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Roland, Korg & Yamaha had the ball in their court for years. Uli saw an opportunity and took it.

Korg has also been re-releasing old designs, notably the ARP 2600 & Odyssey.

When I built my xoxbox the demand for 303s was insanely high and Roland could have done what behringer did.

I’ve always had to pin this on a cultural blind spot in the Japanese psyche, where it comes to new and novel improving technologies. Having actually understood there was a demand for the 303, Roland then spent 30 years re-implementing it using all manner of digital techniques and improved bells and whistles (and LEDs) while managing to miss the target every single time in capturing what made the 303 unique and special, which was the quirks and response of its transistorised circuitry and brain-damaged sequencer. 40+ years later they still can’t seem to understand which is why it had to finally be re-implemented by all the XoXbox cloners and Uli.

The original 303 & 606 are pretty crappy plastic machines. The 606 didn’t explode in value in the same way.

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