InMusic buying Moog?

[jazzpiano88]

7 hours ago, Anderton said:

I'd known Moog music was for sale for a long time.

 

When something is for sale, what generally happens is that someone else acquires that thing. 

 

I think the bigger question and unknown (maybe someone here can elaborate) is, why was the company for sale?  The terms of sale may never be known but it could be as extreme as assumption of debt for $1.

[felis]

I hate what happened to Alesis after the takeover.

[timwat]

Roger Linn's comments should not be ignored, and might help explain Michelle's coolness in her announcement.

 

 

 

I hope this ends reasonably well, and will not be surprised if it does not.

[GovernorSilver]

[GRollins]

Remember a couple of years ago when I started a thread wherein I reviewed the One? Didn't care for it. I said then that I feared for Moog's future, although it would take time for them to unravel.

 

Behold...the deterioration is becoming obvious to even the casual observer.

 

People jumped in my shit back then and told me that I was wrong about Moog, that things were going great, etc., etc., et-friggin'-cetera. I stand by what I said then. Moog has lost its mojo.

 

Once upon a time, there was a winery called Ravenswood. Their motto was "No Wimpy Wines." Then, through a chain of circumstance, they sold themselves to Constellation. All the usual blather ensued: "Oh, we're not going to change a thing", "We're just going to give Ravenswood more money and wider distribution", "Trust us..."

 

What happened?

 

Wimpy wines.

 

Ravenswood was completely, utterly destroyed. Constellation then tried to sell the wreckage...well, never mind...the point is that this fits in perfectly with the 'Moog is going downhill' theme that I advanced after spending an afternoon playing the One in Asheville.

 

I'm going to reiterate what I said back then: No, I don't want Moog to fail. I want them to succeed. I own four of their products (if you'll allow me to include my Big Briar theremin) and like them. If, as I fear, they are going down, I'm going to miss them sumpin' awful. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to disregard what I'm seeing with my own two eyes and hearing with my own two ears. The company has lost its way. The One wasn't what it needed to be and when the flagship product doesn't inspire, there's trouble afoot.

 

I hope like hell that I'm wrong...

 

Three to five years. That's what I give them. Tops. When they start coming apart at the seams--products uninspiring and unreliable, nothing innovative or new, all critical company positions manned by mundane people--I'll start another thread, or perhaps revive that older one and say, "I told you so."

 

But I'll be typing those words with tears in my eyes, because they were one of the cornerstones of my musical universe and if they fail, it will shake my world.

 

Grey

[ElmerJFudd]

On the other hand, that is of course Roger’s perspective of how things played out. Roger signed a collaboration deal of some kind with Akai.  But Akai went out of business.  Numark bought the assets.  Did Numark legally have to honor whatever agreement Roger had with a defunct Akai?   That’s for lawyers and courts to hash out. Roger admittedly didn’t want to pursue it because, “challenging him would have been long and expensive, I let it go."

 

Modern Akai Pro as part of InMusic has at least a few hardware products that seem to be doing well.  These integrate effectively with Mac/Win.  Akai Pro also has controllers for an MPC in software.  Overall they’re doing a pretty good job of fending off NI Maschine and Ableton Push. 

[Nathanael_I]

If the company was thriving, it would not be shedding key employees or being sold to a musical brand holding company.  InMusic does not want to kill it. They have no motivation to do so.  They also have to attempt to fix whatever is wrong.  What is wrong may include things many customers love but represent unsustainable practices around products, marketing, branding, expenses, expansion rate, profit re-investment, etc.  They will likley even know that some of these changes will be unpopular, but they will have to do them.  The company has to work as a company.  I do hope they figure it out.

 

This is the truth that people in love with the brand and products find hard.  They want no change.  But it's change or die,  in this case. 

 

I have a Model D from the first batch.  It's a wonderful instrument.  It does one thing, but oh so well.  It's worth more than I paid for it now, which will likely remain true for its life.  I passed on the One.  I already have a Bowen Solaris that does most of that ground at about half the price.  For that $$, I'd go digital and the Waldorf Quantum II - it's way more flexible sonically.    I passed on all the DFAM style mini-modular things... I have a full modular.  The endless parade of monosynths is cool, but I haven't bought one.  I think as long as you have one, a stack of guitar pedals or an Eventide Max does the rest.  I think some non-players buy them and plug them into their modulars.  But that's not what I do.  A polysynth like the Dave Smith instruments is way more practical for playing out.  And monosynths from Arturia and Sequential have way more features and go more places than the Moog stuff. 

 

I don't know how others think about their product line, but not a lot interests me enough to spend money.  Moog owns a certain historic sound/approach.  But the innovation is not in that sound.  It's in newer digital techniques.  Poly-AT surfaces.  Without innovative takes on wave folding, FM,  ring modulation and other techniques to add complexity at the oscillator level, standard subtractive is pretty basic and picked over at this point.  The old MoogerFooger pedals were pretty cool, but I didn't get in on them while they were still being made.  I think they ended up being too costly to produce as things went surface mount. 

 

Manufacturing hardware is hard, and mistakes are very costly.  Look at AVID - also up for sale because of HW-related issues. 

[CyberGene]

Well, Sequential are under Focusrite, that’s how things work when you’re not big and powerful enough to sustain yourself with a niche thing such as expensive hand-made analog synths assembled in a high wage country by cool looking dudes 😎 

[Nathanael_I]

Dave Smith has always struck me as a very rational, wise business man.  He's done well, and probably sold at a great time for himself.  Much of my audio world comes from the group Focusrite is a part of (Audiotonix).  SSL, Focusrite, Sequential, Allen & Heath, Slate Digital.  I want Klang IEM systems...  Basically, it's a collection of many of my core vendors, all of whom are doing solid work.  I had zero concerns about Sequential joining that brand family.  Some of the best companies out there are part of the group. 

[CyberGene]

55 minutes ago, Nathanael_I said:

SSL, Focusrite, Sequential, Allen & Heath, Slate Digital.  I want Klang IEM systems...  Basically, it's a collection of many of my core vendors, all of whom are doing solid work.  I had zero concerns about Sequential joining that brand family.  Some of the best companies out there are part of the group.

+1. 

And you forgot to mention Novation which already make one of the best modern synths (I owned the Peak), so Sequential was not a new endeavor for them. 

OTOH the way a Moog sounds is unmatched IMO. However I’ve never owned one and would be very cautious purchasing one reading a lot of negative feedback regarding their quality 😕

[Tusker]

5 hours ago, CyberGene said:

OTOH the way a Moog sounds is unmatched IMO. However I’ve never owned one and would be very cautious purchasing one reading a lot of negative feedback regarding their quality 😕

 

I have watched the evolution of Moog circuitry since Bob began Big Briar with his brilliant Moogerfoogers. To my way of thinking, Dave Smith and Bob Moog are both heroes and experimenters but with Bob the success was always a little on the conservative side of sound. His instruments appealed to more conservative and more analog tastes. Dave Smith has always been successful at bring the revolutionary powers of digital into a very musical analog space (MIDI or vector synthesis anyone? 😅). I am not trying compare and contrast the two heroes although it might seem that way. I am just paying tribute.

 

However, that history might explain why Moog Music has been a trifle slow to embrace digital. They have often treated digital as a loss leader rather than a potential cash cow. There are many Moog circuits I love and would buy in multiple analog and digital forms. Many of them first appeared in original modulars. These include the ladder filter, the marvelously thick oscillators, the easily overdriven CP4 mixer, the frequency shifter and the polymoog resonator. Bob packaged some of these ideas into the Moogerfoogers. Sometimes the ideas were popular in the market but sometimes not. As a result of their reverence for their roots and the market's conservative taste, Moog Music has evolved into a nostalgia brand. What now?

 

I for one am eager to see fresh interpretations of Bob's ideas but also new ideas, coupled with the creative exploration of high quality digital sound.

 

 

[ElmerJFudd]

7 hours ago, Nathanael_I said:

Dave Smith has always struck me as a very rational, wise business man.  He's done well, and probably sold at a great time for himself.  Much of my audio world comes from the group Focusrite is a part of (Audiotonix).  SSL, Focusrite, Sequential, Allen & Heath, Slate Digital.  I want Klang IEM systems...  Basically, it's a collection of many of my core vendors, all of whom are doing solid work.  I had zero concerns about Sequential joining that brand family.  Some of the best companies out there are part of the group. 

I suspect Dave's sale was part of getting his affairs in order. 

[Franz Schiller]

Moog was doing interesting things earlier on, like the guitar synth, and the Animoog app. But I think they missed an opportunity to make hybrids; so it would have been cool to have a hardware 5 voice Animoog with analog filters. Or even just regular digital oscillators with analog filters; could have been an affordable poly.

[GRollins]

A big miss, from my point of view, was when they rejected the Eurorack format. Not that I think that they should have abandoned the larger stand-alone synths, but for them to refuse (I've asked them several times) to even consider Euro was a grave mistake. Now everyone from Doepfer on down has a straight-up copy of their filters, their oscillators, etc. and if Moog were to enter the field, it'd be waaaaay to late and their pricing would be too high for the market.

 

The minions in the Moog store in Asheville were gnashing their teeth when I brought this up with them. The told me they'd been begging the higher-ups to do Euro for forever, but were shut down.

 

Given that Moog has done quite a bit of re-releasing of older designs, I'd think that putting their traditional circuits into a smaller format would be a natural. Don't say it can't be done--it can. Behringer has proved that and at such a price point that they've effectively blocked Moog out of the market.

 

If Moog were to do something innovative they might be able to get a toehold, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. I think the Euro ship has sailed.

 

Grey

[Theo Verelst]

The tunings in the original Moog instruments were distinct, and were neither intended for pure analog or pure digital use at a high level of aggregation.

 

Recording an analog signal source digital, and trying to prevent the (very real) digital playback errors using the analog electronics may well be as complicated as preparing a digital sound source for sounding good through a quality DAC.

 

Ergo  in a time where digital is all, analog doesn't necessarily make it to the top.

 

T

 

[jerrythek]

12 hours ago, CyberGene said:

Well, Sequential are under Focusrite, that’s how things work when you’re not big and powerful enough to sustain yourself with a niche thing such as expensive hand-made analog synths assembled in a high wage country by cool looking dudes 😎 

I don't think this is true. It was Dave's way of being able to focus on what he enjoyed (inventing cool things), and let others take care of the manufacturing, distribution and sales side of the business. Plus, he was setting up the company and the people for a time when he wanted to lay back and not work as much. He told me this. He really ran the company on his own terms, and only cared about what interested him. Luckily for him, it actually worked out, which is a very rare thing. Sadly, he didn't live long enough to enjoy the next chapter.

[ProfD]

IMO, while the Moog sound is unique, the brand is boutique especially in a sea of competing subtractive synthesizers both analog and digital; mono and poly.

 

Since it's resurgence, a handful of synth enthusiasts have been keeping Moog afloat.  The Moog One was their Titanic.

 

Again, hopefully, this new arrangement will allow Moog to keep their doors open and continue providing  products.😎

[GovernorSilver]

[CyberGene]

11 minutes ago, jerrythek said:

I don't think this is true

Agree. I didn’t articulate it well. I actually meant Moog as a company when I said “hand-made analog synths assembled in a high wages country by cool looking dudes”. I see a lot of hipster videos about their factory and I just can’t imagine this thing ever working in the long term.

I’m sure Sequential are much better as a business model but they are still a rather niche synth manufacturer. 

[ksoper]

28 minutes ago, ProfD said:

  The Moog One was their Titanic.

 

 Maybe, but the pandemic was the iceberg.  

[zxcvbnm098]

A bit more information.....looks like it was a full purchase. The employees sold their shares.

 

https://gizmodo.com/moog-acquired-by-corporate-inmusic-1850535633

 

 

[jazzpiano88]

45 minutes ago, zxcvbnm098 said:

A bit more information.....looks like it was a full purchase. The employees sold their shares.

https://gizmodo.com/moog-acquired-by-corporate-inmusic-1850535633

 

Interesting article.  Maybe some insiders can comment but it sounds like the employees bailed out the company in 2015 by a private IPO to raise cash.

 

Also interesting about manufacturing plans.    When volume is very low, is it even advantageous to outsource to Asia?  I guess it comes down to how many people are on the manufacturing floor and the average cycle time.

[RABid]

3 hours ago, ksoper said:

Maybe, but the pandemic was the iceberg. 

No. For most music instrument manufacturers the pandemic, along with work at home and government handouts, the pandemic was a boon. But, you had to have products that fell into the mid range price items that people were suddenly buying. I would guess that the following worker shortage hit them hard.

[miden]

And Izotope is going to Native Instruments

[Anderton]

18 minutes ago, miden said:

And Izotope is going to Native Instruments

 

iZotope and Native are under the same corporate umbrella, and backed by investors Francisco Partners and EMH Partners. 

 

Re Moog and inMusic...I'd rather have Moog kept alive than have it disappear. Of course, whether it thrives as something new, or spirals downward, is up to inMusic. It's possible that they want the cachet of the Moog name, and are willing to break even with it if needed.

 

I'd love it if they gave a significant donation to the Bob Moog Foundation. Michelle's work is important and deserving of support from all corners. I support it myself.

 

I'll reserve judgement, and hope for the best. The reality is that whatever Moog Music was doing, it didn't work. Can inMusic do something different that makes it work? I don't know. Resuscitating companies already on life support is extremely difficult. Hopefully this will resolve like the Steinberg + Yamaha  marriage, not the Steinberg + Pinnacle fiasco.

[Mark Zeger]

Shouldn’t Michelle be holding major newspaper front page for Tues 6/13?

[GRollins]

3 hours ago, zxcvbnm098 said:

A bit more information.....looks like it was a full purchase. The employees sold their shares.

 

https://gizmodo.com/moog-acquired-by-corporate-inmusic-1850535633

 

 

 

The more I read, the worse this sounds.

 

If the employees only owned 49% of the shares, they never stood a chance. It sounds to me as though they were forced to sell their shares, possibly against their will. Yes, they get a short term windfall, but being forced into a sell-everything-at-once deal means that taxes will consume a large part of their capital gains.

 

If the employees were wanting to unionize because they were unhappy about the way they were being treated (is there any other reason to unionize?), then this isn't going to improve their lot in life. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a mass exodus beginning...yesterday.

 

The statement from Joe Richardson is no comfort whatsoever. It's a dead ringer for the fatuous flatulence Ravenswood and Constellation put out when they consummated  their deal. Lots of optimistic blather about how this is a match made in heaven and so forth. Once you've read one of these merger/acquisition apology letters, you've seen 'em all. Somewhere out there, there's a template that only needs the names of the companies involved filled in. Turn the crank and you have an instant press release.

 

Ah, Moog...we hardly knew yeh!

 

In five years, Moog will be worth about $10,000. I think I'll start saving my pennies. When inMusic gets ready to sell the remains of the company, maybe I'll go talk to them.

 

Grey

[jazzpiano88]

11 minutes ago, GRollins said:

The statement from Joe Richardson is no comfort whatsoever. It's a dead ringer for the fatuous flatulence Ravenswood and Constellation put out when they consummated  their deal.

 

Not following this train of logic. 

[Mark Schmieder]

This has been a crazy week for music industry consolidation: three big ones so far, with the Moog announcement dropping early today as the second of the three. I see nothing at all positive and probably the death of Moog as a brand or innovator within short order, based on what I know so far about the history of the sale and what led up to it. The pandemic has been brutal to small companies and stores; the big get bigger and richer.

 

I was already reeling from the earlier absorption of Sonible (AI based production plugins) by the umbrella group that swallowed Sound Devices, SSL, and Slate, amongst others, and then right after the Moog announcement, we find out that Native Instruments is now the official company name for the three-headed beast that includes iZotope and Brainworx (Plugin Alliance is part of it too but listed separately as they also serve as a store for third-parties). They'll move everything into Native Access when they can.

[ksoper]

At least their service center is still operational.  My Voyager was sent there on 3/7 and today I got an email that it was on the bench. That's better than their initial estimate of August.  My wife wondered if they got bombarded by communication about units in for repair.  I'll admit I was just a teensy bit concerned. 

 

 

17 minutes ago, GRollins said:

In five years, Moog will be worth about $10,000.

 

In five years my Moog One will pay for 6 months in a decent nursing home.  /s