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Moog sells its business to InMusic
- musicale 3y agoThis sounds like a bad development. Pre-inMusic Alesis produced impressive synths like the A6/Andromeda, Ion and Fusion. (Though I guess inMusic Alesis still sells their classic drum machines and some affordable digital pianos/controllers.) Not that I was really into Moog's hardware pricing before, but at least they were forging their own path and doing some interesting things, from the Moog One monster synth to iOS apps like Animoog. I expect employee ownership gave them more freedom to pursue their own destiny rather than following the herd.
- scns 3y ago> inMusic isn't free from controversy. Formed in 2012 by Jack O'Donnell, a former vice-president at DJ equipment brand Stanton > Roger Linn, who made many ground-breaking drum machines in the '80s before creating the MPC 60 for Akai, has accused O'Donnell of failing to pay him royalties after acquiring Akai, repeatedly calling him unscrupulous and a "bastard" in interviews. Is it absolutely necessary to fuck people over to get to the top? Would love to get some counterexamples.
- throw_m239339 3y ago"Business is war"... there are very little ethical businessmen out there so you're swimming among sharks and think that it becomes a game of ripping off each others. I've seen some pretty nasty stuff done in order to maximize profit... I don't want to be negative but there is a reason why these jobs attract a certain... profile... or if you can't "adapt" quickly, you're done. Of course some small shops still exist when it comes to synths, especially in Europe where one manufacturer can make direct deals with European retailers, that's why the Eurorack module format is a thing. But these aren't "maximizing their profit". It's a scene that has loyal customers that are ready to pay a bit more for ethical purposes. Does the market tend to find "inefficient" areas and someone comes in and "maximize efficiency"? I think Behringer is trying to catch all revenue in that space... edit: changed some phrasing.
- JodieBenitez 3y ago> Does the market tend to find "inefficient" areas and someone comes in and "maximize efficiency"? I think Behringer is trying to vacuum all revenue in that space... Yes. Behringer, from the start, was always about copying other brands and offer products to a larger audience through low prices. They used to do so with results of questionable quality... but not anymore. Their output in the synthesizers department has been excellent: low prices, good quality, good sound. They still rip off other brands for 95% of their stuff though... there is absolutely no imagination there. They see what works well in the market, come with a much cheaper version with a different (or not so much) design and it's done. Latest release, a Moog rip-off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LADPPcaN0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LADPPcaN0
- elihu 3y agoAt least with Edge and Crave they changed the UI so someone wouldn't necessarily know it's a clone unless they were familiar with both synths. I kind of wonder if this was an intentional decision for Behringer or if Moog trademarked their interface and thus forced Behringer to do something different?
- navane 3y agothe advantage of keeping the UI the same is that you don't have to relearn a new interface.
- JodieBenitez 3y agoI don't know... but they didn't change much the UI for many older synths. Maybe some kind of patent expiration at play here ? I'm not into legal matters.
- elihu 3y agoI suppose the interface might be covered by design patents, which are sort of like trademarks. I doubt it would be covered by a utility patent unless there was something really unusual about the interface. At any rate, patents expire after 20 years, and trademarks do not. Copyright could theoretically come into play, but I think the "look and feel" lawsuit pretty much established that it's pretty darned hard to enforce any kind of copyright on a user interface. Some of the very old synths that Behringer has been cloning were probably protected by utility patents that covered the electrical circuits, but those have long expired, and I think trademarks become unenforceable if your aren't actively selling a product that uses it anymore. I don't have any moral objection to cloning the old synths either -- our laws have mechanisms to grant inventors exclusive use of their ideas for a limited time, but when that expires it's part of the commons. That's a good thing. I do think it's gross though to clone a popular recent synth just because you can and because the original designer didn't file the right paperwork to stop other people from doing that. There's a continuous flamewar on /r/synthesizers between the people who think Behringer is a detestable parasite and the people who think they're making high-quality analog synthesizers available to the masses in a way that they never have before. I think both camps are right to a degree. I will defend Behringer's right to use the stuff that's clearly in the public domain, but I also think they have no class. They do things that damage their reputation even when it wouldn't have required much effort not to. (I'm not an IP lawyer, so don't take this as expert commentary.)
- tommiegannert 3y agoAnother possibility is that you become a target for more acts of attempted greed if you get to the top. I don't know anything about this particular case.
- iamben 3y agoCouple of relevant PG essays: http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html http://www.paulgraham.com/mean.html http://www.paulgraham.com/safe.html http://www.paulgraham.com/safe.html
- wahnfrieden 3y agoIs that his essay that talks about how lisp knowledge can save future 9/11 attacks from happening? That’s a favorite of mine. Written right after the attacks. But I wonder why he delisted it while still hosting the essay to make it hard to find but still accessible
- tjr225 3y ago[dead]
- kazinator 3y agoYou are almost certainly referring to this: https://www.paulgraham.com/hijack.html https://www.paulgraham.com/hijack.html Paul Graham compares the hijacking of an airplane to a buffer overflow attack. He doesn't claim that tools for writing more secure computer programs could prevent terrorists from hijacking a plane. He proposes the idea that some similar reasoning can be applied to preventing hijackings. It's not enough to monitor who gets on the airplane carrying what, but to separate the cockpit space from the passenger space.
- wahnfrieden 3y agoI know, that’s what I said his essay was about: Lisp knowledge would have prevented 9/11 and can prevent future hijacking attacks. Thanks for providing additional details - it's a treat to re-read his thoughts on 9/11
- kazinator 3y agoLikewise, knowledge of effective hijacking prevention techniques could be relevant in defensive program and system organization. I don't think his point is very good because array overruns in a heap can be exploitable. Lisps (and other kinds of run-times) don't necessarily separate code from data in their heaps.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Doctor_Fegg 3y agoWhether or not it's necessary, it's common in the music production business. There are several egregious examples, Gibson Guitar being perhaps the best known.
- 8bitsrule 3y agoMy opinion of Gibson was permanently formed when they bought Opcode and its brilliant Vision software (tens of thousands of customers) then just made sure that it died.
- sireat 3y agoGibson took over an audio startup a relative of mine had co-founded. Gibson offered extremely promising terms - funding, keep creative freedom, just deliver cool products. The startup delivered the products and met the goals -just in time for Gibson to go bankrupt. Inside Gibson there was endless corporate infighting. - an executive that was championing the acquisition of the startup was fired - the support was basically nonexistant afterwards (no marketing, nothing)
- tnecniv 3y agoIt’s been a pretty open secret that Gibson has been a hot mess internally for quite a while. At one point the CEO said he saw them more as a lifestyle brand than a guitar brand, like how Harley Davidson tries to position itself in motorcycles (I don’t know anything about motorcycles so maybe I’m wrong but that was the comparison going around). The best thing that Gibson has done recently has been to unify the Epiphone (their budget brand) line up with their lineup, and Epiphone’s quality has been a lot better since then in my experience. Now you can buy a relatively cheap Epiphone, slap some good aftermarket pickups in it, and have a really great Gibson-style guitar for a lot less than a Gibson.
- shams93 3y agoYup there's another example of what I think of as the "hedge fund" approach. Sweetwater started as a neighborhood music store, now its owned by a hedge fund, guys who may not even like music. Bob Moog and Roger Linn loved music and it showed in their product. But just like these other examples this isn't the end of the Moog sound, especially since they also now own all the moog software synthesis products you can expect moog to land into the akai mpc line.
- irjustin 3y ago> has accused O'Donnell of failing to pay him royalties after acquiring Akai, repeatedly calling him unscrupulous and a "bastard" in interviews. This seems extremely straight forward to sue against? Basically the claim is either never paid for specific sales (very easy to win) or stated number of sales is lower than expected (requires lots of disclosure). OR, maybe he did win in court and they simply ignored the court order?
- arethuza 3y agoPerhaps they use the "Hollywood Accounting" trick of promising payments based on profits then arranging things so that no profits are actually made?
- dylan604 3y agoI know this is the saying, but why is Hollywood given the dubious honors? Wouldn't it be just as accurate to say Business Accounting?
- arethuza 3y agoProbably because they seem to have the most egregious examples based on works that seem to everyone else to be pretty successful? "the Tolkien estate sued New Line, claiming that their contract entitled them to 7.5% of the gross receipts of the $6 billion hit.[23] According to New Line's accounts, the trilogy made "horrendous losses" and no profit at all." I think most people would find it surprising that both Return of the Jedi and the Lord of the Rings movies failed to make a profit? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoPoints on the gross receipts are not points on the profits. The fact that the trilogy was supposedly unprofitable shouldn't be relevant.
- nonstopdev 3y agoI feel like if you are making it to the higher echelons of success, you typically have this type of track record. A lot of companies start small by people who like what they do. It’s the business leader or visionary who sees the future and how to apply it on the larger scale usually leaving the loyalty and honor behind and doing what’s best for them and their company.
- vngzs 3y agoSee the movie Blackberry[0] for a dramatic telling of this. [0]: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blackberry https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/blackberry
- nebula8804 3y agoJust keep in mind that the movie is supposedly quite unfactual and the characters are portrayed very differently than they were in real life. In fact the co-ceo: Mike Lazaridis seems to want nothing to do with the film. [1]: Interview with Jim Basille: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_VDXLJA8dA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_VDXLJA8dA [2]: ex-blackberry employee reviews film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yuqdr_1iRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yuqdr_1iRg
- rtkwe 3y agoPretty much. Capitalism is one big funnel of extraction so to get ahead of competitors you need some big advantage and one of the easiest to get in the US is just not paying people who can't afford to fight you over it in court.
- masklinn 3y ago> Is it absolutely necessary to fuck people over to get to the top? It’s not necessary but it’s so much easier.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- walrus01 3y agofun fact: the "other" Moog is a defense contractor, started by the cousin of the Moog synthesizer guy. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=moog+defense+contractor https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=moog+defe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moog_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moog_Inc.
- busterarm 3y agoHardware synths, in particular the varieties that Moog makes, are at peak relevance again and who knows if that will remain the case. The brand was certainly sucking wind for a good 30 years of its history previously. Cashing out that equity now is a shrewd move...especially as consumer spending has gone to who knows where.
- elihu 3y agoI don't think hardware analogy synthesizers are going anywhere anytime soon. Moog is probably facing a lot of competition though, and they aren't very active in the Eurorack modular space where a lot of the interesting new stuff is happening. (In particular, a lot of their popular synths, including recently released ones, are being cloned by Behringer.) It would be interesting to know if they were doing great but sold because the offer was too good to turn down, or if they were in a financially precarious position and looking for an exit. Not sure what the situation is for the employee's union. If a company gets acquired, does the union remain?
- Sosh101 3y agoI think the recent clones of the moog studio3 devices must have been part of it. The clones are less than half the price of the originals, and are arguably better.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- SSLy 3y agoBehringer clones modular synth modules too. https://www.gearnews.com/behringer-abacus-lets-do-the-maths/ https://www.gearnews.com/behringer-abacus-lets-do-the-maths/
- adql 3y agoCompared to how original looked that's fucking improvement, original have indecipherable panel if you don't already know how it works. But yeah, I wish that they at least tried to improve upon original instead of blatant copy
- notmypenguin 3y agoIt’s sad how the entire music industry of actual innovators gets scooped up by conglomerates like InMusic. What is worse, however, is the blatant rip-off business plan of Behringer. They went so far as to buy the chip company CoolAudio to build clones of the Curtis CEM3340 oscillator chip featured in all these 80’s polysynths. Wanna know why Behringers product line exclusively features other peoples designs that have gone out of patent (or not, see Mackie ripoffs they built their base with). You may say, well, that’s capitalism, but no, dear reader, it’s shady and involves no new R&D work, no innovation, and since their business model is loss-leading everyone else out of business, it’s parasitic and will result in stifled innovation in music hardware.
- Sosh101 3y agoBehringer did release their own "Neutron" (and soon "Proton"), but I generally agree with your points. Also they've cloned Moog gear that's <10 years old.
- comboy 3y agoI can blindly distinguish Moog from Behringer with compressed youtube audio and I don't even have good ears (at least for one instrument I did that experiment on). It's just a signal, I'm sure it can be copied perfectly but Moog still seems to be doing wrooms like no other.
- ulfbert_inc 3y agoPretty sure they managed to clone Model D really well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYxc8R_Qys0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYxc8R_Qys0
- Sosh101 3y ago> I can blindly distinguish distinguish Moog from Behringer with compressed youtube audio Which Moog/Behringer combo was it? In the case of DFAM/Edge the filters are different (Ladder vs. something more standard) > It's just a signal I don't think that's fair. Analogue stuff goes through a signal path with so many different components where even minuscule differences at any point could lead to quite different results at the end.
- comboy 3y agoNoooooooooooooooooooooo :(
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- weinzierl 3y agoNever owned one of their synths, but I have one of their expression pedals and I love it. It's also built like a tank, real quality. Hope that does not go away with the sale.
- elihu 3y agoI like their expression pedals. Simple and functional. No power cord. Not unreasonably expensive.
- jb1991 3y agoI’ve never seen an expression pedal or any other keyboard pedal with a power cord.
- elihu 3y agoThey would if they had control voltage out. Electro-Harmonix ships an expression pedal with the HOG2 that uses an accelerometer rather than a pot, and that also takes a power cord or batteries.
- jb1991 3y agointeresting. In my 20 years of using expression pedals, I've never seen that before. OP was suggesting it was somehow unique that a pedal would not have a power cord, but I'd reckon it's unique if it does have one.
- te_chris 3y agoI've got a Matriarch and it's a wonderful piece of equipment. I hope they keep things as they are.
- tibbon 3y agoI had their MP-201 and that thing was stunning
- squeaky-clean 3y ago
- ajsharp 3y agoEnd of an era. Moog is afaik one of the last independently owned American music equipment manufacturers.
- iancmceachern 3y agoNot really in this category, but Steinway is still kicking
- masukomi 3y agoFor anyone who cares about electronic instruments, i really recommend taking the tour of their factory in Asheville NC if you're in the area. It's short, but cool and shows you how the instruments are put together.
- nudgeee 3y agoAnd for those that aren't in the area, this video tour is pretty neat: https://youtu.be/NIDinx83Vs8 https://youtu.be/NIDinx83Vs8 Really shows how the people there love music and what they do.
- feiszli 3y agoI live in the area and still haven't gone. Really gonna have to make the trip now.
- rjh29 3y agoFor now at least. They'll probably move production to China.
- tnecniv 3y agoOn a related note, tours of the Steinway factory in Queens are super cool. My music class in high school went on a trip there, I thought it would be kinda boring but an excuse to miss class, yet it ended up being one of my favorite field trips growing up.
- javajosh 3y agoYes! I did this tour, and it was surprising how much of their boards are hand assembled right there in the factory. Lots of discrete components. You also get to play some very expensive gear that you may never see elsewhere. But everything is just so ungodly expensive. It's hard to justify getting two octaves that can play a single note for the same price as a used top-of-the-line baby grand piano.
- ijustlovemath 3y agoI'm guessing this has something to do with how the employees were trying to unionize. RIP Moog, good luck to those employees
- jolux 3y agoMoog was actually employee-owned.
- omnibrain 3y ago49% of the company were owned by some sort of employee pension fund.
- SeanLuke 3y agoThe majority of the company was not employee owned.
- lsy 3y agoNot really. It's an interesting sidebar how companies use the phrase "employee-owned" to confuse people about who is in charge. Moog had an ESOP which just means the employees held 49% of the shares of stock in the company, as far as I understand without any right to influence operations, which remained fully with the CEO. That's "employee-owned" in the same sense that you "own" my house if you hold securities that are invested in my mortgage, i.e. not at all.
- jolux 3y agoHuh, TIL. Thanks for clarifying!
- ijustlovemath 3y agoOnly in a marketing sense. A good friend of mine started a union drive there about a year ago and was met with fierce opposition from management, who proverbially holds the keys to the kingdom. Contract negotiations were ongoing when this happened
- monatron 3y agoFor a short time Moog curated Moogfest in Asheville and later Raleigh. It was an amazing blend of music, technology, talks, culture, etc. I think it ran into some trouble towards the end of it's run. I ended up going once (solo) after a friend had to bail out last minute. It was one of the most fun and enriching music festivals I've ever attended. I can't imagine it coming back after this news. If anyone knows of anything similar that still exists I'd love to know about it.
- flanbiscuit 3y agoI went to one of those in 2016, the first one they had when they moved it to Raleigh (it was actually in downtown Durham). I loved it and sad that it's no longer happening. I saw some amazing acts, including Gary Numan doing a 3 night performance where each night he performed one of his first 3 albums (I only saw one of them) Here's some more info about the 2016 lineup https://www.brooklynvegan.com/moogfest-announ/ https://www.brooklynvegan.com/moogfest-announ/ There is a moogfest subreddit and it seemed like I went to a good one because the following ones weren't as well organized. But of course it's reddit and only hearing from a select few people https://www.reddit.com/r/moogfest/comments/t3egho/is_moogfest_dead/ https://www.reddit.com/r/moogfest/comments/t3egho/is_moogfes...
- monatron 3y agoThat's right! I confuse Raleigh and Durham. I was at that same year. Highlights for me were floating points, blood orange, karen gwyer, bicep, a jamaican soundsystem soundclash out in the park, denzel curry, and a live performance by sam aaron live coding on his sonicpi software
- InitialLastName 3y agoIf you have the means to get to Berlin, Superbooth is like a bigger version of what Moogfest was, all built around a giant GDR-era youth center.
- canogat 3y agoSimilarly, post-covid, I don’t know if it will come back as good and engaging as it was before, but the Ableton Loop conferences. I went to the one in Los Angeles and bought flights for the one in Berlin that got canceled during the pandemic. Awesome hands-on sessions and live music. Don’t need to be an Ableton user.
- creeble 3y ago>The company has been bought by inMusic, a US firm that owns many other instrument, audio and DJ brands, including Numark, Stanton, Denon DJ, Akai, Alesis, M-Audio, Marantz and plugin company Air. Marantz? Maybe some pro-audio part of Marantz with which I am unfamiliar, but Marantz consumer audio is now owned by Masimo, the medical equipment company. Welcome to the 60’s!
- te_chris 3y agoYou are. They have a pro audio arm that mostly makes location recorders and a few playback devices. Mostly broadcast focused.
- jppope 3y agoterrible news, but also refreshing that there are so many people interested in Moog
- odiroot 3y agoI hope it's gonna go towards a direction of making Moogs more accessible.
- n42 3y agoWhy? There are so many accessible synths. Why does every brand have to cater to the lowest common denominator?
- sleepybrett 3y agosad
- zzzbra 3y ago"Nothing is changing" -- when the company buying you says this you should be concerned because it only means their strategy is to keep you 100% in the dark about what will change rather than partially.
- droopyEyelids 3y agoAnother interpretation (maybe even more negative) is that the leadership team is not experienced enough to understand what changes happen post-acquisition. This means many employees won't be prepared for the changes, and many quit as the ground shifts beneath them over the next 5 years. It also means leadership hasn't made a list of things that are worth fighting over vs which changes to accept, so they're not going to have a clear vision on how to defend the important parts of their culture.
- miltonmoura 3y agosad news for someone who makes (errr...) "music" almost exclusively with Moog semi-modulars (https://www.youtube.com/user/mgcm https://www.youtube.com/user/mgcm). hopefully the pre-acquisition hardware will increase its resale value and I'm sitting on a goldmine :D
- BSEdlMMldESB 3y ago[deleted]
- southwesterly 3y agoAgreed. It’s the enshittification of products. Any future release from Moog will now have budget components and mass production build.
- earthboundkid 3y agoThis is my fault for not buying all of their synthesizers even though I don't know anything about music. :-((((
- stjohnswarts 3y agoThat's a shame. Seems like aggressive acquisitions are ruining almost all companies in the name of pure profits. Get the name, lose all the soul
- nipperkinfeet 3y agoInMusic where music software goes to die. Has MixMeister been updated yet?
- DropInIn 3y agoIs this as bad as my gut feels it is?
- RecycledEle 3y agoI used to build clones of boards for Moog Synthesizes when I was in college in the 1990's. https://shop.synthesizers.com/ https://shop.synthesizers.com/ (I don't make money off this any longer.)