etherwave pro

can any body shed any light as to the reason why moog has discontinued the eatherwave pro. with the level of worldwide interest show in the instrument I am at a loss why the company would discontinue production of such a fine instrument!

Didn't someone here or on "that group that shall not be named" say that Bob Moog wanted it that way? Maybe it was in his will? Or was it that only Bob could make them work, initially.

Once everything is working, only slight tweaks here and there once in a while would be needed to keep them working.

Don

here in the uk we never had a chance to aquire one save but a few and I suspect that those that did came by them via continental europe. I know before they came into full production I myself put an order in with turnkey here in the UK and remained on order for a total of nine months or so, putting almost half as a deposit, but to no avail and after countless telephone calls and emails, gave up and got my money back. Its certainly no way to run a business in my view. To be fair I dont feel that all the blame can be levelled at turnkey however, I think the company did its best to aquire an EPro for me I just think that Moog didnt want to play ball with consumers here in the uk

"I just think that Moog didnt want to play ball with consumers here in the uk"
But WHY?
This is an issue which has bothered me greatly since the E-Pro was discontinued.. WHY??
One only starts to make money from a product once all the development costs have been recovered - Thereafter, profit can start to appear.. The components (even allowing for the expensive housing) for the E-Pro are WAY below the wholesale price, and UNLESS assembly / testing / calibration was taking a huge time per unit, the selling price should have provided Moog with an acceptable profit margin..

So.. Was the reason for Moog's discontinuation of the E-Pro an issue relating to design 'faults' which made these instruments too expensive to construct and set-up? I doubt it.. but it is possible.

If the E-Pro was not making a profit, and could not be 'sorted out' (Perhaps because only Bob was competent to do this, and was ill) then discontinuing the product makes sense.. But I cannot think of any other explanation which does..

.. Having said that, how many years of profit did Moog lose by prematurely discontinuing the Mini-Moog, and failing to re-introduce it when there was a huge (by this markets standards) global demand for this product.

Why was the MIDI (Vox?) discontinued? The development costs on this must have been huge, but once done, making instruments (even as special 1-off orders) at the price these were selling for, should have been profitable..

Is this a 'sick' marketing 'trick'.. Discontinue products, so that people will rush to buy your new products before you discontinue them?..

If I could afford it, I would probably stretch myself to buy a Voyager now - for fear that they might discontinue that before I buy one.. So the tactic probably works sometimes!

The reason the E-Pro was discontinued is:

The curved control panel was steam bent, and they had high failure rates with that alone.

They also had high incidences of pitch arms not seating firmly in place.

The instrument was very costly to produce. Have you seen the inside of one? I have, Charles Lester has a pic of one on his site, and Dan Burns showed me his E-Pro without the cover on, and it blows my mind as to all the stuff that's in there, compared to an Etherwave Standard. It's no wonder they put a vent hole at the bottom, and one at the top for proper ventilation. That thing produces a lot of heat.

If the mute switch ever got damaged, you had to take out the boards in order to access, and replace it.

I'm sure it was not in Bob Moog's will to discontinue the E-Pro, since it was produced long after his passing.

By the way, I know how y'all in the UK feel about not having easy access to Moog products. Here in Mississippi, there are no Moog product dealers. Not even in Jackson.

At leat Moog Music has established a new network of authorized dealers in the UK. Let's hope it stays that way when / if Moog Music ever gets round to producing a new line of high end, pro theremins.

Hi Thomas - I am not sure that the reasons you have given make real hard-nosed sense.. I suspect that there is more to this story than you have been told.

"The curved control panel was steam bent, and they had high failure rates with that alone".... etc

These sort of mechanical manufacturing problems need not stop a product completely..


"Have you seen the inside of one?"

- Yes.. I have a set of photos of the innards - can read component values etc, and see quite a lot of the tracking.. It IS complex, but not astronomically complex.. and one cannot use the Etherwave Standard as any kind of 'standard' complexity reference... Compare the EW standard to say a Moog "Little Phatty" and the EW standard looks like a toy (it probably has about the same complexity as a single VCO in the Phatty) - And compare the Phatty to the EW-Pro (both about the same RRP) and the Phatty is several times more complex than the EW-Pro.

"It's no wonder they put a vent hole at the bottom, and one at the top for proper ventilation. That thing produces a lot of heat."

Unless the unit is being deliberately heated in a controlled manner for stability reasons (as was done on the Moog Source), excessive dissipation in a product like this (which outputs a trivial amount of power) can ONLY be due to BAD DESIGN!

"If the mute switch ever got damaged, you had to take out the boards in order to access, and replace it." - BAD DESIGN!

BUT - There is NOTHING in any of the above which should cause an otherwise good product which is in high demand, to be discontinued.. A simple redesign of the boards, so that they fit in a conventional housing, and one could re-launch the product - perhaps even with a lower price tag.

I am left thinking that the reasons for not 'sorting out' the issues are much more complex than the EW-Pro is!

perhaps production and design issues were the problem and I fully take on board gentlemen what you are saying. It still does not however, take away the frustration I felt and probably others like me who were not able to aquire one. if moog, and I have heard tell, are thinking of producing a replacement in the future for the EPro they would do well to remember that a customer is a customer and that consumers over here in the UK would like to be given the opportunity leastways to share in the success of a new and exciting product.

Hi Fred, I tend to agree, but that's just what the engineers at Moog Music told me at EM2k8, which I take as the "official" story. We'll never really know if there is a "different" story as to the discontinuation of the Pro.

I have offered many suggestions for product redesign while at EM2k8. Hopefully, they'll become a reality one day.

As to folks in the UK not having access to Moog products, all I can say is write, write, and write lots more to Moog Music, and their UK distribution dealers to let them know y'all want their products. Complain loudly if you have to. Call them. Do a youtube vid telling them you want their products if it comes to it. Just one e-mail won't cut it.

While I was at Ethermusic, I did inform them of the need to include the UK in Moog Music distribution, and how folks in the UK were feeling about not being able to get the Pro.

We'll just have to wait, and see what happens next, as the ball is now in their court.

The real story is, of course, a tale told by an accountant, full of profit and loss, signifying business.

That's the bottom line. Moog is a business, and business is about the bottom line, and if the bottom line is less than zero, then it's the end of the line.

And now the ePro's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.

Business as usual.

"And now the ePro's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more."

Such poetry! ;) ..

But, perhaps in the long run, Moog will have done Theremin evolution a service by discontinuing the E-Pro.. Aiming to produce a replacement has led me down avenues I would never have explored otherwise - and I KNOW I am not the only designer inspired to fill the hole left by the E-Pro.

A better Theremin WILL appear - I hope to be the person to provide this, but if it is not me, someone else will... And this will happen in 2009 (and most likely in the first half)