Why does Yamaha not care about making soft synths?

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would love a vst version of the CS15, my first synth.. great dual oscillator mono synth.. wish id never got rid of it.

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Chrisk-K wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:34 am Arturia's annual revenue is about $35M. NI's annual revenue is about $90M. Their soft synths sales probably account for no more than 50% of the revenue. Yamaha's annual revenue is about $4B. From Yamaha's perspective, there's no money in soft synths.
What about the profits?

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Yamaha doesn’t really seem to be interested in making synths at all.
Zerocrossing Media

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zerocrossing wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 1:37 pm Yamaha doesn’t really seem to be interested in making synths at all.
Yamaha rules when it comes to bread and butter synths (Motif, Montage and MODX). The ROI must be pretty good because Yamaha has hardly invested on synth R&D over the past 20 years or so. It's their business decision and it's been effective.

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The truth is, Yamaha already makes a lot of software (unless they outsource it) for many products across their entire product line, many of which are not sold, but provided with various Yamaha products. I can't imagine that it equates to anywhere near the ROI that dedicated soft synths would.

On a tangent, I'm not a coder so I have no idea, but how much of the code already written into their digital hardware synths is directly portable to a VST/AU instrument? Is it 90%? 50%? 10%? Complete rewrite? :shrug:
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Tj Shredder wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 8:54 am
VitaminD wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 1:34 am A VST version of the Motif would be excellent. Now that would be an excellent Omnisphere.
But there is Omnisphere already, no need for a soft Motif… People use the hardware for more reasons than just its sounds.
I guess they don’t see the need. The only interesting antique synths that have not been emulated yet are SY-99, FS1R and VL-1/7x… And as they cover the technologies mostly in newer workstations, there is not so much nostalgia hype to be expected…
Omnisphere isn't a replacement for a soft Motif. Or rather it would be a very lousy replacement if considered.

People use software for more reasons than one too. So what's your point since it can be applied both ways?

My guess is they make tons rehashing and retooling the same giant workstations with a higher markup than they would offering software that does the same. It doesn't negate the notion that a VST version of a Motif wouldn't be excellent for the artist.

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It is not their wheelhouse. And, they make plenty of money off of their workstations and digital pianos.

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cryophonik wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 10:37 pm On a tangent, I'm not a coder so I have no idea, but how much of the code already written into their digital hardware synths is directly portable to a VST/AU instrument? Is it 90%? 50%? 10%? Complete rewrite? :shrug:
It's impossible to tell without access to their codebase.

On one hand, I'd not be surprised if the code for their latest synths still uses code dating back to the first AWM implementation. Most embedded developers just love rats-nest code and hodge-podging things together in one giant main loop instead of clean architecturally-pure code.

On the other, they own the VST standard, so it'd kinda make sense to prototype their synthesis engine purely in software on a platform where they have access to the original designers

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