Hi, I’m stoked to see the Mini back in production, it looks beautiful, just perfect. I don’t believe I’ll be able to afford one, but I’m still super excited and can’t wait to try one out.
I’m hopeful, however, that Moog Music might make some of the newly manufactured parts available to people who own and love their vintage Mini’s. Like, obviously within reason.
For instance-- my Mini desperately needs new switches-- particularly blue and red ones. These have been completely unavailable for as long as I’ve needed replacements (mine have no click left in them whatsoever-- it’s like switching butter). I’ve been told that the Moogerfooger switches don’t really fit well-- but I’m assuming the ones you’re making for the Model D will work on vintage D’s.
That was the 1st thing I thought of when I heard the Model D was being re-introduced because of the difficulty I had tracking down one waveform rotary switch for my 1973 Minimoog. Then next I wondered why the new Minimoog didn’t have sync nor LFO driven PWM as provided by some professionally done mods by RMS back in the 70’s
I think you’ll find that the new Model ‘D’ uses completely different parts hardware-wise. It’s all been redesigned to ‘look’ like a Model ‘D’…!?
Components-wise, if you wanted say a 2n3904 transistor or whatever they are readily available on eBey etc.
Exactly… just as everyone says that the new Model 15 app for the iPad & iPhone is: “just the same an a real Model 15” - but you’d be hard pressed to interchange parts from those too…
I don’t think that does answer the question completely. Quoting Moog’s service policy is all well and good, but I suspect the OP was wondering if parts would be available and/or compatible with vintage D. I very much doubt the two models will be compatible in any sense, so forget about component swapping.
In theory… if Moog have indeed copied the original circuits but implemented them in a more ‘modern’ way - for example all the rotary switches and pots are directly PCB mounted as opposed to the original way which was to hand-wire them all to the PCB connectors - these rotary switches and pots could be retrofitted into an original Model ‘D’ - as they would supposedly be the same/correct value pot or have the same number of stops in the case of the rotary switches.
But the question would be - why bother? Pots & rotary switches can be sourced elsewhere and you would actually have more of a chance finding NOS exact replacements ie: old AB pots etc which would be preferable anyway.
I’d hazard a guess that the rocker switches used in the new Model ‘D’ would be the same ones they are using in the Moogerfooger range… and anyway, those original vintage Model ‘D’ switches are serviceable. They can be dismantled, cleaned, lubricated and reassembled quite easily..!
Of course, but from what I understand, vintage parts are actually being re-manufactured. They should be interchangeable.
There’s a photo from Moog-fest of an exploded new Model D, and from the looks of it, in addition to re-printing the original circuit boards, they’ve reproduced the cabinet and other proprietary hardware. I didn’t see any hardware mounting PCBs, so, it would appear that they are panel mounting the hardware. I also read a quote that suggests Moog is re-manufacturing UA726s for this project.
It’s really not that difficult to re-manufacture old parts anymore, and this appears to be what they’re doing.
It might be relatively easy to clean and restore the switches to full electronic/mechanical functionality, but in order to restore that satisfying ‘click’ it looks to me like they need to be rebuilt. It’s not easy. It’s not even easy to take them apart-- if I remember right, the plastic switch is bolted into the metal frame. I’m sure Kevin Lightener has figured out some way to do it, but I haven’t been able to.
Like I said, within reason; I don’t expect Moog to open up a parts shop for ‘legacy’ Mini’s. But c’on, making a few switch sets available (if they are indeed re-made) would be a nice gesture.
If you watch the video of them assembling the new Model ‘D’ in the Moog factory - you will see that all the pots & rotary switches are mounted directly onto the PCB’s. Yes, that hardware (pots & rotary switches) is then mounted to the front panel… but they are completely different parts and there is no ‘wiring’ as such, like the vintage Model ‘D’ has in abundance. It makes sense though, because it keeps the cost down etc…etc… it’s the 'modern way of doing things - but I can assure you the PCB’s, the sockets the PCB’s plug into, the switches, the pots, the rotary selectors, even the knobs (being push-on types) will all be different. Moog didn’t manufacture all those parts originally, they bought them in and those old parts are not made anymore. The only chance would be finding NOS, and that wouldn’t be cost effective. Vintage AB potentiometers are expensive, so they have gone with modern-day equivalents.
Then, I stand corrected in regard to the panel mount parts. I’ve only seen a few snippets of press about it, and I was pretty impressed that they were using the original PCBs and re-manufacturing components. I was hoping that might extend to some of the hardware as well (like the switches I need).
Naturally it’s cheaper to use modern off-the-shelf equivalents for obsolete parts, but it’s not like it’s impossible or even particularly difficult to re-manufacture parts today. Much smaller companies than Moog do all the time. All you have to do is look at all of the vintage instrument part suppliers on ebay for evidence of this.
Why re-manufacture a vintage metal & bakelite 6-way selector switch when many electronics suppliers have the modern cheapo plastic versions readily available, off-the-shelf…? Of course you can also fit one of those into a vintage Minimoog and it will work, but purists will want the original unit. I have serviced many of the rotary switches in Minimoogs. They are ‘modular’ by design - they dismantle and can be serviced. You can’t say the same for the modern sealed plastic equivalents.
I’d suggest you remove your original rocker switches and service them…!
Well that quote was wrong. I’m an EE and have been under the hood of my own Minimoog, which is equipped with the 3046-based oscillator board. I can spot 726 and 3046 and discrete boards a mile away, and they are cloning the 3046 board. You can still purchase parts for that board. No one is cloning the UA726-based board.
It’s really not that difficult to re-manufacture old parts anymore
Famous last words. You are not an EE and know nothing of integrated circuit fabrication lines, how fast previous fab technology becomes obsolete, and the work and money involved to transform a twenty year old substrate design to modern fab lines is prohibitive. The design process alone is six digits, and fab lines demand up-front payment for a minimum 100,000 pieces before they even tool up. By then you’re up to half a million dollars. As a Minimoog would use 3 UA726s per unit, the math tells us that Moog would have to sell 33,333 Minimoogs to use up all those UA726s. They barely sold over 10,000 by 1981 when the original production ended. Math sucks, but so does reality.
Perhaps they were talking about the having the CA3046s made. Or perhaps the quote was ambiguous or even misleading, or maybe I just plain misunderstood. I’ll try to find the reference.
I also happened to be talking about hardware parts, like switches for instance. I don’t believe hardware parts are so prohibitively expensive to fabricate these days that Moog couldn’t use them if they so desired.
But for the sake of argument—in the past several years, I’ve noticed a ton of ICs that had previously been been difficult to source, all of a sudden becoming newly available and relatively inexpensive again from Chinese distributors. I’m sure you’ve noticed this too.
Perhaps a company like Moog that may have an interest in sourcing obsolete ICs wouldn’t necessarily have to take on the full expenses you’re talking about (as they would have years ago), when there are Chinese firms already doing this sort of work, and already making it possible to get old chips newly manufactured at a cost that’s non-prohibitive. This is simply the conjecture that I made when I heard Moog was having obsolete ICs newly fabricated. Is this foolish conjecture?
