First week of March is 3 weeks away, end of April is just short of 12 weeks away... doesn't sound like there's much of a commitment there!
Yeah, it’s clear as mud 🤪 but they’re making progress - at least they provided a kinda, sorta, maybe “response!” LOL!
Production should start in the second quarter this year.This is extremely disappointing and the lack of communication from Moog is disturbing. To date, I’ve also heard nothing from my dealer. I had to pay for mine at the time of my order (although I got a very good price). While any delays due to technical issues that need to be fixed are certainly understandable (obviously, it would not be good if the Claravox was faulty on arrival), Moog should, at the very least, be more forthcoming about what is going on. Ugh! I think I’ll write to my dealer and see if they’ve received any updates from Moog. Hopefully, Moog won’t rename it the Claravox Millennial Edition.
Folks, just a friendly reminder - there's a global pandemic going on out there. This has made supply chain management very difficult. Below is a quote from my Sweetwater sales guy which provides some excellent detail >> the bottom line of which is we all gotta chill. There are people dying out there of COVID-19. I think we can wait an extra month or two for the Claravox to ship.
"The biggest constraint in our supply chain and in the entire world right now is in the lack of availability of shipping containers. There are about to 20’ and 40’ shipping containers that vendors fill with goods from Asia or Europe and ship into US ports. In fact, the cost of getting a container from China to the US has gone up from $2,500 to over $10,000, as reported by our vendors. The next major issue is availability on ships to bring containers to the US. This has caused long wait times for some vendors to 1) get a container to fill and 2) get a filled container booked on a cargo ship. Once the ships sails, it’s several weeks for it to reach the US.
Once ships arrive at US ports, then there are long waits to get them unloaded. Currently there are roughly 35 ships anchored at the Long Beach Port, each with 15,000 containers on board. Under normal circumstances, there would only be a few ships waiting, but the high volumes are causing ships to wait to be unloaded sometimes longer than a month. For entire process end to end, this would normally be about a 30 day process. Right now the entire shipping process from Asia to the US could be 75-90 days or more."
Moog - made in Ashville, NC of components sourced worldwide.
“. . . the bottom line of which is we all gotta chill. There are people dying out there of COVID-19. I think we can wait an extra month or two for the Claravox to ship."
I don’t think anyone on this forum has exhibited impatience; it seems most are disappointed in the complete lack of communication from 1) Moog, and/or 2) our dealers (however, it’s not their fault if Moog isn’t communicating with them). Even now, there are at least two places on Moog’s site that still indicate sales ended on Dec. 31st and shipments would begin before that. It takes all of five minutes to update a web page or post an update here (presuming they read this forum).
Many of us have heard nothing from either Moog or our dealers except when we write to them. It is not unreasonable to expect some communication from one or both regarding the current status, especially since some of us have already paid in full and/or paid interest on financing - the pandemic has been hard, financially, on many of us too. Had we known of the delay, I’m sure many (myself included) would have delayed our orders.
This is not to discount the pandemic (I know someone who was one of the first to die in NYC very early last year - he was a musician). Also, musicians are among the hardest hit financially because of the pandemic and are either struggling to maintain their skills after such an extended period of time or trying to learn new skills.
The bottom line is, a little communication would go a long way. This board appears to be the only place to get information and, even then, we are getting that information secondhand - only when someone posts a tidbit from a dealer who decides to offer a possible explanation; even those attribute the delay to different reasons.
In the words of the great S'chn T'gai Spock:
There are two possibilities: They are unable to respond, or they are unwilling to respond
In either case this will mean that actual manufacturing has not yet begun. When it does I expect Moog will let dealers know. And it will take some time (weeks? months?) for them to fulfill all of the back orders. And that's just for North America, everyone else will have to add time for overseas shipping to that.
At least that's my best guess.
So, I just pre-ordered the Claravox from Sweetwater, with the stand. When you think about it, it may seem like a lot of money, but when a decent Strat or Tele costs just as much, it would be a shame to miss out on the opportunity. You never know with Moog... they make only one run, or it could be around for some time. I’ve learned through the years that every time we invest in ourselves, and follow our hearts and instincts, it pays off. Sometimes it does so in ways we do not expect, but I have no regrets about any of the many instruments I bought through the years.
It’s frustrating not knowing how long until they are made or shipped, but that’s life. We all have other things to keep us busy.
I figured since we don’t have to actually pay until they ship, there was nothing to lose.
Of course, I prefer to build instruments myself, but I don’t make theremins, just guitars, basses and ukes! I sold my Big Briar Etherwave standard to a freeing who wanted to learn theremin, so the Claravox and the Subscope Dominik made for me will have me doing just fine.
I wish Moog was more transparent on their website and gave more details, sound clips, and videos, however. They have dropped the ball in this new roll-out... unless they did not want to be too overwhelmed on the first run by too many orders. It could be a case where they know it will be highly sought after once the first few are delivered, and they just wanted to control the pace of production.
. . . I figured since we don’t have to actually pay until they ship, there was nothing to lose.
This is not correct, some of us had to PAY IN FULL at the time of the order. (I went through Prymaxe as they had a deal that was originally valid only through December 31, 2020 - the same date that Moog originally stated was the cutoff date for orders - to obtain 20% off the order. Since then Moog has continually changed their cutoff date and Prymaxe has extended their 20% offer). As a 20% discount is a substantial amount off the full price, and Moog mislead us as far as both the last day to place an order and the date of delivery (again, December 2020), for those of us who wanted the discount and didn’t want to pay upfront, had to use credit. HOWEVER, Moog started playing games just a few days after I placed my order (on December 13th) and has been essentially silent since then. So, some of us were stuck with two choices - continue paying interest on credit or pay for the instrument in full (which is what I did after paying some interest).
At this point, other than speculation, we have no idea as to the real reason for the delay, when/if Moog has begun production, when delivery will begin, etc. The date that Moog will accept orders on their “limited edition” keeps changing and Moog’s silence is deafening.
All-in-all, this situation is concerning due entirely to Moog’s silence.
A new and rather interesting podcast was posted a few days ago - “The Theremin at 100”. Interestingly, the podcaster seems to suggest that the Claravox has now been released. However, he interviewed Cyril Lance, Moog’s Chief Technical Officer, who didn’t address the issue, although he did comment on how “intuitive” the software is.
On a related note, a British merchant, Scan Computers International mentions that the Claravox has been “overdue since 05 December 2020.” I think they hit the nail on the head with that statement! LOL!
I'm happy to contribute that I just got a notification from Steve's Music Store that my Claravox has arrived, and is being prepared for shipping! This is very exciting news. I'll keep all of you posted - but keep a close eye on your inboxes!
I'm happy to contribute that I just got a notification from Steve's Music Store that my Claravox has arrived, and is being prepared for shipping! This is very exciting news. I'll keep all of you posted - but keep a close eye on your inboxes!
Yippee! Congratulations! My eyes are superglued to my e-mail 
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