I’m one of the founders of Synth Swap, an online community based marketplace where musicians and DJs can rent music making equipment to one another. We launched a few weeks ago locally in Berlin, where we are based in, with plans to expand further later.
We’ve already got quite a neat selection of inspiring instruments and DJ equipment available from the community. Feel free to have a look at: Store — Synth Swap
Our aim is to build a super neat community of sharing for musicians and DJs, while also enabling a more circular and sustainable approach to consuming (electronic) music gear.
Would love to hear any feedback or answer any questions anyone might have - it’s all tremendously useful for us to develop the service further and your time is very much appreciated!
Seems great on paper! When are you starting in insert capital city here !?
My only concern is putting a machine up that is difficult to repair/buy a replacement regardless of insurance amount. My monomachine is bored and needs a babysitter, but the thought of someone accidentally breaking it scares me. i assume users can amass a “reliability” rating which gives users confidence.
Thanks @waftlord Yep we are gathering feedback and borrower ratings for all orders and got an insurance solution that covers pretty much any damage/theft. What you mentioned is of course what we consider the biggest risk case - a device that’s hard to replace and has a lot of sentimental value getting damaged. Money doesn’t necessarily cover the emotional loss and that’s what we tell any lenders on the platform as well to consider when they’re thinking of items like this
Hopefully we’ll be in insert capital city here soon
People have been calling for something like this for ages - I hope it works out.
I can’t help thinking prices are a bit high though as they are now. Eg €75 for an OT for the week. Personally at that price I’d do what I do now - Buy a used one, take my time and resell if I didn’t like it. For half that rental cost I’d think about it. But maybe others are looking at it differently.
Thanks a lot for the pricing feedback @kairos that’s very useful for us for finding a good balance where both lenders and borrowers are happy
OT mk2 75€ is for two weeks though, 1 month is 110€. Would be curious to hear if that changes your perception of the price at all or if you’d still consider that to be too much
Sorry for getting the duration wrong. It wouldn’t change my mind for something like the OT with a learning curve. But I’d be tempted for a Juno or other vintage synth that I might see as a bit high maintenance to own. And a few of the lower end synths are very well priced - I wouldn’t hesitate to grab a Dreadbox or something for €20 to play with for the weekend.
I predict a glut of sample packs in the near future
Thanks, glad to hear that @Bitsnbobs You can head over to https://www.synthswap.de/ - from there you can sign up as a lender of gear or browse the store in case you’re interested in borrowing something from the community
Yep we are gathering feedback and borrower ratings for all orders and got an insurance solution that covers pretty much any damage/theft. What you mentioned is of course what we consider the biggest risk case - a device that’s hard to replace and has a lot of sentimental value getting damaged. Money doesn’t necessarily cover the emotional loss and that’s what we tell any lenders on the platform as well to consider when they’re thinking of items like this 
Typical use cases we’ve had so far (we collect this data for all orders):
Yep we’re currently active in Berlin only since we’ve just recently launched. But the plan is to expand 
