Beside that, the Clusterflux is way too noisy to be digital.
…maybe 80s digital…
Hey, I’ve still got my SDE 1000!
I have a question that is probably stupid but that’s never stopped me - why can’t more bucket brigade chips be manufactured?
They can. But, since their primary application is for delaying audio while corrupting it in a pleasing way, it is not useful for the vast majority of modern consumer and commercial electronic devices. So, the price to make them is not offset by massive volume.
Thanks! I guess I should have figured that it wasn’t cost-effective, even cost-prohibitive. Maybe some analog-loving billionaire would be willing to fund such a project? 
And maybe I shouldn’t have asked at all - it was more romantic having a vision of some mystical element that no longer exists or something like that…
It would be way more mystical to think they were made out of long extinct faerie tears or something. I think it just comes down to Panasonic (or whoever) doesn’t see a profit motive in it anymore.
I just got the 104M sn 3977 from KeyMusic Brussels, Belgium 
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That and a Strymon BigSky.
Next days will be epic!
Greg
Nice! I’ve been looking at the BigSky for a while! What a wicked little box! As soon as I recover from my 'fooger splurge, I’m hitting that next…unless Moog offers a reverb alternative, of course cough, hint, cough
I had to verify, as I couldn’t find any DIP components in my MF108M.
Then I spotted pads for DIP8 components. They are on the opposite side of the board!
You have to disassemble the thing to get to them, but there is indeed an MN3007 and MN3009 BBD in the MF108M.
What about the 500 series? Nothing about its suspension.
In one respect I’m a bit glad it was discontinued. It’s a very expensive piece of gear I was considering and now it’s off the table for me. It was a classic and a great box but there really are a lot of alternatives that’s are arguably better and offer more functionality, hopefully Moog will step up to the challenge to the changing shape of things and come out with something that will knock the socks off All the others.
They killed with the Sub 37 .. Now let’s see the new side of the pedals, FX, poly synths, etc.
These things are disappearing quick there are only 3 left on ebay, for $850 and up. Glad I got one when I did!
Just scored MF-104MSD #006 from a dealer in NJ. No doubt one of the last in captivity. Dealer said he was told no more MF-104M’s are coming.
Analog Haven said they sold their last SD this afternoon and have two 104M’s left in stock; sold two to a customer yesterday.
Act fast if you want one!
LunchBox Audio near Seattle has at least one 104M on their webpage.
Humbucker sold their last stock yesterday.
It’s not that it’s cost prohibitive to make them, it’s that the manufacturing is decades evolved and the machines that used to make the old BBD chips are no longer in use or production. So that means that it’s cost prohibitive to make the machines that make the chips that would be cheap if manufactured by the trillions but would now take trillions of dollars just to make a couple thousand or so. See how easy that is to understand?
Stephen
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Coolaudio is still making BBD chips, if I’m not mistaken. And Maxon developed their own chip when Panasonic stopped production of BBDs. Not all is lost on that front.
Funny, a friend of mine just posted this a few days ago on another forum…
At least several problems in making the early IC chips. First, a fabrication plant for ANY IC design is a very expensive operation, in the billions. Second, as time has gone by, newer generations of IC design have come along every few years (this is largely related to making the internal components and wiring smaller and smaller, as well as lower power and lower voltage).
When the Fabrication companies decide to move to a newer generation of tooling, they don’t just change some of the small parts in the plant - it is more a matter of ripping out the old stuff completely and replacing it with the new (which also means that they need to keep the plant running near full capacity while the particular generation is in effect to attempt to amortize the facility). The old stuff is generally not kept, but is scrapped. There are a number of reasons for this, the largest being that the company has no intent of making more of the old designs in the future.
Add to that the fact that most all of the older generations of ICs were internally made using lead, which is not unusable because of legal rulings.
Stephen
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Funny how that doesn’t change the fact that both Maxon and Coolaudio are still in running their own fabrication.
I hadn’t thought of the lead process used to make BBD chips as a factor before. I wonder if Moog gets an exemption for them since they’re a vintage chips or if they get new chips and convinced the chip maker to switch over to a lead-free process.
Moog is using NOS chips. Maybe the ICs currently in production don’t sound as good, or maybe it it’s the vintage scarcity fairy dust that helps to sell the Moog and EHX pedals.
Yes, you’ve nailed it!
They’ve stopped selling MF-104Ms so that they can sell more MF-104Ms.