MoogSpace: rather boring ?

The Moog Forum Moog Music General Topics Forum
1

Hello,

I am a Moog Space member and I wonder why it is so boring ? Noone answers the problems with the web pages (pictures of users only as download, not shown on a page; posting will send you to the homepage and not to the thread you answered; …)
And nothing new from Moog since a month or so.
I am bit disappointed by this rather dead thing. I thought the little member fee will give us an up-to-date plattform. And Moog music providing paying members with information. But I received the news about the new Voyager OS from the public forum, then (a few days later) from the Moog Music News page. And still no word about it on the Moog Space pages.

So where is the special content to justify the member fees ?
On the good old public Squarewave Yahoo group was more information and more life. Maybe because this Yahoo thing had several contributers that were lead by Greg in a very well way. Greg, I miss Squarewave.

Sorry, I think I this Moog Space is born dead. And I wonder how you will get new members this way.

(this is my very personal opinion, others may think different about this)

Edit:
I will be offline for the next week due to some synth-free vacactions.
I will read answers im a week. So please be patiant if you are waiting for an answer on this topic from me.

2

Til is completely correct in his assessment of the current state of MoogSpace. We have been so focused with the NEW LP Stage Edition, FreqBox, Voyager Select Series and tradeshows that we have neglected to update MoogSpace properly and keep it fresh and interesting. We apologize for that.

Moving forward, and with renewed vigor, let’s look at revitalizing the site. First, we are so close to releasing the Moog Modeler. The Moog Modeler is an interactive document that will allow the user to show patch settings and configurations to their fellow Moog enthusiasts using a handy ‘drag and drop’ tool. This will be very COOL!

We will also be adding more content in the coming weeks that should be informative and interesting, to include, a new interview with one of our endorsed Moog artists- make sure to check it out!

It is important to note that the reason we launched MoogSpace is our belief that our fellow Moog enthusiasts would like to help build this community. We have some of the most informed and creative folks in the music industry. It’s not hard to see if you participate in the forum. Like any building process- it takes time. Please be patient with us as we try our best to make it a viable and happy place for all to use!

Moog Music

3

I’m sure that others have made this suggestion before, but I think it’s fair to raise it again:

I think MoogSpace should be a free service.

It only stands to promote your own products, and as is obvious to anyone who reads this forum-- there is significant amount of growing interest in these products. But you’ll be curbing this natural growth if you limit the space to paying customers.

I won’t speak for everyone, but I myself am never going to pay any amount of money to have access to that space. I’m a struggling musician, and I frankly can’t afford it.

I do however contribute to this free forum often, and I’d like to believe that I enrich it’s content in doing so. But you will never have my content on the restricted space because you’re asking me to pay you for my contributions (which I offer to you for free). It doesn’t make any sense.

And this is all besides the fact that there’s very little Moog content on Moogspace to begin with. If it was free, there would already be alot of valuable content there-- and you wouldn’t have to worry about being the sole contributer.

It’s just a suggestion. I have much respect for your organization, and Bob Moog’s legacy, and I sincerely wish you well with the endevour. But I feel like you might be going about it in the wrong way. I could very well be wrong.

4

i tend to agree with eric coleridge on this. not only should it be free, you should be able to look at everything there without registering. one reason i am willing to contribute to this forum is that i know what i contribute will be free and easy for anyone to read, and i appreciate that others here are willing to give me the same consideration.

i also own a synthesizers.com system, and even though i regestered for the syntesizers.com yahoo group, which is free, i hardly ever go there because it’s too much of a pain to have to log in just to look at stuff. that site has as much traffic and content as it does, i think, because it started as a mailing list, and it used to be easier to use. so all the people that were using it before kept using it, even after it got to be more inconvenient. and i am a little annoyed that stuff i posted there, back when it was open, is now only available to registered users. it’s not so much that i think what i wrote was so great, it’s just that i feel like i shared my knowledge and opinions under certain conditions, and then those conditions changed.

i understand that if moog music spent money on creating the moog space site, they want to make it back. and i also understand that moog music probably doesn’t have a lot of extra money for stuff like this. and moog music is a privately held business that has every right to allocate resources however they see fit. but as a customer, i probably won’t register for moogspace either. if i want to spend money on moog stuff, i’ll just buy a few more moogerfoogers than i have already. in fact i’m still waiting for my 3 preordered mf107s, as well as a 104z that should be here on monday. and i could always use some more cp251s since four of them just isn’t enough.

i think, as eric says, many of us on this forum add value to moog products by contributing to this forum free of charge. even people on this forum asking questions add value to their products, as it is only questions that will result in answers from other forum members.

it is hard to quantify precisely how much value we as forum users add. was anyone on the fence about buying a cp251 and changed their mind because of how enthusiastic i am about this product? did i change anyone’s mind about how cool i think the mf107 is going to be? i don’t know. but the fact that this is such an active forum is publicity moog music wouldn’t be able to buy at any price.

like eric, i will also not join moogspace if it is a proprietary service. my reasons are a little different. i could afford it now, but i don’t want to contribute to something that is not free. i decided not to sign up for the trial period for the same reason. i’ve been waiting for them to change their mind about making it a proprietary service. and as i said earlier, i’d rather just spend the money on more moog hardware.

5

Just a few thoughts that have been going through my mind…

Moog Space strikes me as trying to be something different than the forum. The forum is a place for those of us to post and ask questions and rant and complain, whereas Moog Space offers something different, or at least it has potential to.

Also, I thought of something the other day - do any of you folks read music magazines? I’m a bassist, and I buy Bass Player and Bass Guitar regularly. They’re $5.99 and $4.99 respectively. 12 issues a year for both costs over $100! I’m just really into the instrument and have always been interested in reading about other players and instruments, etc., so to me it’s worth it.

And finally, I think we’re really spoiled by the internet. When I was first learning the guitar and bass (early-mid '80s), there was no internet - my only sources were magazines and books and listening. One thing about the internet that’s really great is the fact that there is a lot of “free” information (still gotta own a computer, have internet access, etc., unless you like to hang out at the library, plus you’ve gotta look at that information critically), but I don’t think that there’s any obligation for a company like Moog to make everything online free. Of course making everything free would be great for us, and those of us that want it to be free see it as the best thing that Moog could do, but maybe they see things differently.

Again, just some thoughts running through my head lately…

6

Not that I even particularly care so much (as there really doesn’t seem to be much of anything on MoogSpace yet that I’m dying to see), but just for the sake of argument:

I think it’s not a fair analogy to compare this site to a guitar/bass/instrument magazine. I’ve never particularly been an instrument magazine reader myself(I do like biographies though…) but at least in a magazine you have, I assume, independent writers discussing the individual merits of various manufacter’s instruments. You pay for their opinions, articles and interviews-- it’s a product itself.

MoogSpace, on the other hand, is an advertisement more less for Moog products. Why would anyone pay them so that they can advertise to you.

It’s also, I’d assume, a support for their products. Product support is suppossed to be provided without charge-- it’s just good buisness practice. To ask buyers to pay for product support is, frankly, a little disrespectful IMO.

I’m not trying to insult the designers of MoogSpace-- I’m sure they have the best intentions in mind-- and thought this would be a good way to facilitate various promotions and product support at a small cost to the buyer. But I just don’t think it’s very well thought out. There are other ways to make money off a website besides charging a registration fee.

Not to add insult to injury, but I visited MoogSpace during the first month when it was free, and didn’t find anything all that compelling there anyway. I probably browsed the site twise and gave up. This forum site, on the other hand, I browse frequently.

7

I think moogspace is great but i dont see the point of making it exclusive and payable. this mooger forum should replace the moogspace forum. theres too much overlap and the the moogspace forum is never gonna come close to this. All the other stuff on there is great but the payable thing is a bit pointless. It really should be an open resource for all to use. There would be much more life on there if that was the case.

So my suggestion, make moogspace free and move this forum into it to replace the one thats there. Its just not gonna work having this forum and the other one.

8

goldphinga:

Actually right before they cut off the people who signed up for “free trial period” like me they actually modified the messageboards on moogspace like you are talking about.
There is no longer any forum overlap like when they started moogspace in december.

They now only have like 2-3 forum categories that have to do with “help my moog is broken is ____ this way” or like “here are some cool patches” category.

so i think they have adjusted to users requests in that way…no overlap

i still probably won’t get a membership to the website but just thought i would let you know

9

ok thanks :O)

10

Not that exactly, but I’ll tell you something -

When I discovered this forum I’d been out of things for quite a few years. I didn’t know about the Voyager and as far as I recall I didn’t even know Moog was trading again. I was just doing a search on `Moog’ and found this forum.

People here were talking about the Voyager. I found out it existed, and read a variety of impartial reviews. If I hadn’t found this forum I may have bought a second-hand MiniMoog instead, which wouldn’t have helped sales at all for Moog as they are now. If this had been a closed forum back then, I may never have spent the money on a Voyager.

I’m in full agreement with the reservations being expressed about MoogSpace - I’ve already expressed similar reservations in the past. I suspect Moog may have been listening and responding, because I fully expected this open forum to disappear and be replaced by the MoogSpace one. So all credit to them for that.

Of course as soon as you create a paying service you ask for precisely the situation that gave rise to this topic. If you buy one of the music magazines that were mentioned earlier, you expect there to be a team of writers, an editor and so on, and not just people contributing if they can in between doing other work. Quite rightly, the priorities of Moog employees are building instruments and running the company efficiently. Words come second to that. Moog isn’t like a magazine house, concentrating specifically on the content of the latest issue. Because of that, selling a space for a set amount each month is asking for trouble - or at least asking for people to question whether they’re getting what they’re paying for.

11

I buy my subscription to moogspace in february. I paid U$s 12.95 that is close to $39 in my country (i live in Argentina). I´m a student, so I haven´t a lot of money, but one dollar for month is afforable. I paid because I think it will be helpfull to learn more about my LP SE (that is my first analog synth). I´m a little disapoint becuase since I paid the moogspace doesn´t update. I think there will be more contest for the subscribers and tips of the pros. But since I pay, the moogspace seems like dead. I don´t want my money back, I want a live moogspace, with tips, contest and exclusive bonus.

12

Maybe another possibility would be to make it an available service to Moog product owners. For instance, when you register your warrantee card, you could be added to the registration list for MoogSpace. This seems much more fair to me.

I just find it a little distasteful that Moog has reserved “Ask Amos” to a restricted pay service. I mean, am I right or wrong that customer support should be free?

I should also say:
I’ve actually never had a problem with any of my Moog products, and haven’t had to consult their customer support yet-- so it may very well be, I’d assume, that there already is sufficient free Moog product support… and so my argument may not be completely sound.

Even so, I don’t know why, but it still seems weird that I can’t ‘ask Amos’ anything without paying some registration fee (after already spending thousands of dollars on Moog products-- and being a pretty loyal customer to Moog for years-- and Moog products are about the only newly manufactured instruments I would buy-- that’s pretty loyal).

Is this overly critical?

13

well, i’m beginning to feel like all the points to be made on this topic have been made. some of us think moogspace would be worth subscribing to if there were more content. others such as myself would not subscribe because the way it is set up doesn’t appeal to us. it doesn’t seem like moog music has any intention of discontinuing this forum, so those of us not excited about moogspace don’t really have anything to worry about.

i am a moog customer because many of their products appeal to me. not every product is for everyone, and not every moog product is for me. the moog products i buy, i buy not out of loyalty, but because they meet my needs and desires better than anything else available (in particular, features like the useful internal patches, and extensive cv control options). for other moog customers, being able to claim membership in some kind of official “moog club” might be appealing, and if there are enough of these people, then i’m happy moog music is meeting their desires with moogspace. maybe it wouldn’t be quite as fun for these people if it were free.

i personally don’t care for exclusive clubs. i probably miss out on a lot of good things in life as a result. everyone misses out on something, and the world is interesting because not everything is for everyone. i think the best things in life are free, so i’ll keep posting here on this forum for now.

(speaking of exclusive clubs, why are there so many peopla from the seattle/puget sound area on this forum?)

14

With our loyalty & the price of their products, it is almost a given that they should provide a warm body or two for online support as a simple user community such as MoogSpace that really is as self-sustaining as this forum. That is to say, do they really make enough money from the presence to justify our mutual feelings of lack of value to warrant at least not giving registered owners free access?

I consider it to be the cost of doing business & operating as a one-up company willing to go the extra few feet in providing a practical service to keep we the consumers happy in the entire MOOG experience & keep happily creating support & content for said presence, not to mention continued future business with them!

15

I just find it a little distasteful that Moog has reserved “Ask Amos” to a restricted pay service. I mean, am I right or wrong that customer support should be free?

Amos knows a lot about current and recent Moog products, but little about vintage.
(no slam, of course!) :slight_smile:
I know a lot about vintage, but little about current products.
However Moog doesn’t repair vintage and I’m not authorized to repair newer Moogs.
So, neither of our knowledge base will expand much.

IF MS charges for advice pertinent to newer products, that can be interpreted as an insult to a recent purchaser.
So this isn’t particularly pretty to a person who just paid money on a product and has problems or questions.
At the same time, if I joined MS, I’d be charged to provide vintage advice.
That’s not right either. When I come to a forum, it takes time and thus money.
Therefore, I already pay to participate on these forums.

Thus the current MS scenario leaves only out-of-warranty newer Moog products to be officially supported and only paying members (usually not pro techs) to support vintage.

Lately (and not proud to say so), I’ve been receiving emails critical of current Moog service.
Turnaround time and correct repairs being the two main gripes.
It’s unfortunate, but I can’t offer these folks anything more than my sympathies.

But a little knowledge goes a long way.
When I was a tech at Roland US, phone support (analogous to online forums in this case) often avoided a unit having to be sent in.

So it is my opinion that by providing timely and accurate support via MS… for free… it would help cut down the number of products sent back to Moog for repair.
This would decrease the turnaround time on other units requiring actual service.
A Moog service / support FAQ with symptoms and cures would go a long way to this end.

16

Now hang on…

Can we still “Ask Amos” in a email for tech support? Or only on Moogspace?

17

Gotta Love a good open discussion! Like anything new, there are growing pains, and i hadn’t really expected MS to be all chock-full of great stuff right off the bat. But I do think I need to toss in my hat.
Firstly, i own a Voyager, and a Little Phatty.
I bought the extended warrentee for my Voyager, as i just felt like buying “insurance”.
I realise how complicated these beasts are, and can understand Moog wanting to do the service on units in OR out of Warentee. But ANY possibility of handling problems or questions before a unit must be returned should be top priority. It is a win-win situation for us if we can do a software upgrade to get our instruments back up and running. When i got my Litle Phatty, I had a hopeless mess with the software. I posted at Squarewave, Phatsound, and in the forum.
Love
I got such a tremendous and absoluely pure amount of help, and new version of the software appeared soonthereafter, and nothing had to get sent in. Nobody talked ‘down’ to me, and everyone involved just doubled my Loyalty, and sense of community. You are all people i would welcome as friends.
That said, ANY definitive Resource will take time ($$$ too) to set up. I think that a forum can answer many situations, but there does need to be a place for files, downloads, and an occasional article. I agree that it should be free, as it is EXCELLENT advertising. But i don’t expect it overnight.
And off topic, I sure do hope that Moog will put some effort into a long-view on service. What will happen after a warentee is out, and should those technically inclined folks who want to do Moog service, be allowed or schooled to do so ? I certainly think there is room for at least a few service centers for instruments all over the globe. The less distance I would have to ship my gear, the happier I would be.

Thanks Bob, and thanks for listening , all of you.

18

I agree, everyone likes having a wonderful instrument, but having a small, personal company seals the deal for me.

19

I have never had better customer service than with Moog. Never was it stated that Moog customers would be kept out of such service without a MoogSpace account. The fee is pretty nominal and prevents those who would otherwise set up a free account to fill the space with self-promotional spam from doing so. I have adready made use of the discount, which more than surpassed the $12 fee. Think about how off topic this place might get if accounts were free. It’s a user community, $12/year is not much at all, it probably just ensures those of us who are on here are serious about it. A free service would get messy pretty quick.

20

I didn´t thinked about spam. But is true… I think that toryjames is right.