A market question

Hi there.

Interesting points. I was certainly hooked on the 'limited availability' marketing hype in the early days of the Boutique range and doubled up on the JU06 and the JP08 !

Two years on, and it seems the desirability of the no-longer-available JU06 has bumped up second user prices considerably but not so much for the JP08 or JX03 ( the later two can still be bought new from my local shop, who still have 10+ in stock).

I have restricted my urge to double up on everything else since, and have just bought one of each of the subsequent purchases I've made. That said, most if not all Boutiques released since the first 3 have at least the same functionality and crucially the same polyphony as their original counterparts, so this removes the reason to buy two of the same thing.

I guess it's also less expensive for Roland to stop making one product, so they can launch a new one using the same production facility / resource and a high percentage of the same components as previous Boutiques used.

To date, I think the only one which could have justified a longer production run is the JU06; all others seem to still be available new - at least in the UK.

As far as I know, the JU-06 I the only one that has really been discontinued. Though GC said that they could not backorder the JP-08 and JX-03, I see on their site you can still order these, and many of their stores seem to still have them. The only model I have doubled up on is the JP-08 because of the way you can stack and otherwise make thicker sounds. I found a new JU-06 and it will arrive tomorrow, completing my collection.

If Roland comes out with some of their later digital models as boutique items, I probably won't need them because I have the Integra-7, which gives me all of that stuff.

By the way, you might want to grab the D-05. It is a recreation of the D-50 and in its boutique form, does have all 16 voice polyphony. It is also so compatible with the original D-50 that you can load D-50 patches into it. From what I understand, it has the full midi implementation so that you can use the PG-1000 programmer with the D-05. I suspect that this model, in particular, will go up in value if Roland decides to stop selling it. You only need one of these. I really like the sounds it can make.

Another thing I did was to pick up all three of the new Roland/Boss effects - DD-500, RV-500, and MD-500. I can use these on my guitars or synths. I have seen a few youtube videos demonstrating various boutique modules along with one or more of these effects units, and these really add another dimension to the sonic capabilities.

Now that I have a total of 9 (!!) Boutique modules, I decide to get three three-tier racks for them from
https://kvgear.com/products/boo-3. That will allow me to have all the Boutique modules in the smallest possible space without sacrificing access to them.

Your point that it may be that Roland finds it less expensive to stop making one model and put the resources into the next one seems like a valid possibility. I really, really like this Boutique series. These seem ideal for a person in my situation.

Tony

I think that Roland had a very flexible definition of the word "limited". I might be wrong (I'm probably wrong here) but weren't they still producing JUs until August of 2016? So by limited, did they just mean that they wouldn't produce them forever?

Btw, are the D-05s or any of the latest gen boutiques marketed as "limited edition" or was that only the first gen models?

I am not sure whether the entire line of boutique modules is considered "limited edition" or if only some of them are. I do know that at some point, the JU-06 production was stopped. That module seems really popular, so I don't know why Roland would have picked that one to stop production on. My guess is that Roland will discontinue the D-05 at some point. That module seems to be tied to the 30th anniversary of the original D-50. If you want one, I would get it sooner than later.

What I do recall, is seeing the JU-06 at Guitar Center and even playing around with it. At the time, I didn't realize how good these boutique modules really are, so I didn't get involved. By the time I did realize what these were, the JU-06 was no longer available. Luckily, I found one anyway. I got a couple of other modules (2 JP-08s and one JX-03, along with two K-25m keyboards for these modules) at a local Music-Go-Round, all like new in the box with all the original stuff.

Will any of these modules be around a year from now, or will Roland stop these altogether and move on to something else? I guess we won't know until it happens. I didn't buy these modules as investments to cash in on later, but instead because I can finally have all the synths that I wanted but couldn't get for one reason or another when the original products were available.

Tony