[xiwi_brendan]

Hi,

I'm Brendan! No doubt this thread has lost some steam, but I'll do what I can to answer some of the questions posted here.

About the Synth: The PCB came from Music from Outer Space (MFOS) which is probably the best website on the internet for Synth DIY enthusiasts. I encourage anyone who even knows how to pronounce "solder" correctly to spend a few minutes there.

Ray Wilson, owner of MFOS, has a specific policy that allows for the resale of his designs in the form of completed synths. He only sells the PCBs and makes all the information public. However, It's not an open-source of GNU license. You CAN'T use his schematics to print your own PCBs. I honor this, by purchasing his boards even though there are obviously other ways to bring them into existence. I've emailed him about this whole situation and received his blessing!

What Went Wrong: My guess is that Etsy was trying to prevent resale items. They probably have staff who use their search engine to find duplicates of unique terms. No doubt "MFOS" and "Noise Toaster" popped up a bunch of times and they rightfully became suspicious of me reselling completed synthesizers. However, if the staff member had taken ONE SECOND to read my description it would've become obvious that MFOS is simply a hobby shop that I purchased the board from.

Looking over the emails now, it's so glaring that even the slightest change in word choice could've prevented this situation escalating to the level that it did. If the rep had at any point known a ANYTHING about electronics, it would've been obvious that I had made it.

The one thing that still drives me mad and even now I can't find an explanation for was why Etsy decided to pick on a twerp like me. I had probably 6 items in my shop and hadn't grossed more than $1000 in 5 months. Like many have pointed out, they've got bigger fish to fry.

This thinking lead me to believe that this was an all out assault against electronic artists on Etsy. Perhaps, even part of a larger campaign to remove them entirely from their site now that alternatives like Tindie exists. I reacted with emotion and wanted to defend the community of other electronics designers on Etsy. I thought of them FIRST when I posted this email conversation.

Hand Assembled Haters: Half of synth DIY is designing your own interface. That's what modular means to some extent. This is the exact reason why many designers put their schematics out for free. THEY WANT TO SEE WHAT PEOPLE DREAM UP. And dreaming takes a lot of energy and time. You can bet your ass I sanded this thing to holy hell and watched over it liked a baby when I was assembling it. I love that someone pointed out the issue of wiring in the comments.

Look guys, if there's that much wiring, it's put together by hand. No one in their right mind would outsource that much wiring if they were trying to turn a profit. Printing your own boards with mounted potentiometers would save at the very least HUNDREDS of dollars.

Inexcusable Closure: The knee-jerk reaction Etsy has to possible non-handmade items is atrocious. Close my shop without warning? That is not cool at all, especially when I'm willing to work with you! How about 5 days? And how about removing that specific item and not my whole bleeping store!

Etsy's documentation on "Dos and Don'ts" is lacking for sure. And accusing legitimate artists of being LIARS can only lead to outrageous responses like this from the artists themselves and the broader internet community who support them.

End: I've reached out to Etsy and told them I'm willing to work with them to point out the spots where I think this all went wrong and how they can change their policies to grant sellers the respect they deserve. If things go well, I will stress to no end, the importance of creating a specialized team to work with electronic artists as their discipline requires the special attention that if present would never had lead to this.

Thanks: The support has been incredible and I can only say, I'm completely undeserving of it. I'm truly an enthusiasts who makes synths, because I love them and want the whole world to experience the beauty of weird sounds!

The real designers and electrical engineers out there deserve a billion high fives.

(hope i didn't forget anything)

[xiwi_brendan]

If anyone is super interested in this hit me up at byrnework @ gmail (dot) com and I'll do my best to answer your questions specifically.

Hit up a few points on this thread as well.

[gtani]

Is there currently a site that talks about the synth's features, pricing, etc?

[VLM]

"We are a venue for independent artists to sell their own handmade goods"

Do you philosophically consider yourself an artist? Much like yourself, I build/assemble electronic things mostly of other peoples designs using purchased mass produced parts with my own (sometimes substantial) customizations, sometimes wood is involved. The primary differences I see at this time between us, are I appear to tend more toward RF applications and you tend toward analog applications, and I don't sell anything I make. I try to make my work look good as per my own engineering aesthetic and pride in craftsmanship, but I don't consider myself an artist and I do not consider my activity as an art. For some difficult comparison examples, is "Seeed Studios" doing art and staffed by artists, or just a small short run assembly line service? How about hand wired radio amplifiers from the "MFJ Enterprises" factory floor? A guy who hand assembles multiple plain looking beige box generic PCs using components from multiple sources, is he an "artist"?

I believe you can make art using electronic parts WRT jewelry for example or perhaps wall hanging "sculptures", or truly wild/exotic case designs, or ground breaking UI design, but making a conventional appearing tool for an artist to use does not transition the art-i-ness to the dude who runs the factory machinery that makes millions of painters brushes per day, for example.

We seem to disagree, and that's OK. The problem seems to be Etsy and I agree, which is not so OK for your shop. I think thats being missed in the discussion of small details of legal documents on both sides, it is probably the big (undiscussed) issue they have with you. Probably because they're unwilling to have a public "what is art" debate, so instead lets argue about if you PCB or panel mount your potentiometers. Don't miss the forest looking at the individual trees.

BTW your blog does not contain much text, but if you made that PDP-1 panel as pictured, I find that both artistically and technically impressive. Its artistically cool looking as a visual display such that etsy might tolerate something like that "as art" In the 60s DEC always had better aesthetic sense than IBM, although both pale in comparison to 80s-ish era Crays and Connection Machines.