My New Voyager is from “The Bad Chip Era”

[Tom Liberatore]

After waiting years to finally purchase a Voyager RME, I was unlucky enough to get one from the “bad chip era” serial #1844. It worked perfectly for the first week, then certain patches started dropping out, now it is pretty much in free fall with only oscillator #2 working. I was going through the testing procedures but stopped when things started going south. I wrote to Moog but haven’t heard anything since before Christmas, they are probably on holiday break. During my testing, it seemed like just the oscillator section was failing, what is the usual remedy for “bad chip era” synths? What am I likely facing here?
Thanks,
Tom

[till]

There is a period of TI switching chips known to be faulty on Voyagers. As there are many of these chips used on the analog board, it is only recommended for experienced electronic soldering musicians to take care of this at their own risk.

This is what Moog wrote many years ago:

Dear Registered Owner of the Minimoog Voyager:
Thank you for being a Moog customer and owning our finest hand-built analog synthesizer, the Minimoog Voyager. Moog Music has a reputation for making world class instruments and we expect them to give you a lifetime of musical pleasure. Whenever this experience is compromised, we must take steps to rectify the issue as soon as it is known to us.

It has come to our attention that an isolated number of Minimoog Voyager Analog Boards built between mid-2010 and January 2013 may have been populated with faulty IC’s. The intermittent nature of these faulty IC’s was not captured during our Total Quality Control program at the factory. Please know that the potentially faulty IC’s were replaced in Minimoog Voyager production beginning January 2013, as such we are confident in the reliability of the product we are shipping today.

If you are the original owner of a registered Minimoog Voyager (any model) purchased between mid-2010 and January 2013, and experience any of the following issues, please contact Moog service ([email protected] or 828-251-0090 x221) or your international service center and we will service your Minimoog Voyager as soon as possible:

• All oscillators are subsonic or inaudible
• An oscillator no longer works
• One or both filter channels no longer works
• Envelopes trigger incorrectly
• Switches no longer trigger audible sonic changes
• Mod buss no longer functional
• Source/Destination assignment no longer functional
• Loss of pitch control
• Failure to trigger via keyboard or MIDI
• LFO will no longer sync to keyboard or MIDI
• Oscillator Wave Shaping section no longer works

Thank you for your continued support of Moog Music.

Sincerely,
Michael Adams
President Moog Music Inc.