It just seems that lately there are a ton of posts about dead OSCs in Voyagers. I don’t see this in the other forums. Any ideas as to why this is?
It is worrying isn’t it.
I’m expecting the return of my Voyager from the repair shop that I had less than a day with filter problems.. It was brand new…
I hope it is only teething issues…
Eden.
Impermanence.
Seriously, you are bound to get more people posting here about issues than people posting about everything being fine with their instrument !
There do seem to be issues with some Voyagers when they are new-ish. I had a couple of problem with mine when it was just over a year old. Since then though - touch wood - all is fine.
Lately, I’ve had absolutely no problems with my Voyager. In fact, the entire time I’ve had it, I’ve had absolutely no problems.
Can’t we get everyone who has no problems to post here?
Wait, there was that one time when I was trying to do a Keith Emerson solo and the dang thing sounded like crap. Then I figured out it was just the player…
Stephen
.
You need a Korg to play that solo… 
http://soundcloud.com/thealien666/lucky-man-lead-cover-by-alain
osc 2 died on mine…im waiting for my RMA# now…
some of you pointed out things that missed a key part of my post… I am NOT seeing as many problems associated with the other Moog products. Sure, people will post when it breaks, and play it when it works… but why is the balance leaned toward Voyagers? Why not the same number of problem threads with Sub, Slim, and Little? or theremin or Moogerfoogers? or the other products? I expect to read about problems on a forum like this. It just seems that most of the dead OSC problems are associated with the Voyager and not the other products.
Only Andy from customer support could maybe shed some light on this ? Are there more Voyager defective than other models, proportionnally to the number of units sold of each ?
Here
I’ve though of doing this for years now, here it is 
THIS is what I would like to know.
Any updates on your Voyager?
I bought mine used, then sent it to Moog Music for hardware upgrades (increased preset memory, aftertouch upgrade). No problems on mine.
Its all very well posting about how well your voyager maybe working, however, this doesn’t help those of us who have lucked out and ended up with a lemon, or one that needs a few visits to the synth Dr, before we can enjoy hours of playing and creating with our beloved instruments.
People pay good money for Moog products, even second hand ones, expecting quality, therefore if the trend is towards more problems coming about with Minimoog Voyager and XL synthesizers, then Moog music needs to sit up, take note and steps towards fixing this.
I live in one of the highest average income earning states in the world and yet the nearest Moog authorised repairer/ sales company is 2000 miles away on the other side of Australia! Try that for frustrating when your Minimoog Voyager is playing up.
Luckily Andy from Moog, was nice enough to help my local, very experienced synth repairer, with tips on how to fix my recently failed oscillator number 1.
Unfortunately, it started to have LFO 1 and filter envelope problems, since. First of all it all worked intermittently, now these problems are permanent.
Moog PLEASE authorise Grant at EAV in Western Australia or at least someone, other than Audio Chocolate on the east coast. Its absolutely ridiculous, expecting Moog customers in my state to ship your products 2000 miles, each way, for repairs.
James, I don’t want to start a crusade here but I tend to disagree on one point.
Speaking of one’s well behaving Voyager is not helping the unlucky mate, true. But hey, forums are not only about helping each others, it’s about sharing. Joys as weel as pains. Excitation as well as frustration.
About support: if Moog has some problems with their products quality, I doubt the forum are the only medium for them to know (I’m thinking about mail and phone here). Let’s enjoy what is working well too
Anyway. I think this might not have been directed to me personally but I’m the one who started the “my Voyager has no problem thread”, so… I think positive attitudes call more positive attitudes, in general. I just wanted to add a small stone to this road.
Just in case, if I appeared to be not giving a shmutz about the community, I sincerely apologize, this was far to be intended. I care and help as often as I reasonably can, and you’ve just found a whole bunch of Moogers here who certainly will do even more
I hope your Voyager will be top-healthy forever now, moogmate!!
Is the above statement directed towards me? If so, try rereading the OP’s posts. He seems to think most Voyagers are made defective - or at least that is the tone he has taken. That is why I said my Voyager works.
I wish you luck in getting your Voyager repaired. Please don’t take your frustration out on me, stiiive, or your other fellow forum members. I agree with stiive, we should be here to support each other.
Mine is working fine now, as it was sorted under warranty…
Eden.
I certainly didn’t say that. I didn’t mean for that to be the tone either. It was simply an observation that the Voyager forum had more posts about dead OSCs than the other forums did. I was curious if anyone else had noticed the same and might could shed some light on the reason why. There was really no attack on Moog or Voyager owners. The truth is that I would love to have one and have been looking into a purchase at some point. The fact that there were so many threads about this sort of trouble made me a bit nervous before dropping $3K. I wouldn’t have the same concern buying other products because I don’t see as many threads related to this sort of problem.
I also had to turn in my Voyager after one year of use. They changed a complete board on warranty. Everything works fine again and it was kind to change the board and not only one of the bugs that was roasted.
Thanks for the clarification.
Yes, it is reasonable to do some research and have concerns before spending good money on a premium model synth. Regarding other products, I have seen complaints about the Sub Phatty/Little Phatty (take a peek at the Phatty forum), various Dave Smith Instruments synths, etc. just from hanging out on various synth forums. Every synth, virtual and real, has issues here and there. As Alain mentioned, hardware components can and do fail, software (in the synth OS/firmware) can have bugs, etc. There may appear to be more Voyager complaints than Phatty complaints, but consider Voyagers have been made since 2000 or 2001, there are more of them in the field, and therefore the chances are something will have gone wrong with a Voyager somewhere in the world between 2000-2013 will have been greater compared to any Phatty model.
What you should consider is the level of service - what the manufacturer actually does when something does go wrong. Moog Music has going for it is the customer service (Moog itself, not the distributors), which appears to be a much higher level than the norm for big-name synth makers these days. I think the only company that might have an even better record is Symbolic Sounds (makers of Kyma). At the other end of the spectrum, Roland and Yamaha are very difficult to deal with unless you are a celebrity.
I am glad you understand that I wasn’t slamming them. I think your comment about how long they have been made is probably a big part of the story. I wonder how the quantities produced matches up. I know there are a lot of Slim/Little Phatty synths out there. But there are a lot of Voyagers too! Maybe the answer about how long they have been produced is THE answer. I was just hoping there wasn’t an issue other than that… a bad batch of parts, too much heat produced, etc.
I have to agree about Moog’s service though. They really are a great company that always tries to do the RIGHT thing!
My 2 cents trying to bring some light to this matter based on my personnal recent experience…
…I bought a Voyager XL (In Australia) and 3 weeks later, after hooking it up to a Midi Sequencer, the VCO2 disappeared. I did re-initialise the system in the Voyager Menu, VCO2 came back for a short time and then disappeared…I was quite annoyed and very disappointed about it as it is a fantastic instrument and a joyfull controller, I really love it. I usually tend to use my equipment to its limit so not unusual for me to control VCO2 and VCO3 from different sources with the OS working in the back for other stuff…I tend to control my Model D from the Voyager XL and both are related to the same family and are incredible instruments…
As it was under garantuee (thank God), I sent it to the people I bought it from in Australia and followed it up quite closely, basically calling the technicians every week, I harassed them a bit, but I really was trying to understand why a new synth has VCOs disappearing…makes no sense, if there is a problem, let’s swap the IC’s and then we’re cool, just tell me which ICs you swaped in case off it happens again and I’ll do it, usual thing when you have some vintage stuf…
SO, According to the technician who performed the repairs, the new/latest Voyager OS are a too hard for the analog board and some ICs tends to be too hot…not a problem for the digital board, but the usual analog board are driven hard by the new OS… so the best solution is to swap the boards by a new version of the Analog board:
- My new analog board is labelled: BOARD#11-0404P
So basically, the technician waited patiently for a new Voyager board from the US, took 2 months basically, they tend to ship a shit load of stuff at the same time to the importer in Australia and wouldn’t even bother posting a single board for repairs internationally…so he changed the boards, bit of fine tuning, took 2 days from receiving the boards to ship it back to me, kind of swap, easy, still 2 months to get the boards…
NOW…I have the synth back, maybe I’m getting crazy, but I’m pretty sure the resonance sounds different than the prevous board/synth I had.
I now clearly hear some kind of steppings of the filter when the resonance is cranked up (a bit like the prophet 600 filter steppings…), + the filter with mid/high resonance seems to have a bit of a different caracter, I find it a lot more nasal than it was, a bit like the VCS3 filter behaves with hugh resonance settings…it is not really a problem though, quite interesting in fact…
I would like to basically know how I can limit the resonance stepping, something in the menus??? Thanks for your help…
Anyway, these were my 2 cents based on my recent experience of repairing my Voyager XL…