fooger modular

[we88]

So I have 4 foogers + 251 which got me interested in modulars and I'm thinking; Why don't Moog make them in modular format, .com style or even Eurorack?

Surely this makes more sense than their dipping into the 500 series with the filter and delay modules. It seems obvious and plenty of people mention it from time to time.

maybe they don't want to eat into voyager sales or they don't think there's enough market but Moog Modular has 'ring' to it and just a little cache. I'm sure it would do well.

[ZYKLIFF]

Upon discontinuation of the Little Phatty and making guitar pedals (MiniFooger line), nobody but the folks at Moog can truly anticipate where the company is headed in this time...

I know I would like to see a dedicated hardware CV Sequencer with real 12AT7 tube reverberation from Moog. The way they see it, though, there are so many mfg's like Moon Modular making modular that mused from the og Moog Modulars. I don't think they're the same, although they are great, I know there will always be a market for Moog products. They are special and I value Moog's heritage.

[unfiltered37]

This has been discussed many times. The modular market, while presumably growing, is not a large enough market to make Moog modules viable. The 500 series, which I said on this forum should be explored before they did, is a much, much larger and growing market. The market for 500 series is the producer/engineer/studio, and the ladder and delay are just the MF circuits made for 500 series for the most part, which are probably IMO the best of their kind that anyone makes.

They have with these modules expanded into this large market, which is just not there for modular synths. So not only do they get the studio guys, but then they also get exposure for their 'real' gear, which has a pretty large mainstream appeal for musicians.

I would love to see an all new moog giant modular with many different colored jacks with all the wood and knobs, but it's even more doubtful than a polysynth.

[EricK]

Also, many of Moog's very famous modules have already been cloned (some offered in kit forms) and are offered at prices which Moog probably couldn't compete with. IF they did release modules, guess what would happen? the internets would erupt into endless flame wars about how they don't sound like the originals.

[EMwhite]

Also, there is the matter of customer support/tech support to deal with. Easy enough with a one person shop to service the small customer community (poorly in some cases); but for a company the size of Moog to falter because of all that is required to support installation, interoperability with other modules, and problems, they would be taking on quite a bit and the profit margin is tiny.

Gotta hand it to Doctor Doepfer, Roger from synth dot com, and Paul from Synthesis technologies for starting from next to nothing and building up a business (not to mention a cottage industry in each of their respective formats) from personal investments and dedication to saying goodbye to their family for countless months if not years of their life to turn their passion into a business.

But Moog comes close... forgetting about the guitar pedal argument above, the prior generation of products (MoogerFoogers through Little Phatty) were all plug and play modular; since then everything has been a recipient of control voltage and some of the products, such as the Minitaur had some really nifty CV mapping capabilities, but hard to say what the future will hold.

[Vsyevolod]

It's an interesting discussion to be sure. And yes it has been discussed a few times in the past here.

I myself went overboard two years ago and traded in an esoteric digital synth (the Hartmann Neuron) for a SS Voyager and a few Moogerfooger pedals. Then I went even more overboard and bought up a slew of MF's that someone was selling to fund their modular purchases and I ended up with 12 Foogers, a CP-251, a VX-351, and two MP-201 pedals. I have at least one of everything, two of most things, and three Murf's of each variety. It is indeed, already a modular synth. It sucks that the CV inputs are all on the back panels, though with some work this can be altered to ease accessibility. Myself, I've just raised up the back end of each pedal a few inches to give just a little better access. Others have erected patchbays to give full unfettered access from the front. Soon I'll be combining them with a new 4 panel Serge Modular system complete with Sequencers, Logic modules, Filters, Wave Multipliers and Waveshapers, Envelope Generators, and Preamp inputs. I love the quality inherent in the Moogerfooger line, as well as the patch-ability of it all.

So in my view, Moog is already making a modular synth for the 21st century. It just doesn't resemble the modular synths from the last century as much. Would I like to see them come out with Euro modules? Yes, though I wouldn't be a customer (don't care for the format). 5U? I'd probably invest in a combination of 5U Foogers and Moon Modular or others. It would not be so terribly difficult for an industrious individual to modify the guts of a Fooger to fit behind a custom designed faceplate and run shielded wires to faceplate jacks.

Anyway, you already have a good start on your new modular. Memorize the back panel of each Fooger and start patching away.

Stephen




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[EricK]

If the argument against a polysynth is that there’s no market for it to justify the expense, then one can infer that IF they were going to make modules, the route to go would be Euro because it seems that is the most popular format right now.

If they can make 500 series “modules” then you absolutely know that they can make any format of module they want. Seeing as how they have offered multiple versions of all of their products (foogers excluded) one would wonder why they haven’t already.

Back in 1992 there seems to have been barely any market for analog synths at all. Bob released the Voyager and as of today, there are all kinds of modular companies, and even some bigger companies are starting to produce analog synths again (Korg/Arturia). Credit should be given to Bob for ushering in the resurgence of analogue.

If you look at all of the functions of the various modules out there the foogers are straight forward and pretty tame. Tame isn’t what the euro crowd is doing. Foogers certainly can’t match Euro’s prices either. Would you rather have a 101 or a 904 in your system?

If they did make a module, hopefully it would be just a limited run edition clone of the 914. No one else is making that module with the toroidal coils, and that is an essential module.

Modulation is where it’s at.



Stephen, please upload some pics.



Eric

[MBlom]

Stephen, please upload some pics.
Eric

+1 !!!