Well folks, there you have it. I’ve decided to sell my precious Memorymoog. I’ve been tossing around the idea of selling it for years now, but I’ve always changed my mind. Reason being was because mine has always been fully functional - and I gigged with it for years. I never understood all the fuss about “unreliable” or “unstable”. The worse thing that ever happened to mine was that age caught up with it and it was in need of a general overhaul, which I had done. Now this Memorymoog is a PLUS unit, so it has the rudimentary midi. But during the refurbishing it was recommended to me that the sequencer part of the modification be removed for stability reasons. I agreed. It was silly anyway. Something like 645 notes… anyway it was completely useless. It does have one minor issue in that there is one voice out of six that doesn’t always tune upon power-up. It returned from it’s refurbishing this way, most likely due to jiggling during the trip back. It never bothered me because I was using it mostly in monophonic mode anyway, so I just defeated the one voice and played on. For all I know, when it jiggles it’s way out to it’s new owner, it could very well tune all six! Either way, for a qualified tech, it’s not that big of a deal.
I’m going to be asking $3500.00 for it. I believe it to be a good price for an excellent machine. It always was a great working synthesizer and still is. I’ll be putting it up in ebay, but I wanted to let all of you here in the Moog Forum know about it before I did that.
From what I’m told, there are as little as 500 of this units left out there, and only a fraction of them are in working condition. It’s value has gone up in the past decade, and with a Kenton or Lintronics upgrade, this synth would be an incredible value WELL beyond my asking price - and one hell of a road worthy WORKING keyboard players synth at that. It is NOW!
Anyway, there you have it. This has to be the hardest thing to let go of out of ANYTHING I’ve ever owned.
Good luck . Where did you have the latest repair work done ?
Early MemoryMoogs where very unstable and that includes early Plus ones. As it has been posted if you had all of the service updates done they were fairly stable. There are a lot of things in there that can cause a voice not to tune. The trim pots, ribbon cables and a few other components weren’t of the highest quality. I think another forum member (MC) did some extensive updates to his MemoryMoog which made it very stable.
Qualified techs for the MM are hard to find and most don’t like working on them Not as bad as a CS80 though
When mine was functional ( I’ll get it fix one of these days ) it would usually tune at least four voices most times five, once in awhile six. It’s a Plus but has not had all of the updates. While the sequencer was limited it had some uses .
When they work they are fantastic and not much or anything sounds like them. Are you going to replace it with anything ?
Why, only the greatest synthesizer tech on the planet. The Master of Moog. His majesty of Minis. King of the Keyboard Techs. All this and world champion Tiddly-Winks player… our own Kevin Lightner.
And yes, I’ve replaced it with a Nord Lead (a ONE that is… the original) for my live rig. I already have a Voyager, I just need to have a second mono analog synth available.
The Chuck Norris of synth repair techs! I’ll give a virtual cookie to anyone who can come up with a Kevin Lightner meme… But what an awesome deal for a MM+! $3500? The price of a Voyager? Too bad I can’t afford a Voyager, as I would surely buy this instead!
Chris’ synth is actually pretty clean.
I think I recapped the whole thing, but would have to check my notes.
The power supply would definitely have been recapped.
It tuned up as “6 tuned” in my shop, was burned in and played long enough that I felt confident on shipping it.
It arrived to Chris tuning 6 at first, but later dropped one voice.
Chris might remember things more clearly, but that’s how I recall it.
Either way, it was done a few years back.
The fact it works this well several years later actually means something in my book.
As you’re well aware of, it’s a really complex vintage synth.
My guess is a bad CEM3340 or loose ribbon.
And just as you indicated is common nowadays, I also have stopped taking them in for service.
I would be happy to help Chris out on this issue though.
Finally…
I don’t eat caviar because the sturgeon general recommended against it.
My scores in thumbwrestling have always been in the single digits.
I was the president of the hair club, but was impeached when my cabinet wigged out.
See? Sometimes the retorts can be more painful than the jokes.
Oh my! I didn’t realize who I was up against! Kevin, do you serve coffee with your puns?
Voltor, thats exactly what I was thinking regarding my asking price - A Vintage Memorymoog for the price of a Voyager. That’s a special price for those here in the Moog Forum. I plan to let it hang out a while in here but if it doesn’t sell here, there are already plans in the works that will bring that price up higher.
Either way, it’s going to be quite and adventure and everyone here will probably be able to keep tabs right here as it all unfolds.
As for that testy voice, yes, it came up at first tuning all 6, but after that it seldom does. Most of the time I end up defeating it, although it was never that far off the mark even when it didn’t - according to my ear, anyway. Funny - I have a Kurzwiel K200 out in CA on permanent loan to a friend that does the exact same thing. Ha! Talk about a bear of a synth!
Kevin, I am sure it did leave in perfect condition and worked fine for awhile and probably still will. As we agree lots of things that can just go wrong due to age in that puppy . I think finding one that clean can be a rarity.
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[quote=“Kevin Lightner”]Brian,
Chris’ synth is actually pretty clean.
I think I recapped the whole thing, but would have to check my notes.
The power supply would definitely have been recapped.
[quote=“Brian G”]Kevin, I am sure it did leave in perfect condition and worked fine for awhile and probably still will. As we agree lots of things that can just go wrong due to age in that puppy . I think finding one that clean can be a rarity.
I’ve been thinking about that for a long time. I finally concluded that it’s like something that someone told me long ago about buying a car. Don’t get one built on a Friday 'cause the workers just want to go home and aren’t concentrating on their work. Same with Monday 'cause they just aren’t awake all day. Building Memorymoogs couldn’t have been any less difficult and must have taken painstaking concentration during every aspect of the process. I think that my machine was just one of those that was put together and tested on a VERY good day. It has simply ALWAYS been a very reliable machine, even after gigging with it for 20 years. And now that it’s had some proper qualified maintenance, I believe that it’s truly a forerunner of the remaining working Memorymoogs.
This is Kevin…he has his own awesomeness. Roundhouse kicking is part of Chuck Norris’ awesomeness. We need to come up with a superpower only Kevin could have…any ideas?
Oh… one thing that I feel is VERY important is that Kevin replaced all of the bushings (bumpers? bumperbushings? Bumpy bits?) on the keyboard making it feel factory fresh once again. I’m not sure, but I think Panasonic manufactures the keyboard used in Memorymoogs, but older ones tend to clatter with key side to side action - sort of lateral clatter. Ha! Clatteral!
Anyway, this one feels brand new - quite a selling feature.
. Where did you have the latest repair work done ?
But what an awesome deal for a MM+! $3500? The price of a Voyager? Too bad I can’t afford a Voyager, as I would surely buy this instead! 
Back to Chuck Norris it is!