Doepfer MS-404

[jhaible]

Hi Florian and others,

nice to see more pieces of background information on that
story. I knew that you were involved in that (;->).

But there is no need for you to take responsibility for
*all* the misinformation. I called Mr. Doepfer after
that article, and he told me on the phone that he did
*not* know about the difference. He did indeed complain
that a short talk with a KEYS editor was made into a
big "expert" story without his knowledge, and he said
there had been calls of complaint before mine, but
they were all about the statement that Roland had allegedly
used components of less quality, or that Roland had not
selected transistors. Mr. Doepfer was astonished to hear
about such a thing as a "diode ladder" at all.

Now this is no shame. Nobody can know everything,
nobody can reverse-engineer every electronic music
circuit that was ever built. And, as someone wisely stated,
there is more to making products than the electronic
engineering part. Doepfer built a little synth with
an ordinary "24dB" filter, and then began the craze about
the TB303 with its "18dB" filter, and with all the companies
that produced (more or less) imitations of the 303.

On this background, there were several things that gave
the whole story a bad taste:

(1) The style of KEYS to present information (and often
misinformation) as "the truth vs. myths" ("Let the experts speak").
I won't go into that unless I have to. It's past, you're not working
for them anymore as far as I know, and I'm not spending money
for them anymore. (I was a reader from issue #1 up into the
late 90's)

(2) Doepfer was in the market for 303 clones with a product
that, unlike some of his competitors, did not have "the" filter.
I do not doubt that he told me the truth on the phone about not
knowing the difference. (And if you find it hard to believe
that he learned it that very moment, just think of the alternative ...)
So I *really* don't think he spread the misinformation
intentionally from the start, but if you consider his position
on the market, it must have come very handy. Tempting.

(3) I have never seen a proper correction. I wrote a reader's letter
to KEYS (not a polite one, I admit), and I know others have
complained too, but nothing happened. I have never seen a
correction or apology in KEYS.
There was sort of a correction and apology - in the German AME
publication. Which is being read by a handful of people. Why not
in KEYS, where the misinformation was spread, and which is
being read by thousands of people ??
(Please tell me if I'm wrong, and I'll apologize for that part.
But I've kept buying KEYS many months after that incident,
and I never saw it corrected. Just tell me where ... )

Before this is going to start another round of war (hopefully
not ...), let me say this:
For me that is past. It turned out that my friend, who is in the
business for 303 clones with a product that did, unlike the
404, have the "true" filter circuit, has probably sold more
of them than any competitor. He never complained, and I take
it he was wiser than I. (Others, who also had taken
their time to do their homework, may not have been so lucky.)

JH.




----- Original Message -----
From: Florian Anwander <fa_diy at fa.camelot.de>
To: <synth-diy at mailhost.bpa.nl>
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 1999 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: Doepfer MS-404


> Hello Juergen and others,
>
> >claimed that there is no difference between a Moog ladder and a
> >TB303 filter at all
> This is a mistake that happened at the editor. I wrote the artikel to
which
> was related the insert with the comment to the filter. I made a short
> interview on the phone with him, typed it and sent this to Keys; it was
> intended as a on and a half page sized article. They shortend it from 6000
> Characters to 450 characters; neither Dieter nor me did see shortened
version
> before it was printed. Dieter was very angry about the fact that there
were
> definitely wrong statements, that he had never said in this way, printed
as
> his words. I do not remember, whether a correcting editors statement was
> published in the magazine or not. I did this then (I think it was 1995) in
> German MIDI newsgroups (maus.midi and fido.midi.ger).
>
>
>
> Gruss,
>  Florian Anwander
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Maus-Netz: Florian Anwander at M4
> Internet:  fa at fa.camelot.de           http://www.camelot.de/~fa/
> ## CrossPoint v3.11 R ##
>
>