I'm not at all surprised by the retiring of these instruments. We all knew the day was coming and had stated as much on these forums many times. We expected that the Evolver Desktop would probably be the next to fall, and it was also obvious that there was quite a bit of redundancy in the Mopho line. What surprised me was only that DSI would retire five instruments all at once. I would have expected a spacing of, say, six months or so between each one, so that as one instrument was retired, another new one would take its place. That's basically how the other three Evolvers were retired. It hurt a bit less that way.
The sudden move certainly points to something out of the ordinary happening in the near future, as in winter NAMM. But I can't imagine DSI releasing more than one new instrument at a time. I'm also concerned that the keyboard/module pairing may be passing away. It's worked so well for me that I've come to rely on it, even to presume on it in my future musical plans. And this is where the musician within, rather than the synthesist, begins to get irritated. I don't like when music is the slave of a market, when musical instrument trends dictate to music just what can be done. The instruments should serve the making of music so that the effort is directed towards art, rather than business. I realize I'm sounding like a dreamy idealistic musician, but so be it. For example, I don't want shorter and smaller keyboards that make good business sense; rather, I want longer full-sized keyboards that make good musical sense. I don't want an instrument that tells me, "Sorry, but you can't play any lower or higher because I'm all out of keys." I want one that says, "I'm designed for making great music, so I've got all the keys you need." This is a weird way of putting it, but it's how I think as a musician. Instrument design should have one primary purpose: to enable the composer and musician.
Put another way, when I sit at a synthesizer, I want to feel the same potential as when I sit before a blank page of manuscript paper; the only thing placing limits on the musical potential of the moment should be my lack of talent. The musical instrument should not add to this limitation.
Thus far, DSI has almost perfectly served my musical needs. That's why I'm a fan (though not some moronic "fan boy;" there's a difference). The keyboards paired with the modules - just fabulous. A move away from this, a re-direction towards keyboards without modules, or to mini keys and mini synths or some other fad, would send me elsewhere. I know they'll continue producing full-sized instruments like the P08 and P12, but will they continue producing the matching modules? And as for these soon to be retired modules, what style of instrument will replace them? I'm not panicking, but I am a bit concerned that their following certain musical instrument trends will leave us with fewer appealing choices in the DSI line up.
There is such a contrast between being a synthesist and being, say, an organist or a violinist. When I was a working church organist, I never wasted a moment fretting, "Gee, I sure hope organs still exist in a few years". They'll always be there. The same is true with other traditional instruments. A violinist can be certain that violins will always be available. But with the synthesizer, you can literally worry, "Gee, I hope the instruments I need will not be abandoned by market fashions in a few years."
I like to create the sort of set up that is based around one large instrument. Several years ago, I was in the midst of building a mostly-Evolver set up. It was a master plan that would wonderfully serve my musical needs. Then one day, unexpectedly, DSI announced it was retiring the Poly Evolvers. It completely messed up my plans because I had wanted all new instruments that were still in production and fairly maintained. Now my set up is built around the Prophet '08 and I'd still like to add at least one more unit to it. But can I depend on the instrument still being around in a couple of years? Nope. Should I next build my set up around the Prophet 12? But that will eventually pass away too. It's very frustrating to a musician who knows exactly what he wants to do and has no interest in merely following the latest populer synthesizer trend. The "in thing" is the last thing that interests me and is usually the worst thing in my opinion. And yet, the synthesizer is an instrument that is totally at the mercy of trends and markets, so unlike traditional instruments. It's a very a-musical situation that has the potential of pushing away altogether a serious composer/musician.