I had an A4 MKII on order from a US vendor for what seemed like a too good to be true price, but the units were on backorder. After a couple months of waiting, the order was cancelled and they cited that Elektron weren’t going to fulfill their order as the reason for the cancellation, which seemed odd.
I figured the vendor had realized they had a pricing mistake and were correcting for that, but then I found on the B&H site that they were listed as discontinued.
All very curious, considering the black editions of the Analog series were announced less than a year ago.
Yeah agreed, but the vendor that cancelled the order is Musicians Friend, so that’s 2 vendors saying it’s discontinued. I know MF have some issues themselves.
They have been incredibly awful at fulfilling orders through the pandemic. I wouldn’t judge any aspect of the industry on their performance alone.
I know of at least two of their best workers who quit due to how awfully they were running things. (Never having things in stock that other retailers had plenty of, allowing salespersons to steal customers from one another).
Don’t worry. Pretty soon you can pickup the elektron version of a H9 pedal or a UAD interface for 799$, and you’ll be able to download the A4mk3 for 299$, the ARmk3 for another 299$, and with the 149$/yr overbridge subscription your won’t be missing out on much. They’ll even give ya some elektron stickers for your mouse so it’s almost like using the real thing.
They transitioned their GC brick and mortar folks, as well as their MF call center folks into a work from home model in the most haphazardly way imaginable.
No training, little support, and a free-for-all culture. It’s no wonder Sweetwater does so much better.
The MK2 screens have spoiled me, I think that’s the main thing. And the fact that I had to replace 5 of my A4MK1 encoders last year. Still would be cheaper though…
Things can be in stock and also discontinued, these are not exclusive. A vendor is likely not to label something “discontinued” when they still have stock of it to sell.
I see some grey versions in stock at Musicians Friend, but the black ones are completely removed from their site. My guess is that these things just aren’t selling well.
The conspiracy theory side of my mind, however, is pairing this experience with Cenk’s comments around his departure.
Found this out last month when purchasing my SiX from MF. The cat that took my call had no idea what I was talking about and sent me an email from his Guitar Center account. Wasn’t a confident interaction though they did honor a price match and I had it in two days.
Back in January or February, I brought my slightly less than a year old A4 MKII back to my point of purchase to have warranty work done on a failing LED on the keyboard trigs. I had contacted Elektron support by email and received a response that it was covered but was asked to go through the store I purchased it at.
I dropped off my unit and three weeks later I get a call from my store. They said they could not get a hold of Elektron support no matter how they tried (odd as they responded to my email within 24 hours).
They would’ve ordered me a brand new one but they said the SKU no longer existed in their system or with the supplier
They instead refunded me the entire purchase price. As an aside, I happened to be on the fence about keeping it anyway so it was serendipitous that they gave me a full refund almost a year later. Put the money onto my Xone PX5 and OT MKII. So the Universe did me a solid there.
Anyway, it could very well be that the grey model is no longer in production and that the black model is the way forward. I would have a hard time believing that they are dropping the A4 altogether.
