123 thoughts on “Moog Now Part Of inMusic, Home To Akai, Alesis, Denon, M-Audio, Numark, Stanton & Others”

1. Goodbye golden age, hello dark age.

   1. Moog became just a ‘fancy’ name to named another analog synth. If your design is subjected to be copied in good stand accordingly to the copyright law as easily as it is nowadays. Tha tells you that the price they handle is extremely high compared to the real cost of production plus their own profit. I.e. the culture culture is an amazing piece of musical equipment that is not cheap but you don’t see knockoffs/replicas/clones/copies going for a 1/3 of the price. I’m very happy that finally prices will become more standardized including mo@g

2. Much as this announcement may shock some people, it will provide Moog with stability over the coming years and potentially give them some interesting growth opportunities through cross-pollination across the InMusic brands.

   And, yeah. This is what happens if people buy too many Chinese-made Moog knockoffs claiming that “they’re different markets.”

   1. you snooze, you loose.

      Inmusic is less than 7 miles from me. fat lot of good that will do.

      1. Maybe i should go buy a Asus Zenfone 10

   2. >This is what happens if people buy too many Chinese-made Moog knockoffs
      Sure, blame the customer who doesn’t have $3500 to spend on a synth. Which is pretty much every customer. I’m sure you will have a bright future in gatekeeping. The more appropriate thing to say is, “this is what happens when you don’t scale to market and instead charge elite prices for everyday fungible commodities”.

      1. The “elite” narrative is coming from Behringer, because their primary competitive advantage is price. You can buy a great Moog synth for $599.

         $3500 is enough to buy a Moog Subsequent 37, Subharmonicon, DFAM and Mother-32.

         1. No frodo, my words come from myself. And if your point were anywhere near accurate, Moog would not have had to sell the company. So… you loose. But since you want to be pedantic:

            – The only “knockoff” from Behringer that has been available at scale enough to matter in this conversation is their version of the model D. And that sold extremely well at $300
            – You know damn well that the $3500 I listed referred to the Moog model D, which is orders of magnitude more expansive than the Behringer model D
            – Somehow, for some magical reason, your gatekeeping did not inspire all those people to pay an extra $3200 for their “D”
            – …and while we are on the topic, the market has a boatload of synths with far more value and capability than the Moog D, for much, much less money than $3500. So market forces were stacked against this game.

            Do some research on high end marketing. BMW, Apple, LuLulemon, Saphora, Gibson… the list goes on and on. It’s a well known marketing strategy. Be the most expensive thing on the market to drive desire, regardless of the product quality. But you need SCALE in order to make it work. Synthesizers will never sell enough units to justify elite pricing the likes of which Moog has been asking. Then a little disruptor comes along… say like… oh I don’t know.. a pandemic… and the tenuous balance of supply vs demand falls apart and reveals how razor thin the whole game was from the beginning.

            This was always going to happen, the pandemic just accelerated it. You’ve seen Moog trying to move down market with new products (like the ones you listed) in the last few years. But without scale in manufacturing, it will never work.

            But rant and rave all you want about the injustice of the inevitabilities of market forces as they render your gatekeeping impudent. It’s your last shot at this, so knock yourself out.

            1. The development of the Behringer Model D (MiniMoog), Crave, Edge, Spice, Toro (Taurus), System 15 (Grandmother), System 35 and System 55 (and their constituent modules in eurorack form) were part of a deliberate plan by a massive Chinese manufacturer with a head office in the Philippines and complex ownership through a series of global shell companies to take market share from an established industry leader.

               While you assert that Behringer had little or no impact on Moog’s bottom line, I assert otherwise. Tossing ad hominem attacks at me doesn’t diminish the validity of my viewpoint.

            2. Behringer is made by workers working in very bad conditions in Asia. Very bad, like employees getting sick. If that’s the price to get things cheap, I rather purchase one synth less.

               You can say that these are ‘elite’ prices, but for the ones working in the Behringer factory, Behringer is as elite priced as it gets compared to what they earn.

               Cheap is nice, until the day you are the one who gets the small paycheck to make things cheap. Then everything becomes expensive.

               3500€ for a machine which lasts a lifetime is worth saving for.
               If you can’t manage that, probably you are already underpayed by an elite owned company, like behringer.

               If Moog would go the same road, i will not be buying another moog, like I will not buy another behringer.

      2. I know, right? Who cares if you can only afford a Toyota. Shame on you for buying a Toyota instead of a Mercedes or Lexus.

      3. Oh come on. You’re probably another Behringer user trying to justify what he bought. You can’t just go enjoy the knock offs in full shame. It’s what all of you deserve. You could buy a Moog for a couple hundred bucks claiming they were only selling 3.5k synths shows you knew basically nothing from the company.

   3. Sure, just like Norlin did with Moog back in the seventies. That didn’t work out well for Moog.

      1. Actually Moog released some really great products during the time theu were owned by Norlin. Products that unfortunately did not sell as well as they should have. But now are highly sought after.

   4. lol, geezus…yet again, it’s always somehow the fault of the customer in your world.

      1. I don’t blame guitarists for buying cheap unlicensed third-party Stratocaster and Les Paul knockoffs – they can be great starter instruments. F&G also have their own first-party knockoff brands, Squier and Epiphone.

   5. I think the reality is that whether those whom are in support of Uli or not, his actions have had reverberating consequences. The manufacturing and launch of the Moog One was challenging for a small/mid size maker such as Moog, that coupled with the component, and supply chain costs, made purchasing power and economies of scale ever more crucial.

      On a side note, I was reminded of an interesting fact, Roger Linn once described Jack O’Donnell as a ba*tard……and by all and various accounts, he is not a nice fellow.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdMRxUC77RQ

3. so much for “employee owned”

   and thats quite a loss of hipster cachet

   but yeh… money… it makes the world turn

   1. The company that owned 51% of the shares sold to Inmusic. The Employees did not and opposed this. Why blame the workers?

      Since when is workers investment a hipster idea.

      1. Too bad the employees didn’t have controlling interest.

4. now watch the good ol’ embrace – expand – eliminate

   1. That would surprise me if it was the trajectory. Moog is a heritage brand, it’ll stay mostly prestige gear, but then the prestige will be borrowed just often enough to mostly keep the reputation strong but enough to make it feel damaged by those paying attention. I expect new + cheaper “moog” branded gear that isn’t made in NC, and the moog logo on some new akai or numark gear. A general reduction in quality, but one slow enough we hardly notice it.

5. This is shocking, and it does not add up with anything I thought I knew about Moog. Speechless.

6. RIP Moog

7. This seems like it could be a good move for Moog, much like Sequential joining forces with Focusrite.

   Moog’s strength has always been designing cool instruments, not manufacturing and distributing them efficiently.

   Moog will now have the buying power and manufacturing efficiency of a billion-dollar organization, instead of a small/medium sized business. And they don’t have to have a team dedicated to distributing their products all over the world.

   1. “Efficient” manufacturing means lower quality, not to mention labour exploitation.

      1. “efficient” means economy of scale, buying parts in mass quantities, having enough volume to automate more manufacturing processes, etc – none of which are detrimental to quality or depend on labor exploitation.

         The mass manufacturing processes used to build your phone are way more reliable than what small instrument makers use.

         1. finally, a ‘guy’ who gets manufacturing. thank you.

      2. Or a way to get rid of the union

      3. No it doesn’t. Even in my home kitchen there’s a difference between being well organized and not. I’m often disorganized and inefficient too, but it doesn’t correlate with creativity or craft. I tend to do better work when I have all my ducks in a row.

      4. Efficient manufacturing results in higher reliability and overall lower price. Think iPhone and Lego.

         1. Seen this movie many times. So when do the layoffs start? When are they moving & closing the Asheville headquarters?

            1. Apple shut down almost all of its US manufacturing, which is a shame, but Apple’s payroll of highly paid employees in Cupertino (and elsewhere in the US) has drastically increased.

               I don’t expect Moog to do as well though.

   2. Nice thought but absolutely not inMusic’s history. When was the last time Alesis, Akai or Marantz made something good? The Asheville factory will close, manufacturing will be moved to where labour costs are cheaper, and they’ll make plastic garbage under the Moog name. It won’t all happen right away but you can bet on it.

      1. You are wrong on most points. Alesis Akai and Marantz still does good stuff. And no the Asheville factory won¨t close or ptoduce inferior products..

         1. Innovation at Alesis has ceased since InMusic acquisition. There are no new products with ASIC development. The synth/recording product line is garbage.

            1. Alesis hasn’t really done much innovation in synths since the Andromeda. They haven’t done much recording innovation since ADAT. With a few exceptions, they’ve pretty much always been what they are now:

               prosumer grade (at best) controllers and drums. They did a few (not great) forays into interfaces since the turn of the century.

               Seems to me InMusic just focused them on what they’re good at. Which we should also expect from Moog.

               1. I have an Alesis Ion. The build quality isn’t the best, but it is a great synth. Alesis should make another synth like the Ion and/or bring back an updated Andromeda.

                  1. Fusion seems like it was a cool instrument as well.

   3. in fact the top 3 engineer sequential they made up
      Groove Synthesis 3RD WAVE and the last 2 products clearly prove to be disappointing (take 5 and trigon 6)

      1. If you think those are disappointing then you really need your head checked.

         1. he is right. Trigon design is awful and there is no innovation on it. Moog filter? Are you kidding me. Take 5 parts are probably most Chinesese and will last same like Behringer stuff. Take 5 filters are inspired by Prophet 5, so it means not the same. And it is hearable.

            1. I too am very angry that Sequential didn’t just decide to lower the price of the real Prophet-5 and sell it at a loss. I’ll never forgive them for making this cheap knockoff Take 5 synth which I can afford but which isn’t exactly the same. Whose idea was it anyway?

               I’m also very angry that the Trigon isn’t a Moog.

      2. Both those synths were Dave Smith involved. We don’t know what post-Dave instruments are going to look like which is the important test.

8. Does that mean Moog can now come out with reasonably priced instruments?

   1. Build a modular rig that matches the Matriarch on features:price.

9. Great news that Moog will finally be able to manufacture/move enough units to balance out cost of production to bring them back down into a realistic market price. But… they better have something other than the ladder filter to sell these days or it won’t do them much good. Now we learn if Moog can actually innovate rather than just re-package.

   There will be one purchasing round of people who always wanted a Moog but couldn’t afford one. But after that… it’s on them to excite. Elitist gatekeepers can’t crow about owning something “special” anymore, so that market is gone (which is most all that Moog had up to now). interesting times ahead.

   1. “Elitist gatekeepers can’t crow about owning something “special” anymore,”

      Tell us you’re clueless without saying you’re clueless.

      1. Tell me you can’t get “the Moog sound” on a million other synths, virtual and real, without telling me that you can’t get “the Moog sound” on a million other synths.

         1. I was with you until your comment about getting the Moog sound on a million other synths! Virtual or real? I would be ok with knowing just one or two that can duplicate the Moog sound!

            1. I have never heard any virtual synth being able to get an analog sound. If it would be possible, it would be way more work than just building an analog synth. Apart from the sound, a synth on a screen is like a piano with one key, you can program to play every note. It does the thing on paper, but it’s completely rubbish in any setting where an actual musician plays the instrument, rather than being programmed or sequenced.

               But yea, duplication of what someone else achieves mainly illustrates a lack of creativity. Moog has the Moog sound, because it is Moog.
               The ‘behringer’ sound is for instance is what I know as stuff that resembles something else, but starts having issues after heavy use or when used out of specs. Always the same, very affordable and looks/sounds good at start, but before you know it, it has to be replaced.
               The short joy of cheap manufactured instruments, is long forgotten when they fail on that crucial moment. After replacement you always paid more than when you would just saved up some more and bought something decent at once.

10. i can’t wait for a new Moog synth with a touch screen and rechargeable battery…

    1. I’ll buy that for a dollar!

    2. lol

    3. Check Apple’s app store. Your wish was granted many times and long ago.

       1. Model 10 is the best sounding unusable app I’ve ever not really used. I wish i could discover the appeal of ipad musicians. I have so many apps I don’t use after that stint of “they’re so cheap on ipad, ill make my music there”. Time spent = countless hours, songs made = .5.

          1. hey handsome Randy! as someone that felt similar to you for many years, i found that if i just use the ipad as a sample fodder generator, and then bring that stuff back to desktop, you can get some very fun and unique sounds! The touch aspect really adds some great character, and for whatever reason, there are some incredible devs that are exclusively ios.

       2. But that requires a fruit device 🙁

          1. it runs well even on old ipads that are super cheap, i’m platform agnostic though so its just not an issue for me whether its “fruit device” or something else, no biggie

             1. ill just wait for a Moog synth with a touch screen and rechargeable battery plus build in speakers.

11. I really hope this works out for both InMusic AND Moog!! I can hardly wait until AKAI products start having Moog plugins built in!

12. Roger Linn is presently consoling Bob Moog at some sad dive bar up in the clouds.

    1. Eh?

       1. Roger Linn got screwed over by the CEO of Inmusic Jack O’Donnell when Roger sold off his business to Numark (Jack was running Numark)

          1. Not true! Numark did not buy Linns company they bought parts of AKAI Pro which Linn did not own and which had gone bankrupt! Linn wanted to keep receiving his royalty payments. But that seldom happens after companies goes out of business and changes hands.

    2. Roger Linn is still with us 🙂

       1. Hahahah oh crap I don’t know why I thought he had passed… regardless. It’s a bummer for Bob’s legacy

       2. Some kind of seance maybe

13. Will InMusic help provide a safe path to the facility in Ashville? You know, one without urine puddles, defecation mines, & strung out mental health specimens. Asking for a friend who’s a social worker.

    1. Asheville has a beautiful downtown and doesn’t seem to have any unique problem with the homeless.

       LA is the city that strikes me as having a unique problem. Maybe because the weather is always great?

       1. Not true these days, especially downtown. Also, Come walk through West Asheville sometime on any given day.

14. Best news coming from Moog in years. There’s hope we might finally get to see some interesting gear again from this stagnant brand!

    1. Stagnant? Moog has released the Moog One, Grandmother, Subsequent 25 & 37, Sirin, DFAM, Subharmonicon, Mavis, Mother, an updated Theremin, and reissues of the Minimoog Model D, System 55 and Model 10. They also released some excellent software with the Animoog, Model 15 and Filtatron. I mean, what more can you expect from a boutique synth company?

       1. Yeah. What other synth brands have a more comprehensive line of gear?

          Korg and Roland are some of the only companies that offer low end, mid-range and high end synths, along with software, like Moog does.

          Korg and Roland obviously have a more comprehensive range at the low-end, and more of a digital emphasis, while Moog has a more comprehensive range at the high end, and more of an analog emphasis. The biggest gap in Moog’s range is an affordable polysynth.

15. SMT Minimoog under $2k incoming in 3……2…….

    1. Moog already has a SMT Minimoog under 2k – the Grandmother. It’s essentially a Minimoog architecture, using modern manufacturing, but does so much more, because of the semi-modular design. Instant classic!

16. Let’s see what Roger Linn has to say about InMusic’s CEO Jack O’Donnell .
    https://youtu.be/jdMRxUC77RQ

    1. Are you suggesting that Moog CEO Mike Adams is beloved by all? How about Uli Behringer?

       Successful companies aren’t led by people singing kumbaya.

       1. No Torgood, you’re mistaken…
          Roger Linn, venerable music tech genius to whom we all owe a huge debt and nice guy, is saying that Jack O’Donnell is a b@stard. And gives you a very good reason why he believes so.
          It’s really quite simple, not sure why you try to whatabout it.

          1. I like and respect Linn but he was mostly pissed off because he lost royalties after original Akai Pro went bust and expected InMusic to keep paying them. Something which srldom happens after companies going bust.

             1. And snakes take over. 😉

17. Moog got bought out because they didn’t build instruments that were in demand. People want a sub 37 that is desktop or rackmounted without keys for $1000. People wanted the sirin to be a regular product. Moog instead released the Mavis and Sub 25. I think too many people at Moog wanted the instruments to be elusive but that isn’t really good for business. They are good products but not necessarily what the public wanted. Modular is cool but synths with presets, regular size knobs, and knob per function layout sell better than anything else. It’s because most people who use hardware have a hybrid setup. They play the hardware instruments and record with a daw and often use plugins for effects.

    1. You nailed it. I own a Model 15, 3x DFAM, a GM, and had a Minimoog I miss. I wanted to buy a Sirin. The Moog One sank the company. Very sad.

18. Moog hasn’t been a “premium brand” since the 2000s. With very few
    exceptions (the reissues of the modulars and the 2017 MiniMoog), their catalog consists of subpar, “affordable” effeminate sounding (names and audio quality) crap that appeals to the Woke mob. The Moog One is no MemoryMoog, with weak-sounding oscillators and outdated voicing. If it wasn’t for Eventide’s effects, it would be a complete dud. Sequential and Oberheim have been clobbering Moog for better than 10 years with better-sounding instruments and more innovation. Sadly, Moog has now joined the ranks of the these other B and C-level music companies. Moog’s best days are long passed her. RIP

    1. Is this “woke mob” in the room with us right now?

       1. Maybe just the micropenis brigade that’s triggered by “effeminate sounding names”.

          lol

    2. You are so off the mark about the Moog One it’s funny.

    3. How cute, you said ‘Woke’!

    4. You are very wrong on most of your weak points and I sincerely believe Moog now has a brighter future.

    5. I’m sorry to hear that the naming of a company’s synthesizers has so wounded your fragile masculinity. Anyway, moving on to things that matter.

19. Where is Rabbidbat? Or was it t instead of d… Dude was cool anyway. Where are you bro?

20. Ready for an official Moog stereo ladder filter-equipped Force now.

21. I hope this brings Akai’s legendary longevity of product support to Moog’s products /s

22. Norlin 2: Electric Moogaloo! 😉

23. I think the employees losing owner ship is where the heart gets ripped out of the Moog brand. it was pricey stuff but quality. – – on the other hand we should probably slow down the manufacturing of synths in general so people can focus on making music and not buying things.

    1. employees only lost ownership if the majority of them wanted it so. after all, they did own it, didn’t they? didn’t they?

       1. @itchy I feel the same sadness but employee ownership is relatively new to Moog. Moog is ~70 years old; employee ownership is ~8 years old.

          @John, employee ownership capped at 49%. Unless there was language that said, say, 60% of owners had to agree to the sale, employees could have been ignored entirely.

    2. There is confusion as to the employee ownership. Moog employees owned company stock, in this regard Moog stock or shares behave just like in Tech Companies/Startups, based on how well the company performs your stock valuation either increases or decreases over time, Moog employees were not actual owners. As result, they did not really have vote rights into the sale. Moog stated that employees that participated in their stock program (ESOP) will receive a payout.

       Hopefully that ends the confusion with this topic, and yes, Moog, in my view, took advantage of the confusion and terminology to present something that wasn’t.

       Cheers!

    3. All synth production in the world could stop tomorrow and the majority of the people buying stuff for the last decade still won’t be making much music. It’s about collecting things and squeezing what remains of their dopamine out of their social media addled brains by clicking the purchase icon.

24. Call ing it now, their next product will be an underwhelming semi-modular something. Good but underwhelming. There will be a massive marketing campaign, some will buy it, others will argue with other youtubers about it then we’ll forget about it. Remember the Mavis.

    1. I can’t wait for the timbremoog

25. i gotta wonder if they offered themselves up to Music Tribe too…

    1. Probably not! But Behrinjger stealing MOOG designs surely was part of making this deal happen. Guess Uli is starting to feel the heat now,.

       1. “But Behrinjger stealing MOOG designs surely was part of making this deal happen.”

          If you knew the history of Moog at all, you would know that the company is entirely capable of being bought and sold and going in and out of business all on their own, and that they’ve been doing so since long before Music Tribe was even a twinkle in Uli’s eye.

          “Guess Uli is starting to feel the heat now,”

          Huh? “Feel the heat” from what? Moog’s entire business would barely amount to a rounding error on Music Tribe’s books.

          1. My point about Uli feeling the heat was about legal issues. Behringer has styep+ped over the line several times before. But their blatant copying of Moog products and even showing proposed copies of Akai products surely will cost them deerly now that InMusic is in charge of Moog. Uli was not afraid of Moog but I dont think he want to clash with the ,much more powerful InMusics lawyers…

    2. This would have folded this corner of the internet in half and snapped it.

26. Gotta say Moog keep sucking people into support an employ owned company to only SALE OUT! I hope the employees received share options since inmusic is buying all the major brands, like live nation has done to the live music industry. Well since Moog has cash now, they can make a synth that does not cost a arm or leg. Reminder readers a Porsche is a supped-up VW. and there is nothing wrong making synths for the people low and high cost.

27. I had my eyes on the Moog Subsequent for quite a while, but went into a buyers strike when they ramped up the price from 1499 to 1999. Couldn’t justify spending so much more in times of rising inflation and really wanted something with at least 49 keys. The only offer by Moog being the Moog One – ramped up from 6499 to above 8k for the 8-voice version, despite reported flaws (the Matriarch can’t be considered an alternative here because I don’t know how to patch and need a preset memory). When I heard about sticky buttons and wheels of the Subsequent, I was glad to have stayed on the sidelines.

28. @synthhead Appreciate the extra details included about the Moog brand/ownership over time. Would be interested to read a follow-up on this about the employee-owners take on this. Were they for it? Did they get to vote at all? If so, was the vote as a 49% bloc or as individual percentage participation…?

    1. “Did they get to vote at all?”

       CEO Mike Adams kept sole ownership of 51% of the company, so any vote ever held between him and the 49% stake owned by the employees was strictly ceremonial.

       “If so, was the vote as a 49% bloc or as individual percentage participation…?”

       I think that’s kind of the employee’s business, moreso than ours.

29. Been mentioned in the comments a few times already but adding it again because I think it is worth adding to the main article.

    “…and, unfortunately, the head of that company is a real bastard named Jack O’Donnell” — Roger Linn

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdMRxUC77RQ

    1. ‘Once again AKAI had gone bust. Which makes all previous deals worthless. And Roger Linn did not own Akai or had any agreement with Numark/InMusic. Instead of asking for royalty payments which Numark had no responsability for. Linn should have offered his services to Akai.

30. Pretty brazen rug pull out from underneath the Asheville employees. CEO Mike Adams had specifically promised the employees that the employee ownership plan would serve as something like a pension or retirement plan for them, and that they could count on it as a big payout at the end of their careers many years down the line. Sure, they’ll still get a payout from the sale now, but not likely as valuable as it would have been as a pension.

    Back when the plan went into action in 2015, Adams even talked about how ““I could sell the company tomorrow to a strategic buyer or V. C. outfit, but I think we’ll continue to grow, and I think that second 51 percent will be worth even more.”

    Oh, and you can bet that InMusic’s first act of business will be to bring in the most villainous union-busting firms money can buy, so kiss the dream of a unionized Moog goodbye. Meanwhile, Adams now takes a multi-million dollar payout for his 51% and goes off to spend the rest of his life yachting around the Caribbean or whatever, while the Asheville factory workers get to keep assembling $2200 Matriarchs for $12 an hour.

31. One thing is for sure the value of old Moog’s are going to skyrocket like pre-CBS Fender’s.

32. Seen this movie many times. So when do the layoffs start? When are they moving & closing the Asheville headquarters?

    1. Don’t forget the employees were part owners in the business, so they all got a big payout with this deal. Many of them are probably now able to retire, send a kid to college, etc.

       1. That is very doubtful. They maybe got a few grand not the lottery.

33. Brutal

34. cool.now bring us an mpc with ladder filter and some analogue goodness

35. I’m glad the music business is diverse enough that I can veer away from the scum and patronize the more legitimate folks. They’re certainly there. I also droop and start steering elsewhere when a larger company buys out a smaller one. Its inevitably a screwing for all the wrong people. Once a “holding company” gets involved, walk away. Their main business is gutting others.

    My desire for any Moog has faded over time because they never seem to offer something that sparkles creatively like a Wavestate. It makes sense if you are an analog fanatic, but hybrids and software seem much more appealing these days. I’ve owned 4 Moogs, so the sound and build quality are a given to me, but if Jack O’Donnell comes as described, the main thing I’d want is to drive a Minimoog up his backside with a jack hammer. There’s a pay-per-view for ya!

36. Just wanted to be the 100 comment, and…
    I must admit i didn’t know you all so, well, american,
    This explains a lot 🙂

37. Alesis in synths is dead, Akai isn’t so great since S3000 series anymore. Sure, Moogs for 300$ with cheap chinese plastic and cheap parts inside. So, it is bright future for Moog. But anyway, I have Moog One, D, Voyager, Mother 32, no need for more Moogs. So, to be honest. I don’t care. Scaling in US mean more tents with homeless. It is a way which US is choosing. I don’t care, but if your home is US, you should care.

38. if this is the end of 3 osc and a filter for absurd amount of cash it can’t be bad.