Time for Moog to balls up.

In a Moog Mood? Here's a forum for discussion of general Moog topics.
User avatar
Fantastca
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 3:17 pm
Location: London, UK.

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by Fantastca » Wed Mar 26, 2014 11:30 am

Time for Moog to build a neat mono synth with no patch memories!!

Flat design.

Name it: "Prodigal Son"
Moog Sub Phatty (firmware 2.1.12 beta, editor 1.1.0) | Ableton Live 9.7 | macOS Sierra 10.12.3

User avatar
MC
Posts: 2907
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:20 pm
Location: Secluded Tranquil Country

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by MC » Wed Mar 26, 2014 12:45 pm

Fantastca wrote:Time for Moog to build a neat mono synth with no patch memories!!

Flat design.

Name it: "Prodigal Son"
They already did

Image
Gear list: '04 Saturn Ion, John Deere X300 tractor, ganged set of seven reel mowers for 3 acres of lawn, herd of sheep for backup lawn mowers, two tiger cats for mouse population control Oh you meant MUSIC gear Oops I hit the 255 character limi

User avatar
Fantastca
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Feb 18, 2013 3:17 pm
Location: London, UK.

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by Fantastca » Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:39 pm

MC wrote:
Fantastca wrote:Time for Moog to build a neat mono synth with no patch memories!!

Flat design.

Name it: "Prodigal Son"
They already did

Image
How about a smaller design? And the one I can actually buy (which is not discontinued)
Moog Sub Phatty (firmware 2.1.12 beta, editor 1.1.0) | Ableton Live 9.7 | macOS Sierra 10.12.3

EricK
Posts: 6009
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 2:09 pm

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by EricK » Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:55 pm

Unfiltered,
So you want Moog to be relegated to letting DSI and other companies fill the vacuum in Moog's product line(s) so they can play it safe building guitar pedals?
Support the Bob Moog Foundation:
https://moogfoundation.org/do-something-2/donate/

I think I hear the mothership coming.

User avatar
MC
Posts: 2907
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:20 pm
Location: Secluded Tranquil Country

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by MC » Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:08 pm

Fantastca wrote:How about a smaller design?
That's a crowded market already, plenty of products. What's so innovative about being a copycat?
Gear list: '04 Saturn Ion, John Deere X300 tractor, ganged set of seven reel mowers for 3 acres of lawn, herd of sheep for backup lawn mowers, two tiger cats for mouse population control Oh you meant MUSIC gear Oops I hit the 255 character limi

Alien8
Posts: 503
Joined: Thu Oct 12, 2006 7:55 am
Location: Canada!!

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by Alien8 » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:55 pm

I'm looking forward to Monday.
Vibration emanates from all things, even nothing. Using awareness to translate vibration into "music" is something that I am whole heartedly grateful for.

User avatar
Vince Ascoli
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:58 pm

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by Vince Ascoli » Wed Mar 26, 2014 4:57 pm

Moog *did* do that. Ever heard of Moog CE? Some great products came out of that division.
Guy named Bucki worked there...
Very, VERY familiar with the history of Moog, my friend;) I also read this forum, too. But 'this' Moog company isn't 'that' Moog, right? If it was, people would still be bitching about Polymoogs and Memorymoogs, instead of bitching about the fact that they don't make them...seriously. I've owned & sold 3 MMs and (briefly) David Sancious' modded Poly, all sounded killer on their best days but only one MM was the least bit reliable, and in hindsight it was only 5 years old at the time. (Cheers to MC, who has the rare technical skills to maintain his own MM. I wish I did, I might have kept mine.) And the Mike Bucki story seems to be well told, at this point...I have no dog in that fight.

I stand by my suggestion, and I'll 'qualify' it for the history majors: assuming Moog Music was ready, willing & able (and for the record, I think they have plenty of *balls* to even exist in the first place in this day & age), a modern, contemporary Moog custom shop. 2014. Small production runs or one-offs of instruments that meet the needs & wants of the professional and diehard enthusiast. Clients pay at least half up front and get exactly what they want within reason, the laws of physics and the abilities of the engineers and builders. Maybe some of what got built would trickle down to the mass production line, maybe some of it would wind up at the EMP or on display in the far future, a la Roger Powell's recently unearthed double manual modular keyboard? That doesn't solve the problem of, say, making a high-quality 'big-block' polysynth affordable to the masses, but A) that's never been the case, and B) we've already established that the masses don't care...it's a niche thing. So custom build for the niche, charge them accordingly and if you want something special badly enough, save up for a while and make the personal investment in a quality musical instrument.
Voyager Select Maple Jade, Voyager Aluminum, Xpander, OB-8, Prophet~6, Virus Ti Pølar, DX5

nicholas d. kent
Posts: 190
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:00 am
Location: NYC
Contact:

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by nicholas d. kent » Wed Mar 26, 2014 8:29 pm

I've had a Memorymoog+ for ages though a few years ago I bought a LAMM and sold the +. It does worry me it's old fragile gear of course. Even if I'm playing one note at a time, I hear the decay of the last note. This is not something you can do with reverb though you can with multiple phattys.

I guess the selling point multiple Phatty synths is you can do separate independent monosynths any time. Even with the LAMM, it's all the same sound for all voices though. But the price with the Phatty is you are taking up an awful lot of room and buying hardware you are only going to use if you are doing a bunch of monosynths separately (I mean all the case work, displays, knobs, buttons, that all takes up room and costs you)

Still I'd have to do a stack of voyagers to get every knob a real knob and 3 VCOs like the Memorymoog of 30 years ago.

As for a regular modular. I am frustrated it's so close. Love the Foogers for being so modular-like but it's almost teasing it's so close. Have thought of rehousing them so it takes up less room and the patchpoints are parallel to the knobs but it seems so wasteful.

People have been messing with the polyphonic modular idea since people got delivery their first regular modular. That's a different kind of tease since it sounds like you should be able to just cook one up. After all by the mid 70s you could have a keyboard and get whatever number of CVs out as the keys you played but the devil is in the details. You have issues of needing to change and match X numbers of voices manually or via voltage control or the parameter.

Buchla's 200e has the only real 21st century progress imho, and the price paid is a processor in each module and currently only a small matrix patch storage device for cable routings and no means of duplicating multiple instances of a patch that I know of

unfiltered37
Posts: 645
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:28 pm

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by unfiltered37 » Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:37 pm

EricK wrote:Unfiltered,
So you want Moog to be relegated to letting DSI and other companies fill the vacuum in Moog's product line(s) so they can play it safe building guitar pedals?
I am not sure they are playing it safe, just trying to make a buck. Bob made the electronics for phone systems and hockey games, so there is nothing wrong with making money and expanding the brand so they can produce hits like the sub 37. They also make the animoog and 500 series modules, but these are all secondary products and strategic marketing for their "real gear".

But even these products are extremely good for what they are, as is pretty much all of their gear. Why make some inferior product or just something that will only please a few, but will turn out to be extremely expensive and out of reach for most? You could say that Moog has a product vacuum in large digital workstation keyboards, so why let Korg or Yamaha beat them out? Because they know how much cooler it is to have a a full on analog signal path, with many continuously variable parameters and dedicated knobs. They'd rather make exciting products than ones that are simply just bigger and more or have more bells and whistles.

The prophet 12 is the perfect example. 12 voices? Is that really necessary? It doesn't look cool, it doesn't sound analog, or unique in any way, just more features, more voices, more digital effects. Is 12 mediocre voices really better than one fat, raw powerful voice? Would you rather have a choir of Bob Dylan's or one Bob Marley?

EricK
Posts: 6009
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 2:09 pm

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by EricK » Wed Mar 26, 2014 11:28 pm

The Operator didn't keep Moog afloat either.

Moog has an infinite amount of things that comprise their product vacuum, for instance, vacuum cleaners. It's kind of lame you would use digital workstations as an example while analog synthesizers are Moog's bread and butter. Polysynths aren't beyond their scope or means. If DSI is so horrible at making polysynths, then can you really provide any reasonable argument as to why Moog shouldn't show everyone how it's done?

The brand awareness argument loses traction after awhile, especially when their "real products" are stuck in an endless cycle of repackaging.

WIth all due respect I think it's obvious you have a clear bias against polysynths. No matter what, you are determined that it absolutely won't sound good. There is a deficiency in the poly's now that people are trying to rectify. It's just a matter of time before Arturia gets in on it or Tom O get's his So4V out there. Moog has a chance to throw down the gauntlet,if they snooze they lose. But hey, at least we can get a boost pedal or a bucket brigade delay. Nobody has ever done THAT before, right?

-E
Support the Bob Moog Foundation:
https://moogfoundation.org/do-something-2/donate/

I think I hear the mothership coming.

unfiltered37
Posts: 645
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:28 pm

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by unfiltered37 » Thu Mar 27, 2014 12:42 am

If analog synth's are the bread and butter, then why use digital oscillators on what would be a flagship synth? I would say analog mono synths are their bread and butter.

Maybe I am biased against polys, but so was Bob, so you can't blame me there. But then again, the polymoog is one of my favorite synths. I guess it's more of an indifference to polys than anything else.

EricK
Posts: 6009
Joined: Fri Apr 09, 2004 2:09 pm

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by EricK » Thu Mar 27, 2014 1:12 am

Monos would ONLY be their bread and butter because polys really didn't come into the picture until Moog was about to tank anyway. Bob was long gone by then, right?

Why was Bob really against it? A lot has changed since he released the Voyager.

On a side note, I don't think the IDOW documentary really gives Bob Moog the credit he deserves in jump-starting the analog renaissance.

I got to hear a Polymoog on a good set of monitors and it sounded absolutely beautiful! Played nice also. I would own one but my keyboard skills (as you know) don't justify my purchasing one. I would REALLY consider it if Moog released a new one though, just so I can have a modern day constellation. I have been finding myself wanting to make some pads. My father's G8 just doesn't seem to do anything for me (and I don't have access to it anymore anyway).
Support the Bob Moog Foundation:
https://moogfoundation.org/do-something-2/donate/

I think I hear the mothership coming.

User avatar
MC
Posts: 2907
Joined: Tue Aug 12, 2003 2:20 pm
Location: Secluded Tranquil Country

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by MC » Thu Mar 27, 2014 10:30 am

EricK wrote:Why was Bob really against it? A lot has changed since he released the Voyager.
Money and market.

Analog polyphonics are inherently component intensive. Take the analog board of the Voyager - there are over 800 components on that thing. It's not cheap. Multiply that board by (n) voice polyphonic and the cost climbs quickly. And you'd have a pretty big package.

Bob was well aware of this and had been actively seeking compact cost-effective solutions. He had been talking with a vendor at NAMM that had developed a CEM-like chipset for synthesizers but we lost him before he could exploit that technology.

Market - there isn't the market for a $5000 analog polyphonic like there was in the 1970s/80s. Back then there were plenty of customers willing to shell out that kind of dough. Not so today. It's a race to the bottom with everything measured against price - Bob learned this back in the 1960s. Polyphonics like the Andromeda and P12 have raised the bar on features at a price. The minute a 21st century Memorymoog is even announced and not yet in production, people will complain that it doesn't have the programming depth of the A6 or the wallet-friendly price of the P12. I can get around those limitations with my arsenal but I acknowledge that many others are not as fortunate as me.

Back in the "golden era" of analog polyphonics they didn't have samplers, VAs, softsynths, and all this other technology we have today. There were no alternative back then. Today most people would scoff at the price and settle for their VSTs.

I wouldn't say that Bob was against a polyphonic. He was looking for the technology to make them economic for the market. I don't know why he did not go the CEM route.
Gear list: '04 Saturn Ion, John Deere X300 tractor, ganged set of seven reel mowers for 3 acres of lawn, herd of sheep for backup lawn mowers, two tiger cats for mouse population control Oh you meant MUSIC gear Oops I hit the 255 character limi

unfiltered37
Posts: 645
Joined: Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:28 pm

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by unfiltered37 » Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:27 am

Yeah, people would pay the price of a house or a car to get a polysynth back in the day. I can't imagine what a memorymoog might have cost in today's dollars (even with the extremely flawed design). I don't think Bob was against making anything, but his main "discipline" if you will, was analog monos, with the modular and minimoog pedigree.

But I think he recognized that you could either make a super expensive poly, or you could make a mediocre one, and Moog Music has the same challenge. The compromise is to make monos and make make them poly compatible. A rack of 6 phatties would make a multitimbral analog polysynth. So if you really want a moog poly, why not get a rack of phatties? Though it would be more expensive, I would much rather have one than a p12 or a p08 or any VA or even an andromeda.

User avatar
latigid on
Posts: 1579
Joined: Mon Jan 30, 2006 3:47 pm
Location: Auckland, New Zealand

Re: Time for Moog to balls up.

Post by latigid on » Thu Mar 27, 2014 11:36 am

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... balls%20up
1.balls up
In current usage, any disastrous situation. The balls referred to are NOT testicles. The term dates from the days of wooden sailing ships when the existence of a shipboard disaster, such as plague, lack of food or water, mutiny, etc. was communicated to the outside world by hoisting large-ish, brightly painted wooden balls up into the rigging. Balls of different colors represented different disasters and therefore served as either requests for assistance or warnings to stay clear.
Ed: What a complete Balls Up!
Ted: You said it.

Post Reply