As a customer, its exciting, and it breeds loyalty for the company. They really maximize the potential of the hardware over time. Every new firmware release adds some new functionality, or amp model, or effect, or workflow improvement, or sonic enhancement. They release a major product once every 6-8 years (a new AxeFx hardware generation), but they consistently improve the units, with dozens of major updates throughout the life cycle of the product. My favorite company in the MI space is Fractal Audio. My feeling is that a lot of great synths on the market (from various manufacturers) get only one, or at most two significant firmware upgrades, and then they are just left at that stage, when there's still so much potential left to make the instrument even better via firmware. and there's so many good ideas that have been posted on public and beta forums for new firmware updates.Ī new firmware update can really breathe new life into synths and generate nearly as much buzz as a new product release, if its promoted well and distributed through the standard channels. Synths like PolyBrute are such an incredible hardware platform. If it were my choice, I'd rather see fewer new products released, but a consistent stream of new firmware updates every XX months, that improve the existing products. it requires tons of work in design stages, sourcing components, doing hardware/electronics design iterations. The amount of energy and effort to go through the development of an entire new product is very high. Would love to see all the major synth manufacturers dedicate more resources to firmware upgrades and less resources to new products. I'm all for the "Product as a Platform" philosophy.
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