If you’ve been shopping around for a guitar, synth or… well, pretty much anything else lately, chances are you’ve found yourself standing in front of an empty shelf, or looking at an “out of stock” label on a web shop. Cars, sofas, guitars, synths, audio gear: it’s getting hard to come by when we want it. Here’s why.

Before Covid, manufacturing your favourite music gear – like pretty much any other factory-produced commodity – was a just-in-time operation. A company, say, a guitar maker, orders the components it needs to arrive when production is planned. That’s way more efficient than stockpiling things needed to make the product. The whole global manufacturing machine was working away, all those cogs and wheels of all those factories spinning in harmony to make all those products.

Covid 19
And then Covid struck. Around February 2020, a lot of factories shut down, stopping production in its tracks. Meanwhile, a lot of people were spending a lot of time at home. Guitar-curious people – wallets swelled by lower costs (no social life, no holidays) – decided to pursue their dream of owning their first instruments. Many of us with existing collections decided that, hell, now’s a good time as any to get another one. Time to finish writing that concept album! As the pandemic forced companies to shut down production, demand was soaring.

Here’s what manufacturers say
Online sales boomed, with increased demand stretching well into 2021. But by now, stocks of some gear seemed to be running dry. I talked to several people in the industry very familiar with manufacturing and sales. They all had hair-raising stories to tell. One manager recounted a guitar model that couldn’t be shipped because there were no strings available. Another recounted how his company had paid $100 per unit for a consignment of chips that normally cost $7.

We also reached out officially to several manufacturers about their experiences and sales for 2021. Andy Mooney, Fender’s CEO, said in response to our inquiry, that FMIC, Fender’s parent company, was reporting a doubling of sales since before the pandemic. For 2021, the company expects to report an incredible 30% rise in revenues. All the manufacturers we spoke to, including PRS Guitars, IK Multimedia, Behringer and Vintage Guitars, said they had experienced enormous demand that they were trying hard to keep up with.

After manufacturing started up again post-lockdown and economies re-opened, some components had become hard to come by. Suddenly, our little musical instruments industry was competing with car makers for chips, with shipbuilders for metals. “Not only the MI industry is affected by chip and component shortages but also, for example, the automotive, gaming, home entertainment, medical devices and computing industries,” reports Tiia Hassinen from IK Multimedia. “The scarce resources must be shared between all of them, and the price of many components has also skyrocketed.” Some factories were even hit by power shortages, further slowing production.

Sitting on the dock of the bay
Another factor that has sales and distribution staff tearing their hair out is containers. Getting your wares from a factory in East Asia pre-pandemic was easy, shipping containers were plentiful. But with the rise in demand for music products, factories are getting buried in orders. “We have had to increase production at our factories to cope with the added demand, and we have seen some gaps in our range compared to ‘normal’ years,” says Paul Smith from Vintage Guitars’ parent company JHS. “For 2022 we have further increased our production capacities to enable us to cope with the anticipated continuation of demand worldwide.”

And even if all the parts are available, thousands of finished guitars and synths were (and are) sitting dockside, waiting for a container. A well-placed industry insider I talked to showed me a picture of office space at a guitar factory, with packaged guitars stacked up to the ceiling around desks in the admin wing. There wasn’t anywhere else to put them.

Shipping Container Crisis is hitting MI hard


It used to cost around $2100 to hire a 40-foot container to ship products from China to Europe. Now it costs up to $14,000 And that is simply because the huge demand in containers is global. Everywhere, manufacturers are trying to cope with surges in demand. That’s plugging up key areas in ports. Even when the ship carrying your guitar to the dealer you buy it from is on its way, it often has to wait in a holding space outside its destination for days before a berth becomes free and the freight is unloaded.

And the picture is not brightening heading into 2022. PRS Director of Sales, Jim Cullen: “There have also been supply chain disruptions, and they are changing daily. We are seeing this especially with amplifiers. It is a juggling act, but we have fantastic global relationships, and we are tenacious and diligent with our goals in an effort to keep the ship moving forward and our customers happy.” It must feel like whack-a-mole: one supply problem is solved, boom, another crops up. Managed to secure a supply of strings for that new guitar model? Guess what, the factory is now forced to shut down due to energy rationing in some parts of Asia, to save electricity. That might mean another months-long delay getting your product to market.

More demand is better, right?
So, a massive jump in earnings was felt across the industry. But how big was it? Fender reports an estimated 30% increase; PRS around 18-20%. Vintage Guitars reported a doubling of demand in 2021, while IK Multimedia told us it was experiencing growth but declined to give us a number.

If you’re shopping around for music gear, bear in mind that you’re probably going to be paying more. When component and shipping costs rise, prices will too. And we’re part of a global picture here. The musical instruments industry is a drop in the world economy’s ocean, but all sectors are facing the same problems of rising costs. That’s forcing up prices everywhere, leading to inflation all over the world. And the pandemic is entering a new phase, with many firms hit by staff absences due to Omicron.

So, it’s a perfect storm. Demand is up, leading to scarcity of components as well as difficulties in getting guitars, synths and other audio gear to expectant customers, who are paying more for their products. Have you noticed products being unavailable or delayed, or any price increases over the last few months? Let me know your experiences in the comments below.....

 

Last edited: Feb 6, 2022

1.) E.B. Tucker: Standards of living will decline

David Lin recently spoke with E.B. Tucker for Kitco News about his assessment of the current prevailing inflation.
The director of Metalla Royalty and author of the book "Why Gold, Why Now?" (Why Gold, Why Now?)
explains that inflation has reached its highest level since 1990, but that's not the end of the story.

"Six percent is just the beginning. It's going to go much higher, it's not just temporary. None of these people is going to lower
prices, it's going to stay that way," Tucker said. While wages are rising in the U.S., they are not able to keep pace with the
rise in consumer prices, "[Wages] will continue to rise, but never enough," he explains. "They will never be able to catch up."

According to the financial expert, the average U.S. citizen will have to prepare for declining standards of living
unless he or she financially positions himself or herself in line with the current situation. As a hedge,
Tucker recommends Tucker to buy royalties on future mine production (gold, copper, etc.).

Inflation is going to kill the American Dream, prices are not done surging - E.B. Tucker

2.) Inflation Ain’t Transitory – But the Fed’s Credibility Is
www.moneymetals.com/news/2021/11/15/inflation-not-transitory-fed-credibility-is-002406

 

@BEAT16 , Interesting post ...... Thank you

 

Here are some of the biggest winners by category, price changes compared to a year ago (Dec 13, 2021):

• Mineral-oil products: +62.4% year-over-year.
• Ores, metals, and semi-finished metal products: +60.3%
• Timber: +41.1%
• Grains, raw tobacco, seeds, and animal feed: +30.3%
• Agricultural raw materials and live animals: +21.7%
• Milk, dairy products, eggs, vegetable oils: +11.8%
• Coffee, tea, cacao, and spices: +14.1%
• Lumber, construction materials, paints, sanitary ceramics (toilets, ceramic washbasins, etc.): +15.3%
• Flour and wheat products: +7.5%

https://wolfstreet.com/2021/12/13/w...s-out-highest-in-the-data-going-back-to-1962/

 

I get on notification lists at Sweetwater like I did for the Midas MR18 mixer.
Usually, Thomann gets shipments around the same time.
They did, were $$ cheaper and so I got it from them.
When I wanted the Headrush MX-5 Amp Modeller, I kept an eye on the Long & McQuade site.
I found out one had been shipped to the store 5 blocks from me.
Went there and it had just been delivered, sitting on the front desk.
Staff didn't even know it was there. I had to threaten them to get them to sell it to me

 

Event201 Agenda 2030 The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

 

The only solution for the global chip shortage is: let’s go back to valves

• They do sound better
• They have so much more glamour
• We don’t need Taiwan to build them

Valves are the future

 

you think it's bad for the audio community, my day job is as a building services consultant engineer.

lights that use to be around £100 are now £200 and the order time has gone from 3 weeks to 12+ weeks.

This is mostly because factories that produce the crips to create them kept running through the pandemic as they need almost no staff. The companies found alternative markets or products to produce.

After the peak of the pandemic they found they could make people wait and charge more for the old products.

why would they go back to producing components like they use to.

Most of you will experiance this if you buy a car, as the number 1 feature that is being droped is the colour chaing lights round the dashboard. this is because its the same chip as all LED lights use.

Yet evern though I make it clear at work and tell them to order the lights 12 weeks in advance, I still get contractors saying they want to use a alternavie products as whats specified won't be delivered in time. whats worse is they're alternative ends up having the same delivery time.

 

I like valves, they make the room glow and feel warm in the evenings

 

a very interesting statement

 

inflation over all and worldwide! and it will get much worse in the near future, in my opinion. so, sitting on cash is a bad idea. i invested all my money in valuestable musicequipment, bitcoin and food supplies!

 

All that I'll say is that I'm glad I bought what I 'needed' back in 2020, I saw the way things were panning out and thought, "I'm going to lock myself away and learn how to use these properly, no more gas!" I 'm not the most patient of people, when it comes to music equipment, so anyone waiting on gear right now has my sympathy.

 

This topic hits hard for me. I bought an Isla Instruments S2400 back in April of last year and it wasnt until late December that it got shipped. I had to pay nearly 200 euro in import taxes but after waiting 8 months, I paid it just happy to be finally using my S2400. Except, UPS never delivered it. After fighting with them for over a month trying to figure out where my package was, dealing with their constant lies stating they had tried to deliver it but saying I wasn't home (I work as a remote developer with my office window literally looking outside onto the street DURING A PANDEMIC), I finally concluded that somewhere in Barcelona there's a UPS guy making shitty EDM with my machine.

Isla had to file a claim which was approved and as soon as they receive payment for the loss, they'll be shipping out another unit. I'm still in the process of trying to retrieve the import tax I paid on it and no doubt it's gonna be rollerskating up a hill trying to get that resolved before the new unit arrives. I have a feeling it's going to be almost a full year before I actually receive my unit... or I should say IF I receive my unit because UPS is about as reliable as a wooden frying pan.

 

I wish you @aymat, that you get your ordered goods soon.

Here we have DHL, UPS, GLS, Hermes and DPD and criminals work at every parcel service. Sometimes investigators
convict the corresponding criminal who embezzles goods and he then comes to court and his job is of course also gone.

 

crazy story ... hard to believe

 

this has happened to me lately with my amazon orders...opened packages and 1-2 items were missing, or package was delivered and nobody accepted the package...really crazy what's happening lately

 

If you want to bring down inflation in a high demand market, stop buying shit. It's hard to actually even call this inflation as businesses are just charging more and people are just paying, complaining but paying.

I have no dog in the race, but this is how capitalism works, if you want something everyone else wants and there isn't enough of it the highest bidder gets the item.

The original post was about supply chain constraints, a lot of the shit after it is going a little beyond that and into politics and conspiracy social engineering.

It's okay not to have everything you want. I didn't get everything I wanted to as a child and even now when I can just get what I want when I want, i still consider if the transaction is a good value for me. That doesn't mean I go for the cheapest item as I often do not, but I always consider if something is worth what they are asking for it.

I used to eat out a lot and now that we can again I haven't really been out too much. The cost of doing business has got up by about 4%-6% according to some of my friends that are restaurateurs, but prices have increased by about 30% and they are doing it because they can and because they want to catch up for revenue that was stagnant during the shutdowns, even if the government covered those losses.

A good friend of mine that owns a hand-full or restaurants here in the mid-Atlantic said that as long as people keep showing up and house is packed he doesn't see a reason to turn down money. If the client is willing to pay then why should he make less money.

To be honest, I agree with him. I don't go out as much not because I can't afford it, but because I don't see the value in it as much as I used to. Especially when I am competing with others to overpay.

I feel bad for people in central Europe that are getting ridiculous heating bills but that is also a free market markup. The oil coming out of the ground is the cheapest it has been since the 1960s, the rest is grand stage politics of countries manipulating resources and capitalism in action. I don't blame the fox for wanting to eat chickens. Especially when the chickens are so willing to jump into the fox's mouth.

I know 3 guys that quit trucking because it was a thankless job and they worked hard when their companies made crazy money during the pandemic and didn't even get a raise. They were also told that since they had worked so hard that it was the new expected normal and now they would have to keep doing that as the new normal. So they sacrificed and went out of their way to keep everyone in toilet paper and nappies and were told that they now needed to keep burning the candle at both ends because they didn't drop dead from doing twice the world for half the price. I don't blame them either.

 

Sadly, it's not just tech. that is going up. Food is skyrocketing even for stuff produced locally.
Want a "value meal"? $13-14 for a sh*tty burger, fries and drink at McD's?? So much for getting ahead with that push for $15 an hour.

But there is much more at work here than meets the eye or is even being talked about.
Saudi Arabia holds 25% of the world's supply of light sweet crude oil, and in the mid 2000's started drilling offshore which production costs 50X more than on land. So read between the lines.... Saudi has peaked in their best places for supply, and if they have peaked, the WORLD has essentially peaked.

And these sort of things are masked and fumbled with, which drags things out, making it less obvious to see, but believe one thing,
"Infinite growth has a mortal enemy, and that is finite resources".

Want to know more? Look up a documentary called COLLAPSE.

And
The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream

 

Last edited: Feb 7, 2022

we always try to push everything onto others .... everyone should start with themselves and act carefully , then our visions of a fair world for all will also work ... as long as we feed the system , we remain slaves . I have nothing more to say...