Future Retro closes its doors after 25 years of synths
4,8 / 5,0 | 
We were saddened to hear that Future Retro, the maker of the recent Vectra synthesizer, has decided to stop trading after 25 years in the business.
Future Retro
The message on the website simply says:
Due to the current state of the world and global parts shortages we are forced to close our doors.
Future Retro was a manufacturer of innovative synthesizers, sequencers, sound modules, MIDI and audio interfaces from 1997-2022.
Thank you for 25 years of business, and all the relationships we had with our network of dealers and wonderful customers all around the world.
Sincerely,
Jered Flickinger
It was only very recently that Future Retro was fulfilling preorders on the new Vectra synthesizer. Facebook posts from April demonstrated the best way to unpack a Vectra and gave updates on invoices and shipping. Hopefully, everyone who ordered one has now received their unit.
Future Retro Vectra · Source: Future Retro
Future Retro was certainly a boutique maker of instruments, doing short but impressive runs of interesting and innovative products designed by Jered. Those products included drum machines, synthesizers and Eurorack.
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I particularly liked the 512 Touch MIDI/CV keyboard and the Transient drum module. The Vectra looked very impressive with the 4 joysticks for waveform and vector synthesis manipulation. But ultimately if you can’t get the parts you can’t build your thing and so you can’t sell your thing.
An alarming trend?
We saw similar problems with Synthesizers.com just last week which has put itself up for sale. And there are many other grumblings in the industry that reflect the continuing problems with the supply of chips, and components, and the lasting impact of the pandemic. It’s remarkable that a company the size of Behringer has had their massive synth rollout halted by similar problems. One can only imagine what it’s like for boutique companies without anything like their buying power.
Have the golden days of synthesizers reached their peak? With the price of energy blasting skywards and the cost of living eating away at our pockets, synthesizers may seem to be a bit frivolous and unnecessary. Maybe the current economic climate will finally cure us of our GAS? But let’s hope not. Synthesizers offer us an escape from the worries of life and a deflection from the realities around us like all music and art does. We’ve come so far and there are more tales to tell.
Thanks for the synths
We wish Jered and the team and supporters of Future Retro all the best in wherever they find themselves and thanks for all the synths.
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2 responses to “Future Retro closes its doors after 25 years of synths”
Quite a sad day. I am very surprised no one is really talking about this…It would be nice if he re-invents the company after a short break but if not thank you Jered for all of your sweat and hardwork. You have changed music for the better!
Yes its sad, i agree. Made some awesome stuff and Jared seemed like a really cool guy. RIP!