I cant find this out anywhere. All I can find is that the Korg M1, Yamaha DX7 and Roland D50 are likely in the top three although I dont know which order.
I dont want a greatest top 10 its the best selling of all time I want to know (including rack modules and sample players).

does general midi count?
millions of soundcards out there. all with a GM player

Since that would be the least fun answer possible let's go ahead and say no.

I'd bet the MicroKorg is on that list.

I think the M1 probably takes the number 1 spot, & I'm sure the Microkorg is in the top 5 along with the DX7 and D50.

I think the DX7 may be the top, I recall hearing that, fwiw.

I think Vintage Synth or some site has numbers produced, it'd be fun to see and compare.

-a

Did that thing sell well? More than the JP8000?
I know I saw LCD Soundsystem around 2002/2003
and they were using it on stage for rhythmic bleeps.

Just kind of surprised a top selling synth would've
come in the days of soft synths.


Wonder if the MC303/505/909 is on that list...
and the Korg Trinity/Triton. Some incarnation of
The Proteus must have cracked the top 10.

What about sold copies of NI Komplete?

I think the Nord Lead 1/2/2x may be in the top 10.

Juno 60 has to be in there

Probably microkorg, m1, Dx7, triton in there.

Juno 60 has a lot of competition from the Juno 106 in terms of sales, I would imagine. Wouldn't be surprised to see a nord on that list.

i'm sure all the junos together (6/60/106) would be a big contender, counting them separately is somewhat unfair unless you did the same for the DX7 (like counting all the various revisions, which i don't think the dx7 figures bother splitting out...but i could be wrong)

1. Korg M1 -250,000 units
2. Roland D50 - 200,000
3. Yamaha DX7 - 160,000

It's probable that Triton and Roland JV1080 may have also passed the DX7, which was #1, until the other models surpassed in sales.


Good point about the DX various versions (DX1, DX5, DX9, DX21, DX100, DX7S, DX7II, TX7, TF1, TX816, TX802, TX81Z, etc, etc,......) To a lesser extent, that also could apply to Motif, Fantom, Triton models, which have many spin-offs.



I'm pretty sure MicroKorg smoked the JP's numbers. Units sold were supposedly well into 6 figures. It's a $400 keyboard compared to over $2,200 for the JP8000 (when released).



I posted this on another forum, a while back when we were guessing at the Triton's numbers. Remember that hardware synths were (are) quite pricey, so the number of units sold can seem pretty low.


I have several books by Julian Colbeck and one by Mark Vail that share some numbers for past synths:

EMS Synthi 100 - 34 units sold
Crumar Spirit - 50
Fairlight - 300
E-MU Emulator - 500
PPG Wave 2.3 - 700 (2.2 - 300, Waveterm - 300)
Oberheim 4 Voice - 800
OSCar - 1,000
Kawai SX240 - 1,000
Synclavier - 1,600
Roland Jupiter 8 - 2,000
Yamaha CS80 - 2,000
Kurzweil 250 - 3,000
Rhodes Chroma - 3,000
EII - 3000
Korg OASYS - 3,000 (approximately)
EIII/EIIIXP - 3,200+
ARP Omni - 4,000
Prophet 5 - 8,000
Mono/Poly - 10,000
Sequential Circuits Pro One - 10,000
Minimoog - 13,000
Korg Wavestation - 14,000 (keyboard model only)
MS-20 - 20,000+
Akai S1000 - 22,000
PolySix - 30,000
Ensoniq Mirage - 30,000
Roland Juno 106 - 40,000
Ensoniq ESQ1 - 50,000
SH-101 - 50,000
Korg Poly800 - 100,000
Korg 01/W - 100,000+
The original DX7 - 160,000
Roland D50 - 200,000
Korg M1 - 250,000
Triton - "Shitloads"


Companies have become very secretive about their business, but they sometimes hint. For example: the claim on the Roland JV1080 is that it was: "Used on more recordings than any other module in history"

Casio near the top, probably. Paul Theberge draws from some good solid research in his _Any Sound You Can Imagine_ that seems to suggest as much.

Yeah the CZ-101 is up there (100,000+) if you add all the CZs its prob #1.

Even on the last tour. James is amazing at getting these things to sound incredible and to be able to recreate the impression of things like an EMS Synthi or Fun Machine. Definitely the best synthesis I've ever met. Gavin Russom is up there too.

daaaaay-ummm...3,000 EACH were made of the Chroma and Oasys??
i'd have never thunkit.

korg produced the 100,000th microkorg in 2009 , so maybe some more since then

one of the most successful synths in recent history

The 3000 number for the Chroma is from Julian Colbeck's Keyfax. I don't know if you can trust these numbers. I also heard that there are less than 200 Chroma Expanders, which would make it uber-rare. Keyfax also states that there are 500 PS-3200s, a number which I believe is incorrect. There may be 500 PS-3100s, but no chance for the 3200. My best guess is there maybe 200 of them. Also the production number (2000) for the Jupiter 8 is disputed.

If that list above is accurate, one of the most successful synths period. I wonder what it is about Korg stuff that strikes such a chord with Joe Average Musician? There's a fair amount of their stuff that seems to have done really well. Like I never would have guessed the Mono/Poly outsold the Prophet 5 given how much relative discussion each one generates.

1 microkorg
2 d-50
3 dx7
4 juno 60
5 ms20
6 virus
7 juno106
8 jx8p
9 jp8000
10 jd800

that list cant be right, the M1, Triton and Jv80 are surely in the top 10 somewhere

No M1? Its only you know.... sold 250 thousand or something....



alexP

1,600 Synclaviers? Huh? Where are they now? How many people have a keyboard and a mini computer in their home? It was closer to the size of a mini than a server if I remember.

Sadly those 20,000+ MS-20s are quite expensive.

Who buys/bought these workstations? Does anyone here like them?

Back then they have been awesome and unbeatable. The M1 revolutionized how people made music. IMO this was the start of home recording at a reasonable price. I bought one back then, just to be able to sequence and have some drum sounds in the same machine. Some of the M1 presets are timeless. My favorite was the acoustic guitar.

No no I hear you. Back in the day they were the thing. They can still do the job too. Plus I am a Korg man myself. Yeah I love Moogs plus most of the others but Korg always made synths I could afford.

Does anyone really buy those workstations today? I pass them up in the store when i look around because most of em are so big. Like teh size of a canoe. I am more a synth player than keyboardist too.

I just don't understand why M1s are so expensive used if there are so many if them...wouldn't the Korg Digital collection with the M1s emulation bring the price down? A sample is a sample right?

Ahh, well you assume that the Korg Legacy Collection has faithfully re created the M1 or well,,the MS 20, the Polysix, The Monoply, or the rest of the offerings. It hasn't done that. What it has done is provide a brand new pallete inspired by those instruments. I actually love that VST, and I'm not a VST kinda guy. You can't honestly properly emulate those discrete instrument in a single software package let alone any one of them. How does that equate to the price of ping pong balls in China or the value of vintage synths on Ebay? ...One word for ya....perception. You, and only you have to evaluate the issue and make your determinations. But you can't do it via hyperbole or opinion. You will have to actually experience both in order to properly evaluate them.

Oh, bollocks heh. It's because M1s are the staple in Tejano and they're getting snapped up as fast as you can say "yo". For a similar reason DX21s and DX100s are bought en masse by Balkan bands. Bands, as a rule, don't drag a laptop on stage and the requirements for keyboards when playing live are different from those when you only want to use it in the studio.

Besides, it's not like you need the M1 itself; its waveforms have been recycled over and over again. I've got the M1 piano and guitar in my TR Rack.

Everything I've seen online seems to suggest approximately 100 Spirits were manufactured. 50 is definitely wrong as mine is serial number 80.

This is a joke, right?

Why do you suppose Korg still makes it even though it's been "replaced" by the MicroKorg XL.