How many synths were sold last year in the UK? What was the top-selling instrument? How many digital pianos were sold compared to guitars? The answers to such questions are not at all easy to come by. Unlike most other businesses, the musical instrument industry has in the past had a tendency of not publishing official sales statistics for its products. However, Music Business magazine, the musical instrument industry's trade journal, recently published 'guesstimate' figures released by the MIA (the official body of musical instrument manufacturers) relating to UK unit sales for 1991. Although somewhat out of date now, these figures at least indicate the relative sizes of the market sectors and make for very interesting reading...

1991 UK INSTRUMENT SALES
*** Source: "Music Business"; MIA sales figures.

The same Music Business report stated that synthesizer sales had dropped by almost half since the previous MIA figures were published in 1988. Surprised? Astonished? Yes, we were too. The question is 'why?'.

The rise of dance/rave/techno music, with its predilection for older generation keyboards and samplers, has probably stunted new synth sales amongst younger players. If their musical heroes are seen playing EDP Wasps, Moog Sources, Sequential Pro-1s and such like in videos on MTV and Top Of The Pops, isn't it logical to assume that these, and not newly released instruments, will be the keyboards they wish to own?

Perhaps the market has reached saturation point, and most people have all the synths they need? The SOS mailbag indicates that many readers are genuinely disgruntled by the trend for new products to turn up as 'bargain basement' items within a few months of their release. What incentive is there for people to buy a new machine when they can get it far cheaper if they wait? And wait they seem to be doing, if the sales figures are any indication!

The obsolescence factor is a distinct turn-off to readers strapped for cash, and nobody feels good about parting with £1,500 to buy the latest model only to find it jobbed out cheap by the music shops six months later, simply because too few people bought it at the original selling price and manufacturers and dealers are left holding stock. Another contributing factor surely is the lack of difference between one make of synthesizer and another, sound-wise and features-wise — and it is sounds that ultimately make people buy an instrument; the DX7 sold so well because its sounds really appealed, and were a definite cut above the rest; likewise with Korg's M1. If you already own a PCM sample-based keyboard, why buy another if it sounds pretty much identical? You'd be better off buying a secondhand FM module, or one based upon wavetable synthesis, and put a wider palette of sounds at your disposal.

Let's not forget the impact samplers have had on the synthesizer market. Why buy a new synth if you can get a ready-made sample CD of it? Admittedly, it's not the same thing as having the instrument in your hands — many of the sonic nuances and playing characteristics are lost — but after a sample's been processed to death, who's gonna hear the difference anyway? We'd be interested to learn of any correlation between sales of samplers and declining synth sales.

So where does this leave synthesists? Eagerly awaiting the next big leap forward in synth technology, that's where. And until it comes along, it looks like readers are prepared to vote with their wallets and wait. The danger in this, of course, is that while fewer people are buying new hi-tech gear, more manufacturers might follow Casio's lead and pull out of the hi-tech synthesizer market completely. As the sales figures for digital pianos and portable keyboards tell, the market for such products is significantly larger than for synths. In fact, most manufacturers now use the hi-tech market for research and development of technology that can be applied to their mass-market products.

Sales figures are usually a measure of the success of a product. Perhaps the low numbers of synthesizers sold in 1991 is the market's way of saying they didn't think much of the products offered to them? Your letters are welcomed on the subject.