Updated 8/24

Rosen Sound is the premier option for purchasing high end vintage synthesizer gear. With that distinction comes very specific terms & conditions that are lend themselves to the reality of operating a niche business. While we wish we could be like a big box store that has the item you want new in the box ready to leave after transacting, the realities of vintage synth work & procurement necessitate a specific and often unorthodox mode of transacting.

Sales

Terms:

• All sales are final unless otherwise agreed upon.
• Once an item is sold and you requests modifications or upgrades beyond the scope of restoration, you are then entering into a separate transaction schedule and are especially expected to be patient and reasonable.
• The sale may be cancelled at any time by Rosen Sound with you or your party receiving a refund within 30 business days of notice of sale cancellation.

Condition:

Unless otherwise stated, we categorize our gear according to the following terminology and descriptions in regards to the cosmetic condition exclusively (more about the inside later). Additionally, we may often assign a hyphen to gear such as Great-Mint depending on certain factors:

Mint: This means the gear appears to be visually near perfect. The reality here is that the gear we stock is of course very old, so there will surely always be something visual somewhere. It’s extremely rare to find truly new and mint gear. When we list something as mint, we assure you it exceeds the condition of other “mint” gear we’ve had come through our door. Mint gear will always command a premium in price.

Great: This means the gear is in overall great condition with minimal signs of wear in respects to its age. This is also circumstantial in consideration of how the gear was produced & otherwise made. There is usually no premium on great condition gear.

Good: This means the gear has signs of wear and use and travel. This is also circumstantial in consideration of how the gear was produced & otherwise made. An example is the fake wood cabinets on old Japanese synthesizers which chip easily. Good condition would imply there could be some visible chips or de-lamination of these sides.

Fair: This means the gear has moderate-heavy signs of wear, use, and travel or has been re-housed in a way we find… not amazing. The prices on fair gear will usually be lower than market value. We stress to you that our best deals are on fair condition gear as you are getting the same sound and functionality for less. You can not hear the aesthetic condition of gear on a recording, we promise.

Functional condition:

All gear we sell, unless expressly stated, is functionally free from defects and has been restored according to our experience with each model and what each model requires to function as well as possible. Some synthesizers are built in a way where they operate in a non-ideal way, and in many cases this is improved upon, and also in many cases it is left as it is. These circumstances are always stated to the buyer before money is exchanged. An example of this would be buttons on a Waldorf Wave are usually finicky and the textured overlay is impossible to dust off, both of which are left alone.

The restoration process 9/10 times will happen after the item is sold.

How & Why Do You Sell Gear & Then Fix It?

This is by far the most important thing to understand about buying synths from Rosen Sound.

90% of the gear we sell is what we call restored-to-order. We clearly state this in all of our sale listings and make an even bolder note if it’s ready-to-go as it’s less common.

How:

We can sell gear in a restored-to-order fashion because of our years of experience restoring customer gear & our access to almost every part needed for what we choose to sell in this manor located in-house. Before we offer gear for sale, we always do a preliminary check to make sure the gear is first of all complete and the revision we expect based on the serial number. If needed, we do a preliminary service to the PSU or other areas we see fail often and then do a functional test. Once we determine the gear can be totally restored using parts we have on hand or can easily obtain, we offer the gear on restored-to-order terms.

Remember, we are, to use one of my favorite analogies, the farm, the processing house, and the supermarket. Other dealers are usually only the supermarket and want to pay their processing house as little as possible to maximize their profit margin. Because our farming and processing fees (so to speak) are built in to our businesses, we are focused only on the quality of delivered product and can keep our pricing fair because simply put, we don’t have to pay a tech $150 an hour to restore it or cut corners to save money and regain margin.

Why:

The “why” for this mode of transacting is a few simple facts:

1. Our repair queue is so long that slipping for-sale items through the line without any guarantee that the item will sell in a reasonable amount of time is not compatible with the cash flow needs of a business that supports many employees. It’s also unfair to repair customers who have been waiting.
2. Once gear is restored & cleaned up, it does it no good to then sit on a shelf collecting dust.

Turn Around:
Sales turn around is treated like a rush-service from our repair shop. Once a bench is cleared from a restoration project, a sales item is then restored for delivery. We try to get to it ASAP but please know delays do happen and any turn around is just an estimate. However, we try our best to state these estimates accurately and we are usually gracious with things like loaners from our rental fleet if you need what you’re buying sooner for a session.

Pricing:
Generally speaking we offer synths at market value. Some synthesizers will have a “premium” added to the price in respects to getting it from us. These premiums were put together after many years of seeing customers buy “fully restored” gear from other sellers that were far from restored and costed them thousands to get them fixed. Therefor, we charge a premium in respects to the work we put in before delivery so that our customers can be assured they are receiving top shelf product.

You can expect to see a premium on synths like the Oberheim OB-X, FVS, TVS, & OB-Xa, Rhodes Chroma, ARP 2600’s, Yamaha CS-80, Moog Memorymoogs, and some others, surely.

Warranty:
Like our restorations, all of course sales items are warrantied against work related defects. We are always happy to help with anything we have sold to you. However, please understand there is a limit to what is covered under warranty and we reserve the right to change and cancel your warranty at any time and for any reason we see fit.

Some great ways to lose your warranty:

• Have another tech work on your synth without our express consent
• Keep your synth outdoors, exposed to the elements, or in a room that allows smoking
• Keeping your synths on overnight especially without air conditioning

We do not warrant synths that are toured with but again, we are always happy to help.

We occasionally will not offer a warranty on certain synths, such as the Waldorf Wave, Voyetra 8, ARP Quadra, or other cumbersome synths that can be a bit haphazard

Our warranty is also not a blank-check for you to treat the synth however you want and expect us to fix it and it is also not a savings account that will make us refund your purchase if something fails in a few years.

Where Do These Synths Come From?

We often say we don’t find synths, they find us! And it’s true. Most of the gear we sell is gear that is offered to us by both local parties who are always hunting gear (which LA is famous for) and also by partners around the country and planet who can count on us to buy synthesizers that meet our criteria for purchases. We are also trusted by many artist to consign their collections with or without their name attached to it.

What we don’t do:

• We do not import gear from Japan or the EU on a regular basis as many other sellers do. We will of course occasionally purchase gear that was originally sold in the US and then exported to Japan or the EU but we are not one of the many regular importers who are selling Japanese/EU spec’d gear in the US to make a buck off the exchange rates. Simply put our market share in the LA area is big enough to never really have to import gear.
• We do not “flip” gear in that we buy something, test it, see its working, and then sell it immediately. Everything we sell is worked on before delivery. Pretty much the only time we will sell something without doing anything to it is if we already worked on it before and it’s in our inventory again for whatever reason.
• We don’t take the sellers word for it. We will never tell you “oh the person who sold it to us said it was worked on by X” because the buck stops with us. This is why we have a turn around for almost everything we sell… to ensure everything we sell has been properly serviced and worthy of our lifetime warranty.

  Consignment:

  Our consignment terms generally differ from customer-customer and item to item. Some things to remember:

  • You should consider consigning through us because your gear will actually sell, not because we will give you the most money (though thats often true, too).
  • We pay our consignees by PayPal or Wire. Depending on the item, we may pay after the gear is delivered to the new owner.
  • Once something is consigned with us, we begin our preliminary checks to make sure it meets our criteria. Once we begin that process, there may be a small fee to re-obtain your gear if you choose to cancel the sale.
  • We do not want you cross posting the gear on various places.
  • We will not add your item to our list unless it is physically in our shop. We are not drop shippers.
  • We don’t care who worked on your synth and what they claim they did. If it’s not to our spec, we have to consider the work we have to do into our consignment rate.

(Updated: 5/23)

Renting synths is one of the most exciting parts of our business. With that excitement comes numerous frequently asked questions you can find answers for below.

How much does it cost?
That depends on the synth! However, as a general set of guidelines:
Most synths that are valued less than $10k are between $1-150 per day
Most Expensive, usually polyphonic synthesizers are slightly less than $200 per day.
Most very expensive synthesizers (CS-80, OB Eight Voice, etc) are much more expensive per day due to their market value and in consideration the manpower required before, during and after your rental.

Do you offer multi day discounts?
Like all LA rental houses, we bill daily or weekly based on a four day week. So if you pay for 4 days, you can keep it for 7. Some ask if there is a discount if they actually only need it for 4 days, and the answer is no.
Similarly, if you pay for 3x 4 day weeks, you can keep the synth for one calendar month.

Note: In order to get the multi week discount, it must be discussed at the onset of the rental.

When does a day start, exactly?
Exactly? We don’t know. This is where reason comes in. If you call us at 4pm to book your rental same day, we will count that day as your first day. Similarly, if you book it for the following morning but really need a “setup day” the day before, and we can more or less verify that its actually a setup day and not a use day, the first “use” day is the morning you booked for and the setup day is given as a courtesy.

A little more specifically, we count a day of “use” as any day, after 12pm, that someone else couldn’t retrieve the same synthesizer for their own rental use. So say you picked up a drum machine Monday at 5pm and returned it Wednesday at 5 pm. That is a 3 day rental even if you technically only had it for 48 hours. In that same scenario, if you returned it wednesday before noon, it would be a 2 day rental.

Can anyone rent from you?
The short answer is yes. The long answer is that the first time you rent from us we will require that we deliver the rentals to you and we may also put a hold on your credit card for the value of the gear. There is a vetting process.

I'm not in LA.. Do you ship out rentals?
We consider ship-outs on a case by case basis. We will consider it if the session/event is backed by a major label or corporation for a major artist or film production. Please note that if your ship-out is approved, there is a 2-week minimum charge for each instrument, even if your need is only for half a day. We also require that the shipping be done through our cargo service. If that's not possible, UPS or FEDEX overnight is possible at your expense.

If you're not one of the above types of entities, you may consider saving substantial costs by just renting our studio. A roundtrip plane ticket, lodging, and studio time is probably cheaper.