If you stupid

Cause does not equal effect.

Which is disappointing to people that buy cheap and expensive synths alike.

Successful musicians have always preferred great instruments, but have also always made do with crap when they had to!

So if someone has an expensive synthesizer, then they must be Successful, yes?

Thank you!

Successful working musicians are buying expensive synthesizers, and today, there are more of them than ever.

Distributors can often get a 50% discount on many types of pro audio products, but not on boutique synthesizers. While they might receive 50% from mass market brands like Novation or Arturia, they will never see those margins from boutique brands like Groove Synthesis. Distributors usually sell products to shops (dealers), offering them approximately a 25%–30% discount. The distributor’s role primarily involves importing, establishing a dealer network within their territory, and handling repairs.

THe dealer handle the customers, manage the advertising and provide after sales support. When they work directly with brands, they act like distributors, importing, handling repairs, and managing everything involved in the sale. Some brands compensate for repair and advertising costs, most don’t.

These discounts are usually calculated from the retail price (MSRP) rather than the MAP (Minimum Advertised Price) or, in the case of Europe, “Street price” which dealers set at their own discretion. Distributors and dealers rarely see the full discount figures in practice.

Groove Synthesis likely works directly with dealers only, offering a maximum discount of 20%–30% and hipping can be extremely expensive due to the weight of the units. Calculating the expenses of a small boutique manufacturer is difficult, it is by far the most complex occupation of the three.

Before anyone gets agitated by these discount figures, it is important to remember that all three manufacturers, distributors, and dealers face massive overhead expenses that customers rarely knows about. The percentage the government takes from the margins is also significant.
I have only named a few of the factors involved, it is a daily struggle to keep such a business running, and the incom is usually modest.
If you tried to run one of these businesses in the synthesizer market I guarantee you would never describe the margins of brands, distributors, or dealers as “huge” again : )

Hear, hear!

Great point about the ever increasing costs taken along the way to buying a buying a synth. While everyone in that chain deserves a cut, the ratios of that cut are insane if it works the way you describe. Personally I’d prefer the company responsible for the synth gets the biggest cut of what I pay.

It would be cool to see a synth manufacturer do a Syro style breakdown of the costs associated with the purchase of that synth.

Good point, sorry I’d forgotten about that (should’ve looked at their website before posting that).

As a 3rd Wave owner I’m disappointed to see Groove continuing to spend it’s limited marketing / money / time giving single “not customers” expensive free stuff (the Anthony Marinelli keyboard giveaway, the 2026 Scott video linked to in this post, etc). I think there’s three big things that Groove needs to be focusing on:

1) Better factory patches. A lot of the current factory patches were created back when the 24V was launched and don’t leverage the current OS 1.9 capabilities of the unit. I’ll also call out that the quality of the patches varies noticeably as well and they’re a confusing mix of PPG emulations, VA emulations, original sounds, and effects randomly arranged across the 5 banks. Please please please invest in getting a top tier sound designer to create new factory patches- the 3rd Waves can / do sound so much better.

2) Provide an update Bob’s comments on Reddit back last fall that Groove was in final testing of an Editor Librarian app for the 3rd Waves. Six months of radio silence on this and counting now. An app is sorely needed and mitigates the hardware having evolved a bit backwards with the $2K 8V now having a significantly larger and better screen than the $5K 24 voice units.

3) Bite the bullet and update the hardware. In 2026 the 3rd Wave really needs mass / flash storage support and class compliant audio interface support so that users aren’t tied to just analog 1/4″ ins and outs.

“It’d be nice if Groove Synthesis would make a synth for the middle of the market if they can afford to.”

Isn’t that precisely what the 8M is aimed at?

He didn’t buy the synth tho. They sent it to him to make these promo videos

Then I suspect the 3rd Wave keyboard version is a lot lighter than my 8M, because that box was not very heavy

Sorry, digression. Just had to say it

Musicians, most musicians, turned from middle class to low class or poverty once Napster made it’s first appearance and the music industry imploded. It is not musicians who buy these things, it is hobbyists, dentists, doctors, people with signifiacnt income outside of music . Even in the rare cases musicians actually do buy these, it is not because these synths are necessary tools for their craft. You cannot “monetize” a synth like this. No one who cares about what synths you use for the hob, and no one will “give you their money” because you have them. Having a synth like this won’t give you “the edge” as it might had in the 80’s. Only youtubers can make money from gear and they most often get them for free, or for a totally different price. But for them being musicians or not has little to do, with their actual job, which is to advertise gear.