Memorymoog

[WeAreAs1 at aol.com]

Fenatic wrote:
<<  Sketchy or not, 
I think the repair issues on these synths is being overstated, either because 
someone wants them devalued ; ) or just sour grapes.  Even in the state mine 
is in, I know it can be fixed, and to suggest their a lemon is not quite 
right.  >>

I was a factory-authorized Moog service technician in the Mid-1980's, during 
the heyday of the Memorymoog.  I was also an authorized service technician 
for every other major brand at the time.  Memorymoogs were the absolute worst 
synthesizers that any service person would ever have to work on.  Go ahead, 
ask any tech who was active at the time, "What synth was the worst to work 
on?", and "Which synth was the most unreliable?".  Both answers will ALWAYS 
be "Memorymoog", without fail, and without hesitation.

The owners were very unhappy about the situation, as well.  Everybody loved 
the sound (when they worked), but most were dismayed at how often the units 
would need to return for service, and many simply regretted spending their 
money on such an expensive, totally unreliable piece of equipment.  I 
especially felt bad for the entry-level guys who had painstakingly saved 
their money so they could buy their first big professional polyphonic synth, 
only to have it turn into a service nightmare.  Fer Chrissakes, they could 
have bought a Prophet V or an OB-8, and they'd actually be out somewhere, 
PLAYING, instead of sitting at home, wringing their hands.  Touring groups 
who were brave enough to take a MM on the road soon found out that they 
needed to keep a backup unit handy (although the backup units were 
potentailly just as flaky).

Leon Fialkowski, who was at that time the national service manager for Moog 
Music, told me that Moog had an over 100% failure rate on Memorymoogs!  This 
means that they had to handle more Memorymoog warranty service claims than 
the number of Memorymoogs they had actually made.  There were many units that 
were returned to the factory that could not only not be repaired by field 
service people, but were unrepairable even by Moog factory technicians.  
These units were simply replaced with entire new ones.  Obviously, this 
additional expense on service put a great financial load on Moog Music, and 
certainly contributed to their eventual demise.  Do you think that Moog's 
service manager would "overstate" the unreliability of a product from which 
he earned his own livelihood?  If anything, he was probably understating it.

It wasn't just a matter of installing a few clever "service updates" to bring 
them up to speed.  The factory service updates did help a bit, but I saw just 
as many failures with fully updated machines as with unmodified ones.

I'm not suggesting, as Fenatic said, that the Memorymoog is a "lemon".  That 
would imply, wrongly, that there are "good" ones and there are "bad" ones.  
No, I'm flatly stating that it is a badly designed synthesizer.  I'm sure 
that most of the people who worked at Moog from 1983 to 1987 would completely 
agree with me.

These opinions are driven neither by "sour grapes" nor a desire to devalue 
the Memorymoog.  I've owned lots of Moog gear (more than 12 Minimoogs since 
1974, many other models as well), and have had many opportunities to buy 
Memorymoogs at very attractive prices.  I have a gear collection that would 
make most musicians at least a little envious.  Sour grapes just doesn't 
figure.  I don't wish to devalue the selling price of anybody's gear - In 
fact, I am pleased with the fact that old synth prices keep rising.  This is 
as it should be, and for some reason, I haven't had any difficulty finding 
good deals when I need them, nor should any other resourceful person.  No, my 
opinions about the Memorymoog are based in hard-earned experience and 
technical knowledge.  I really do wish that they were more reliable, because 
for some things, they sound incredibly good.  The sad truth, however, is that 
a working Memorymoog is worth LESS than the Curtis chips that it contains 
(the chips are worth somewhere over $1600, at current street prices).  As an 
avid DIY'er, I'd rather have the chips.

Michael Bacich

P.S.  -  Kevin Lightner, one of the top Moog technicians on the planet, 
simply refuses to work on Memorymoogs anymore.  He tells me he values his 
sanity too much for it.