Mini mooog

[bj]

Mark Pulver wrote:
> 
> >All of you who can remember STAGE electronics
> >SE1 minimoog in a rack..
> 
> I know quite a bit about this story... It's not pretty; kinda' "Don
> Martinesque" in a lot of ways, but the end is cleaner in that trhere is
> one.
> 
> Here's the original marketing literature:
> 
>     http://shoga.wwa.com/~mpulver/sei.html
> 
> >It reminds me that STUDIO electronics minimoog in a rack
> >looks more or less the same???
> >It even have the same name "SE1"..
> 
> The name of the STUDIO machine is SE-1 (the number "one"), the STAGE
> machine was stamped SEI ("the letter "i").
> 
> Stage was started by an ex-Moog engineer, Jim Sucorra (sp?) in about 1992.
> Jim had great intentions and actually had a great design going (check the
> web page). But, Jim had an issue with funding.
> 
> None-the-less, Jim was destined to show the machine at the 1993 (I may be a
> year off) Winter NAMM show (January), he got a couple of cases and panels
> stamped up, silkscreened, and _some_ (key word) electronics running. Jim
> wasn't much of a marketeer, and hired a man by the name of Vincent Michaels
> to act as front man for the NAMM show.
> 
> Yes, this is the same Vincent Michaels that you may of seen pop up on the
> Internet lately; he's around.
> 
> Anyway... Vincent had been with the company for less than two months when
> the NAMM show hit. Vincent had a _large_ background in synthesis (for
> example, he was an Oberheim dealer selling 4 and 8 voices amung other
> things, and is quite a player) and was quite into the project as Jim had
> presented it.
> 
> So, Jim and Vincent put on suits and headed off to Anaheim for the NAMM
> show. That's where I met them. One of the funny things here is that Stage
> was only two small aisles away from Studio at that show. :)
> 
> I spent 3 days at the show that year, and spent a lot of time talking to
> both of the guys. Jim had a great vision, and great hopes to make a great
> product. But, as it turns out, Jim was talking a bit beyond his production
> capabilites. Jim had no cash to finish the development, and in the hopes of
> generating funding, rumors started spreading about Keith Emerson having a
> working prototype, Herbie Hancock had been by and placed an order, etc.
> 
> There's also talk of Vincent having been asked to accept orders at the
> show, including deposit checks, and that they would cash the checks after
> the show.
> 
> This was basically the end of Stage. Vincent refused to do this and ended
> up leaving the firm. Jim was left basically with no funding, and not a lot
> of hope of getting any.
> 
> The stories about Keith and all were false. Keith did in fact come by the
> booth that year with Will Alexander (his tech for those that don't know the
> name), and they were excited, but ... a working machine was never built.
> The boxes that were shown at NAMM were only shells with pots and knobs on
> them. The control panel _did_ have power but was only running a simple demo
> program that had a message on the LCD and blinked the LEDs in succession.
> 
> The end of the story is that Stage faded into the distance. There are
> _rumors_ that Jim actually took off with a large amount of cash as
> deposits, but I don't know if that's true.
> 
> There are other tidbits here and there, but basically, that's the history
> of Stage Electronics.
> 
> Mark
> 
> ___________________________________________________________________________
>  Mark Pulver - http://shoga.wwa.com/~mpulver    The "Son of The MIDI Wall"
>    * Gear Wanted List!! ==> http://shoga.wwa.com/~mpulver/gwlist.html *
Thanks for the wery informatively information about the SEI..
But showing a piece of equipment at NAMM only as a dummy box
must be a big failure to the serious musican/market
but eventually a good rippof money move thing to do..

Regards
BJ

And now,who are the people behind studio SE1?