Synthstrom Audible now ships the Deluge with a crisp OLED display and will raise the price due to rising manufacturing costs.
Knobcon, one of the largest Synthesizer conventions with many developers, is currently running in Chicago. The New Zealand company Synthstrom Audible, the makers of the Deluge Groovebox, also has a booth.
The developers have two major news for Knobcon. A great and one not-so-nice news that was to be expected.
Deluge OLED
The Deluge is a very deep groove box with sampling, different synth engines, a very creative sequencer, and more. Everything is controlled with buttons, a few knobs, and a massive pad matrix. Previously, the Deluge had a display with a maximum of 4 characters. A bit small and minimal for such a huge engine that is constantly growing.
Synthstrom Audible has announced that all Deluge units from today will ship with a new crisp OLED display. Parameter names and values can now be displayed completely on this. This way you can see more quickly which features you are tweaking and how intensively you are doing it.
The good news for all previous Deluge users is that it’s possible to replace the previous four-letter display with the modern OLED display. Due to the complexity (chip updates, specialist hardware, additional PCB…) users will not be able to upgrade themselves. However, Synthstrom Audible offers a special retrofit upgrade for $149 USD plus shipping ($80+) and other associated costs.
They will offer this service through local repair partners in Europe and UK and they’ll be taking care of the rest of the world themselves in New Zealand. This service will start in November 2022.
According to SA, they only have limited capacities so you need to lock your place in the queue with a $50 deposit from 3 pm EST on September 10th, 2022. OLED in the Deluge is great news that upgrades the device again.
New Prices
And now the bad news. The Deluge will be significantly more expensive in the coming months. To reflect the cost and development associated with the new screen and the rising manufacturing costs in the synth industry, Synthstrom Audible will raise the price over the next 12 months.
From September 9th, the Deluge will cost $1249 USD plus shipping instead of $999 USD. Then from January 1st, 2023 $1329 USD + shipping, and from April 1st, 2023, not a joke, it will cost $1399 USD + shipping. These are very significant price increases for the Deluge groovebox.
More information here: Synthstrom Audible
This laughable and pathetic. Many have been saying this since this instrument was introduced that the current screen is terribly inadequate and limiting however the creators refused to address to acknowledge this by repeatedly and idiotically insisting that they did not wish the user to stare at a screen.
So. Its called changing your mind, this thing everyone does in real life. “Hey, you want pepperoni or sausage? Sausage. You know what, I changed my mind, I want pepperoni.” It’s laughable when peole use the excuse of “He changed his mind” to dismiss something or someone. They do it in politics all the time, its corny at this point. If innovation didnt change its mind we’d have nothing new and now we got electric cars and a deluge with a screen.
But im thinking they may have run into a snag of not many 80’s clock screens and an overabundance of OLED sitting around.
Haven’t you proven yourself to be a racist alt right maggot on synthtopia already, and now you are polluting this site as well. Get lost. No seriously, fook the right off.
I did not ask you nor am I interested in your drivel. They were resistant to any changes and swore that a detailed screen would be a detriment to the workflow and immediacy of this instrument. They were wrong and you are useless. One still have value and you never have.
Where does this Alt-Right thing come from? I’m the least likely color to be found at anything Alt right. I’m sure there are a couple of us hanging around but if you went to a Trump Rally, you;d have to look really really hard to find anyone who looked like me. It has me baffled that I would have said anything alt right. OR, you’re making it up and doing what most of the internet does, disagree with me and I yell racist, unless your a certain color then I have to find something else. I advise you to find something else in this case.
Your defence is that I would have to look really hard to find someone of your colouration at a Dump Rally or that it is unlikely because by not attending such cesspool fests, it proves you do not harbour such sentiments? Right….
It matters little at this point as you have revealed yourself routinely and argued the straw man fallacy to make your points, from women’s rights, to gender equality issues, pay disparity, class disparity, racial inequality, yes the list is long, . I am not politically correct, and hardly a saint, yet I know when I am outclassed when standing on the wrong side of history and more importantly, the wrong side of the moral and ethical debates that divide our society. You seem to suffer no such compunction, how utterly sad for you.
I have two Deluges, one for studio and another for live performance. Love the capability, hate the accessibility of any deeper features because of the miserable screen! Emailed them a year ago about any possible updates prior to purchasing a second unit and was told basically no way! They were high and mighty about the precious numeric led crap!
And now this, great!
And really great analogy there Andrew, what a champ or should I call you chump, cause £1 quid investment is really the same thing as changing your mind on pizza toppings! Get out of here with that s hit.
You peddle this quasi crap on other sites, just leave it out!
Andrew? Is that why Modern3 tweaked out at me? I don’t know who this Andrew is but I guess he is the alt right guy he hates so much. Makes sense now.
As far as my analogy…opinions. But you do agree with me and my mind changing analogy whether you like it or not, a screen is a welcome addition. Call me what you want, this is the internet, I don’t care what strangers think especially when they name call for a disagreement. It’s actually hilarious to share your opinion or disagree with someone and watch them have a mental breakdown, exploding exclamation points and call you all kinds of whatever. I’m a chump, im useless, hahahahah. Thank you both.
I haven’t a clue as to whom “Sarah” is however she is spot on, as for you, you have peddled alt right racists nonsense on synthtopia and other sites. Your fragile ego, sensibilities, and general disposition is incapable of grasping differing opinions without immediately attacking a wider range of implied positions to make your ever narrow point.
I commend them for this change, yet equally criticise them for being short sighted and “married” to the idea that a screen was a distraction and that it would somehow cripple the immediacy of this otherwise brilliant instrument.
Um no, that is the dumbest analogy here. So a thousand quid is now equivalent to pizza toppings? Right! I own two Deluges, and before I bought the second unit a little over a year ago, I asked them if there was any chance for a better screen. The more complex this instrument became the more useless the screen became and the more difficult it became to use this effectively. They basically told me NO CHANCE!
Well they changed their mind because the initial design was just plain stupid and yes shortsighted. Something you seem to confuse with pizza toppings?????
Get a grip!
I think it’s pretty great that the company is not calling this the Deluge 2 and leaving early adopters out to dry – the fact that they are offering an upgrade to previous customers at a 10% cost is unheard of especially when compared to some other manufacturers that release slightly upgraded versions of their original instruments and charge twice as much (not naming names)
Have fun with whatever that was. Good luck to you man.
I liked the deluge from day 1….
Still updating and improving there product….for free that is…..
And now offering an oled screen….😘
Team Deluge is a small company and I think many other even bigger companies can learn a lot from them….
It is really cool to see a company support its product this way. It gets software upgrades for a long time and now they offer a screen upgrade.
I wouldn’t even mind paying a reasonable fee for longer software support on some devices. Things like powerful grooveboxes or workstations run a fair amount of software.
From day one I have said the seven segment led display was a bad idea.
Over and Over Synthstrom and others would defend it’s existence claiming anything more would be a distraction, oh the irony from a box filled with colored led’s.
Anyway the lack of a decent screen was a deal breaker for me.
Now they’ve backpedaled and are passing on the cost, so for us in the UK it’s now 2K.
So it maybe a decent box but for 2k I’d rather go with Akai’s Force or MPC’s
Hello, does the price increase mean in January 2023 and in April 2023 that there will be other improvements such as pad sensitivity or other types of improvement?
I don’t think. Nothing communicated. So far it’s just a price increase