even need DSP chips, might as well just run a VST softsynth with a MIDI keyboard
When your analog synth has presets, it's because there's a DSP chip in there that's helping to record, store, and replay voltage values for the knobs and sliders and switches in the analog signal path. If your analog synthesizer has a sequencer, there's a pretty solid chance that's done on a chip. If your analog synthesizer has a modern modulation matrix, you need a DSP chip for that. If your analog synthesizer has a method for self-calibration, you need a DSP for that.
The signal path stays analog in any of these situations, but the DSP helps you manufacture things that aren't feasible with simple components.
There's a lot of cool stuff you can do with VSTs. There's a lot of weird-ass gain staging/overdrive stuff I can do with boxes on my desk that plug into each other, or even within a singular synthesizer, which cannot currently be replicated effectively with code. One day it'll catch up. Roland's ACB is a few years old now, but it's pretty good at mimicking 40 year old technology. It took a long time for a Windows machine to run an SNES emulator at a decent enough rate to play what was already at the time very old technology.
I've got a mixing console from 1978 that I prefer to VSTs. The Poly Evolver Keyboard I have is as old as YouTube... nothing else sounds like it, there is no emulation of it, and I'm glad I don't need a 2005-era computer kicking around to keep it running.
This is not to discount that there are amazing VSTs, and that physical controller options are amazing today (and amazingly inexpensive), but these are different options, not better options.
> When your analog synth has presets, it's because there's a DSP chip in there that's helping to record, store, and replay voltage values for the knobs and sliders and switches in the analog signal path. If your analog synthesizer has a sequencer, there's a pretty solid chance that's done on a chip. If your analog synthesizer has a modern modulation matrix, you need a DSP chip for that. If your analog synthesizer has a method for self-calibration, you need a DSP for that.
None of these things are done with a DSP chip. They're done with a microcontroller roughly equivalent to an early-80s home computer.
While not DSP chips, analog synths will typically also include microcontrollers, for scanning a keyboard or front panel controls, receiving MIDI messages, and generating control voltages.
If your VST has excellent analog emulation capabilities, you can probably make decent money selling it. Still doesn’t give the user the tactile feel of analog controls.
Yamaha isn't facing nearly the same issues as the boutique makes, since they have the scale to be able to do volume buys and negotiate with vendors directly. I doubt the folks at places like Teenage Engineering are buying in quantities large enough to get any consideration from the vendors, they are likely just purchasing from digikey & mouser. So 4/1 is already a pretty poor lead time, but it's even worse for the specialty suppliers.
> In 2018, the Trump administration imposed an import tax on Chinese electronics components, and this has stayed in place under Biden... The administration also banned sale of some components to China, which created a disincentive for US companies to manufacturer these parts.
Oh, well of course it would. Is this actually an industrial policy with rational goals, or just random flailing?
Most of us spent an entire lifetime in a particular model. The model being that supply is pretty much unlimited, given that you have money. And even money is a pretty fluid concept. Not only is everything unlimited, in recent years we've also made most of it instant. We've become completely detached from real world resources like commodities but also workers.
Indoctrinated to the maximum into this consumer economy, ordering something and learning that you can't have it despite putting up the money, comes as a system shock. The very concept of "NO" is back from past times. What do you mean, no? I said I want it.
Optimists would find it an excellent time to recalibrate society. Acknowledge critical dependencies and in-source them. Spent limited resources, such as workers, on areas considered vital instead of dispersing them across a million things less vital.
Of course, none of this will actually happen. Just like during COVID where we had the "nature is healing" meme, we soon learned that it's same-old as soon as restrictions were lifted. We're unwilling to let go of a fragile and unsustainable global supply chain. We're afraid to make any hard choice at all.
Unlike China. We're all aware their economy is more planned but one of their most fascinating moves is to slash the tech sector. And with "tech" I mean what the US considers tech. Which is the stuff coming out of SV. Most of it is entertainment, social network stuff, games, the like.
According to China, this isn't tech. It's unimportant soft tech that in many ways is a net negative to society. Plus it's hard to censor. So they decimated the entire thing and re-calibrated "tech" to real-world tech.
I'm in no way in favor of this type of intervention but I do find it a fascinating example of making actual hard choices. In the West, we don't seem to prioritize anything at all, we'd rather continue with the limitless illusion in a world that isn't.
This is well written but also very alarmist. There are supply chain issues, but in the west they're limited to certain industries. Amazon orders still arrive in two days. My grocery store is still stocked full. Inflation sucks, and so does the stock market, but we're in the middle of a European war and just out of a global pandemic. Demand has already risen to pre-pandemic levels, so supply will eventually reorient to meet it. All things considered, the economy is still doing pretty great!
Mine have been up to a week now. Prime stuff shipping 5-9 days, only very few select items show up in 2 days. Since 2020 or so the "FREE 2-day shipping" has been replaced with "Free Prime shipping" in the UI and I no longer see 2-day promises. Most "basic needs" items are often 3-4 weeks out or "in stock soon"
> My grocery store is still stocked full
I won't starve, but it's weird noticing a lot of holes in the shelves. They're stocked, but missing certain flavours or product lines. Sure there are lots of other energy drink options, but I can't find Mountain Dew Energy in cherry limeade and haven't been able to for 3 weeks now.
> I won't starve, but it's weird noticing a lot of holes in the shelves.
That’s a completely different part of the supply chain issue, even if you can produce the goods you have to get it shipped which is yet another bottleneck.
Not enough warehouse workers to load the trucks, not enough drivers for the trucks, shipping costs are pretty high due to the fuel surcharge tacked onto each load and having to complete with other manufacturers who also want their goods sitting on the shelf.
SF. It depends on the item, some things still arrive within 2, but a lot more are wildly variable now.
- I have a Baseus USB power bank that was ordered yesterday, arriving next Friday.
- I have some ESP32 kits that has gotten this multiple days in a row: Your package is on the way but running late. We’re sorry for the delay. Now arriving tomorrow by 10 PM.
- USB cable from prime day, amazon basics brand, no shipping ETA, no prediction, and "not yet shipped"
I don't envy the Amazon people though. Already seeing pileups in the mailroom, floor to ceiling boxes dumped on the floor, every delivery locker filled.
Not in Germany at least (for an European data point). I get my prime orders usually in one or two days and the estimated date at the checkout is usually correct.
Without invalidating your larger point that getting something to eat is generally a non-issue, there is nonetheless one group in the US for whom the food shortage is at this very moment acute, national in scale, and unprecedented in recent memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_United_States_infant_form...
There's all kinds of stuff that's affected though. For example, if you want a 16x7 garage door, you're looking at getting it in November or December of this year if you're ordering now [1].
The stuff I've seen issues with have fairly clear demand-side stories behind them. For instance: everything home construction or renovation-wise. A lot of things that were planned around a certain level of demand is struggling to keep up with a boom.
"Supply is unlimited" was 'fleddr's impression of the old status quo, but I don't think that was ever accurate. I think demand was predictable and well-planned-for is a better description of what the status quo was. Historical supply constraints showed themselves in areas like console launches - a certain level was planned for, and it wouldn't be economical to meet that all on day 1 vs a lower steady-state production, for instance.
Covid-induced behavioral changes shifted a lot of demand around very rapidly. We are learning that the system can't respond instantly, but:
* how surprising is that, and is it really something that could realistically be avoided in the future in case of other major instantaneous changes? Investing a lot of money in new garage door production right now is a big gamble - what happens if you clear that backlog and demand settles back to historical levels?
* and, how concerning should that be? Is it indicative of permanent societal decline or future failure? That's the part I'd consider alarmist and poorly supported based on what we've seen so far. Many sorts of leisure goods, grocery store items, etc, have nearly fully recovered compared to summer of 2020 shortages. My amazon orders anecdotally mostly are coming in 1 day. Not all of them have, but which way do we think it'll go?
I just find this really silly that something as simple as a garage door takes 5 months and held up by a global supply chain, given this is the United States and our history of steel and machinery manufacturing.
Carter and Reagan and basically every president afterwards decided that it was better for the economy if the USA didn't have steel plants. They were probably right too unfortunately.
Read Peter Zeihan, who very much agrees that it's the end of an era. In his view, globalization is coming to an end, and the supply chain issues we're seeing now are just a hint of what's coming for the rest of the decade.
He's not optimistic about China's prospects, though.
The problem with Zeihan is that he spots a pattern (correctly), then extrapolates and escalates it to the very maximum, and leaves the conclusion at that.
Meaning, the very concept of agency or intervention to correct course does not exist in his world view.
Except a broken clock can be right twice a day, here the extrapolation I dont think is an exaggeration but a very likely outcome.
If in 2019 December, you warned the world about a pandemic, you would've been laughed out of the room. Same here, we are on a trajectory towards a massive war.
You can always tell when the mainstream media is who usually airs on the side of sensationalism tries to quell fears and attack people for being fringe.
I'm afraid Zeihan is very correct this time, not only on China but the outcome of this Russian conflict. Ukraine won't be the last country for Russia to touch, there will be more and it's going to come down to a nuclear stand off.
Zeihan points out that there is no NATO response for a tactical nuke detonation. If Ukraine receives an artillery strike with a low yield nuclear warhead it would immediately send NATO to its highest combat ready status but it will not sacrifice its major cities to protect a smaller non-EU country.
Zeihan points out that there is no NATO response for a tactical nuke detonation. If Ukraine receives an artillery strike with a low yield nuclear warhead it would immediately send NATO to its highest combat ready status but it will not sacrifice its major cities to protect a smaller non-EU country.
Not that simple. A nuclear attack against Ukraine would put the Budapest Memorandum into play. In such a situation there will be a huge debate about the meaning of "security assurances" as opposed to "security guarantees," but the longer the US permits such a debate to go on, the worse it will look.
Turning our backs on Ukraine under such circumstances would make the Bay of Pigs look downright honorable by comparison. There will be a lot of pressure to respond with force.
The way I see it, anything can happen, and putting a label "very likely" on it as it comes to nukes, is suspicious. You'd need to be exceptionally close to the source of decision making to call this likely, you can't just base it on speculation.
I've seen other argue that Russia's nukes probably won't even work. They haven't done a test since forever.
You have to be more specific, the world ending ICBM nukes will likely never be used but a tactile nukes have been deployed in the field and does not come with the same cadence of lauching ICBM from subs.
I suggest found it weird that NATO would declare first that they have no treaty response for tactical nukes (sub 1KT) being used.
If they are using SAM missiles meant to take down combat aircraft to attack ground targets, it means they are running out of missiles. Contrary to the popular opinion that the war will end when he runs out of missile, I believe Putin will opt for tactical nukes if somebody calls his bluff
Doing so would immediately draw lines in the sand in Europe
Wish I saved the link but recently there was an article documenting the exact opposite: every time somebody answers Russia's bluff, they back off and compromise.
I do agree he has his blind spots, and I'm not quite prepared to think things will be as extreme as he thinks. That said, his starting points are geography and demographics, both of which are very predictable, at least for the next couple decades. It's hard to find policy choices that overcome them.
First is that, in his view, globalization is mostly coming to an end. The US protected global trade and borders as a trade for help in containing the Soviets, and has been gradually pulling back from that effort since the Soviets fell. This is coming to a head, and is bad for everyone heavily dependent on the global system, especially if they import critical goods. China imports over 80% of their energy and agricultural inputs.
One reason the US can't afford to police the globe anymore is that the boomers are retiring. But at least US boomers had lots of kids, because the US urbanized slowly and built things like suburbs. Most other countries urbanized more rapidly, and their boomers lived in little urban apartments and had fewer kids. This is very much the case in China, which of course had the one-child policy on top of that. Their population is going to shrink dramatically over the next couple decades.
Russia has similar severe demographics. Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects.
> Russia has similar severe demographics. Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects.
"if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower" isn't really a reason to invade Ukraine. It's a reason to invade before waiting to long if you already have decided to invade for another reason. In 2014 lots of people were predicting Russia would come back at some point. Does he have a unique take on a more underlying reason for the conflict in the first place? That would be more telling in terms of predicting further global breakdown.
Sure, I skipped over that since the question was about China.
The reason he gave for Russia invading Ukraine is geographic. Over the course of its history Russia has been invaded fifty times, so they're touchy about that even if things look peaceful at the moment. Right now Russia has no real geographic boundaries, so it takes immense manpower to actually defend the borders, assuming you don't want to go nuclear. With the old Soviet borders, they had mountains and only nine passes to defend, which could be done relatively easily. Now they control one of those passes. Ukraine gives them two more plus a good base of operations to take the rest.
This fits his overall approach to geography: you want crunchy borders, good ports, and a productive interior with nice easy transportation inside. The US has all that in spades, a few other countries do to a lesser extent, most have various impediments, and all this drives a lot of everybody's history. His 2014 book applies this basic idea to many of the great civilizations in history, starting with ancient Egypt.
not if you are an authoritarian government which maintains power through violence. here Putin hits two birds with one stone: he gets rid of a problematic demographic and attempts to achieve political/geographic gains to ensure Gazprom lives on and pay dividends to his offsprings.
Xi faces similar problem. His growing number of unemployed, educated, unwed single male is another source of anxiety. The last thing he needs is a massive Tianmen Square event spreading and his button men unwilling to push the button. Not to mention internal competition from the opposition (Zhang Zemin faction).
All in all, we are headed for uncharted waters. For the first time we have more old people than young in many developed economies, and governments face a three prong dillema with only two that they can save: economy, housing and health care.
No country can have all three, you can have two but one needs to be sacrificed. ex. Japan sacrificed its economy but kept its housing and health care intact by ensuring homogenity to continue. Israel also does the same to a degree (since thats the point of its existence). UK sacrificed housing to continue its economy and health care. Canada did the same.
It boils down to do you want to open up immigration and allow them to keep your economy going strong? Different countries have different needs and wants.
Korea seems to be experimenting with immigration/multicultural society more actively than Japan which clearly has signaled it will not change. The countries that have chosen economy over homogenous population are definitely having their moment in Scandinavia and Germany.
Separate question than my other one: Strength seems like something that can only be measured relatively, so I am a bit confused by the demographic claim here - if the US is weak because they have fewer people the right age, but most other countries and especially China have urbanized and seen demographic change even faster... doesn't that mean the US would actually relatively stronger than other countries who were hit even harder by the same trend? If the population of the US was 400M but the population of China was 2B, say?
> Zeihan predicted in 2014 that they would invade the rest of Ukraine around the end of 2021, because if they waited much longer they wouldn't have the manpower. This is the first of many trade-disrupting conflicts he expects.
What's scary is China is going through the exact same issue as Russia. Their demographic is aging, after this inflection point they would certainly lose manpower. However unlike technologically advanced countries like Korea & Japan, it cannot modernize, not with US sanctions hitting it like it did Russia.
I'm afraid Russia is on a path of no return. No sanction uplift or normalization is possible at this point. Putin is in a do or die mode, he chose to throw his country in a perpetual war rather than being over thrown.
Question is will Xi do the same? I believe so. The globalization capital is dwindling and that is it's lifeline. Without rest of the world buying its labor output, it's sitting on a massive population that increasingly become uncooperative with a centralized leadership.
Couple that with young single unwed males living in city centers, its rife for a major revolution, much like what happened in Syria.
Defeatism and giving up on challenges is exactly what I want humanity to not do, but this kind of regressive society is being fed by social media constantly. To live poor, to eat vegan food, to give up technological progress and to save energy.
The fact that out of all places, HN advocates it, is truly an end of an era of human ambition. I come to HN for optimism and relentless push to change the world for the better.
Why you bagging on vegan food? Sure not all vegan recipes taste good but it is quite healthy and makes people feel good (at least me). The fact that it can be cheaper and less energy intensive is just a bonus. Think of it another way, that is money and energy you save for something else, like synths!
Well, perhaps you've come to the wrong place. Most tech discussed here, and produced in SV, is basically hijacking people's emotions to click on things. That seems to be where trillions of USD and the world's best engineers are working on.
Which is exactly my point: recalibration. Those resources should be spent instead on real tech that solves real problems.
Making renewables cheaper/more efficient. Advancing lab-meat. Innovation in housing. AI manufacturing to deal with the population pyramid.
Sometimes solving problems means working with the situation as it is and with what you actually have to work with. Very often that means doing more with less.
The world has gotten worse many times before. We need to be able to find ways to cope with and mitigate that rather than just hoping that things will work out and that we can keep on having more, more, more, more and more without ever making sacrifices.
Preventing further catastrophe can sometimes do a lot more to make the world better than making the next big shiny thing would. Ambition doesn't put bread on the table in and of itself.
>According to China, this isn't tech. It's unimportant soft tech that in many ways is a net negative to society. Plus it's hard to censor. So they decimated the entire thing and re-calibrated "tech" to real-world tech.
Sorry, didn't bookmark the article but when you search for "China tech crackdown" and/or "China slashes tech sector" you'll find many articles detailing what happened.
I'll update this if I find the article in question again.
I'm confused; are you bringing up China as a good example? Because they currently have much more dangerous problems both with economy and society than the first-world countries, and unlike first-world countries, don't really show agility and self-reflection required to address them.
I'm sure you're right, but my comment was not a pro/anti China comment or an assessment of the much larger scope you seem to make of it.
It's a mere example of a society making a hard choice in where it defocuses and focuses in the backdrop of supply limitations.
Plus, don't you think it's interesting how the incredibly lucrative SV tech sector, the one we consider to rule the world...is considered not just worthless by China, but a plain negative?
You should really look into the story of the slashing of their soft tech sector. It is the purposeful destruction of an entire sector and its billionaire class in record time.
I’m very tired of this outdated free market in a vacuum ideology that blames consumers for decisions made by and for the benefit of large corporations. Average consumers weren’t clamoring for mass outsourcing, JIT supply chains, or even faster deliveries. These are all decisions that had far more value for shareholders and balance sheets than the average customer.
What is the expectation, that individuals should turn up their noses at cheaper prices or faster deliveries to make a statement against globalization at their own expense despite having no real power to change it? I’m all for rejecting the supposed benefits of capitalism, but I don’t imagine that’s the goal for people who push this narrative of shifting the blame from literal decision makers with some hand-waving about “the market.”
I’m sure in 5-10 years we’ll have similar revisionist claims that trickle down from The Economist and WSJ that we were all begging for every product to have data-harvesting apps and SaaS billing. Don’t complain, you asked for it.
I agree in part that this type of economy was "enforced".
Still, it's absolutely critical to own our own role in it, as citizens and consumers. With the cheap unsustainable option being there, we all exploited it to the maximum. Also people that in no way needed to economically "optimize" like that.
You have a point in that it is predictable human behavior. In the same way that stocking a grocery store for 75% with cheap tasty junk food on average will lead to an unhealthy population. We just don't have that much agency as we like to think to go for the right choice, the 25%. We act on impulse and instincts not made for this modern world.
If that is true, then the more important point is that if we were to undo this mess (which I doubt), we must also accept the pain of the better way. To lose a portion of our fake unsustainable wealth.
The problem is of course that people cling to it, even to incredibly recent products/services at a particular price. As if it forever was a right they were born with. Further, any politician to propose such policy is going to be wildly unpopular.
We see a bad company but don't want to pay for the good company. We see bad politicians but vote away the good one. It's the main flaw of democracy: it has no solution for unpopular yet required measures.
No, because China doesn't produce chips (a few minor exceptions aside).
Producing modern chips such as found in smartphones, laptops, etc is pretty much done exclusively using ASML machines. Which are under embargo and cannot be sold to China. Hence, China imports chips.
They are machines so complex and high-tech that they basically cannot be reverse-engineered or copied, despite their attempts. China has launched a program to set up their own semiconductor manufacturing and is throwing a huge amount of money at it. You should see this as a two decade effort with absolutely no certainty if it will work at all.
Tech producing real, hard, undisputed value, typically in the real world. To make the distinction more clear, think of what you can take away.
Facebook could stop today and society will be just fine, despite some moaning here and there. The same is not true when you take away real world essentials.
It has some value. But if it goes away, there are other Apps that work similary.
Maybe not as slick, or have all the features, but they have most of them.
Hell even if whole App messenger ecosystem would go away, people could go back to SMS and voice calls and still manage to do 70-80% of what they used WhatsApp for.
Now consider what would happen if hardware phone vendors would go away. Or car makers. Or ...
The wait times for the SP404 MK2 have been crazy. I ordered one last month and I wouldn't be surprised if I have to wait until next year before I get it
"“You’re looking at 1000pcs of the STM32H7 microcontroller. The beating heart of our beloved S2400,” they note. “I placed a panic order for these babies almost 2 years ago. Today, they finally arrived. It looks like we’re a go on the next batch of S2400s!”"
...and there's at least part of the problem. People panic-buying a year's worth of component supplies.
1000pcs is a small order in normal times. Also buying a year's worth of supply is entirely normal. Time flies when you work with production of physical goods.
You want to build a product? Great, here's the list of what you can't get this week. It's different from last week, next week will be different too. Good luck!
Parts that used to cost $0.50 are now $5+ (various ADCs and DACs come to mind as one I've been dealing with). God help you if you want trailer axles. Etc.
There's only so much you can do with flexibility and "Redesign every few weeks for what's available for this batch" before your design costs and parts cost increases chew up all the available profits, even if you've designed for flexibility. "We can use any uC in this entire line!" "That line is on 54 week lead time. Yes, all the variants."
Such is life in the decline.