We all know what happened in the 80s when Yamaha DX7 came on the markets: people ditched their analog synths and they were sold for peanuts. They laughed and said that no-one will ever want to see those analog synths again. Later people ditched their DX7s for much more modern synths.

Then came the plugins and people wanted to get rid of their HW effects and many of their HW synths. Especially the digital effects units can be bought really cheap these days. Many people laugh at them (just like they did to analog synths a few decades ago) and say there's no sense in using them since the plugins are much more convenient.

What happens if/when people notice that the ITB workflow wasn't the only way to write music, that there's also something really nice in the OTB workflow? This requires HW effects units. If/when that happens, will it be the same as the analog revival which skyrocketed the analog synth prices? Will the old digital HW effects units (which people don't care much about currently) skyrocket just as those analog synths did some time ago?

Could this be the time to buy those digital effects units cheaply and tell envious people in 5-10 years how little you paid for them?

Anyway, I need my HW effects due to my OTB setup so I'll buy the used damn Lexicon anyway

Digital fx are way easier to mimic and don't have much of an interface.

I don't think so. Of course, H3000s are probably another story.

Yeah, I agree with Yoozer... digital is digital, 1s and 0s, they are replicable - see the 99.9% correct replicas of Korg M1, Roland D-50, Wavestation etc

As usual, the high end components such as the DAs, internal analog path, VCOs etc. are the difficult ones to model, so I would suspect the known "good ones" that are already expensive today (high end Lexicons, AMS, EMT, Eventide etc.) will be the ones going up in price. I really don't think something cheapo as - say - an SPX90 - will get much traction in the vintage market of tomorrow.... but who knows.

Also, part of the whole vintage craze is nostalgia for the older generations, and curiosity for the newer generations, it doesn't have to do with the sound too much... I mean, how much is a digital hall reverb from 1985 different from a digital reverb from 2013 - bar the obvious differences in the algorithm, filter settings, quality of converters, sampling rates etc? Simulated reverb is simulated reverb. Actually, some high-end reverb from 1985 sounds more realistic than some low-end reverb from today...

Not sure that there are a lot of truly great digital effects that can be bought that cheaply these days. Do you have some particular examples? None of the desirable Lexicon or Eventide effects boxes can be had (normally) cheaply.

I know there are plugin versions, but some of my favorite early digital outboard such as,

- Lexicon Primetime
- Roland Dimension D (actually this isn't digital!)
- Lexicon PCM41
- Eventide H910
- MXR pitch transposer

Sound pretty damn sweet, and I love running stuff through them more than the plugin versions. (mixing or tracking)

I'm sure in a blind test I may be hard pressed to hear the difference, but something like the primetime or H910 / MXR pitch transposer can turn the most bland sound into something spectacular..
It also seems (to me) that the real versions are more forgiving in that you don't have to have the delay time perfect for example.. Settings seem to have a larger sweet spot.

It also may have to do with things that are difficult to model (Transformer saturation) or the fact that it's interface is half the fun..

However for things like reverb, I'll often use a plugin. (Or DP4 occasionally)

The aforementioned list of early digital units Futureman84 posted is not the cheap stuff, and arguably the analog bits play a bigger role in there. MPX100, however? Easy.

"Superior" is always a bit dangerous to use, though. It's really easy to step on people's toes

Never mind digital FX, take a look at what vintage analog FX go for these days.

A big limitation with OTB effects is routing, small/cheap mixers don't have many send/return loops or inserts.

You can get patch-bays

Amen to that. I have four patchbays and I have my effects all hooked into them so I can create whatever effects chains I want that way.

I like digital hardware. Overdriving it can be fun, especially it it has built-in limiting on the front end. To me most sound quite different than plugins, and sit differently in the mix.

A list of awesome & inexpensive boxes would be way too long to type, and the topic has been covered on GS many times, so...