From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Apr 21 15:01:07 1993
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Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 15:00:48 -0400
From: jdisegi@acs.bu.edu (Jonathan Disegi)
Message-Id: <9304211900.AA133427@acs.bu.edu>
To: eirikur@ranger.enet.dec.com, metlay@netcom.com
Subject: Re: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
Cc: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Status: OR

Could someone inform me on what exactly the Quadra was?  I never saw one but 
I thought it was ARP's version of the early-80's polyphonic/DCO/programmable
analogue synth.  Supposedly it was plauged w/ problems: what kind?  Did it
have any sort of control interface that can be converted to MIDI (ala DCB)?
Even though I have never heard one, I have always wanted to buy a Quadra 
because I love the ARP synths and it sounded cool.  Are they easy enough to 
find, and what is their 'street price'?

Also -- what's up w/ the PRO-DGX, for I can buy one for $99.00.  is it cool?

once again, thanks for all the VALUBLE info!

jonathan.

From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Apr 21 13:44:12 1993
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From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Message-Id: <9304211742.AA29815@netcom.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
To: eirikur@ranger.enet.dec.com (I've been stolen by a gypsy.  21-Apr-1993 1252)
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 10:42:40 PDT
Cc: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Analogue Synth Mailing List)
In-Reply-To: <9304211651.AA11726@us1rmc.bb.dec.com>; from "I've been stolen by a gypsy.  21-Apr-1993 1252" at Apr 21, 93 12:51 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: OR


>Ok, Mike.... Centaur????  Vas is das?   

H'n! The Centaur was one of the two projects that ARP had on the boards
when the company came apart (the other one was the Chroma). It was
intended to be a multiple-unit synthesis environment tht would comprise
a keyboardist's entire rig: multiple keyboards, bass pedals and all.
Essentially, it (like the Quadra, poor old thing) presaged MIDI, but
the technology wasn't there to do the job cheaply enough yet. The Chroma
got backburnered until it was too late, and Rhodes bought the prototypes
and the designs and took it to its place in history. To my knowledge,
the Centaur never got to the prototype stage, and there was a lot of
fingerpointing as to why.

-- 
mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I bow to the obvious superiority of a culture that coins words like "snog."

From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Apr 21 12:54:13 1993
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From: I've been stolen by a gypsy.  21-Apr-1993 1252 <eirikur@ranger.enet.dec.com>
To: metlay@netcom.com
Cc: analogue@ranger.enet.dec.com, eirikur@ranger.enet.dec.com
Apparently-To: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu, metlay@netcom.com
Subject: Re: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
Status: OR

Ok, Mike.... Centaur????  Vas is das?   

Eirikur


From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Apr 21 11:47:52 1993
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From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
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Subject: Re: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
To: jdisegi@acs.bu.edu (Jonathan Disegi)
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 8:47:44 PDT
Cc: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu, dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu
In-Reply-To: <9304211522.AA241185@acs.bu.edu>; from "Jonathan Disegi" at Apr 21, 93 11:22 am
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: OR


>Thanks a lot for the informative (but sad) history lesson!!
>I figured the Avatar had something to do with ARP's bankrupcy:

Partially. The Centaur was the rest of the story.

>What was ARP thinking?  They designed brilliant synths like the 2500, 2600,
>OMNI, Oydessy, and the String Ensembles.  Right when they were really doing 
>well, it seems suicidal that they decided to squander all their money and time
>into designing the Avatar.  After all, what the hell good is it when it is
>a monophonic synth, and a guitar is most definatly polyphonic?  Weird!  

Hindsight is always 20-20, Jonathan. It made a lot of sense back then; there
were other companies marketing pitch-to-voltage converters for guitar, and
some of them were fairly cheap and workable (the Korg X911 springs to mind).

American companies often have run very close to the line for most or all
of their existence; they are on very tight schedules and up against fierce
competition. They must anticipate trends and put out a product that is
timely, useful, reliable and exciting. It's easy to get myopic in such
a circumstance, and one bad move with an expensive product that nobody
wants can sink a company, just as easily (or more so!) than one GOOD
product can take a bunch of nobodies and make them into synth.gods.

Show of hands-- how many of you old timers out there snickered in
disbelief in 1984 when this miserable bunch of rugrats at some weenbag
company in Eastern Pennsylvania call "Ensoniq" ran a two-page ad in
MUSICIAN about a keyboard called the Mirage? I know I did. Same for
the XT rackmount digital reverb marketed by someone called Al
Leesis.... or the Emulator from that bunch of guys who build modular
synths in California called Ostrich or some idiot name like that
(and EMu STILL got bought out, despite that AND the Proteus!)

On the flip side, anyone who's followed the industry can point at
the products that sank the companies. For Moog it was the Memorymoog.
For ARP it was the Avatar and the Centaur. For Oberheim it was the
OBMX. For Sequential it was the Studio 440. For Linn it was the 9000.
And so on....

-- 
mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I bow to the obvious superiority of a culture that coins words like "snog."

From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Apr 21 11:37:00 1993
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From: metlay@netcom.com (metlay)
Message-Id: <9304211536.AA16344@netcom.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
To: jdisegi@acs.bu.edu (Jonathan Disegi)
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 8:36:28 PDT
Cc: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
In-Reply-To: <9304210243.AA47922@acs.bu.edu>; from "Jonathan Disegi" at Apr 20, 93 10:43 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11]
Status: OR

>	We all know that MOOG, ARP, SCI, and Oberheim are no longer, but
>	*WHEN*, and more specifically *WHY* did they go under?  I assume
>	It had alot to do with the inability to progress to digital 
>	synthesis, but that is too easy.  I want to know the juicy details
>	about the demise of these 'classic' synth manufacturers!!!

DACC has spoken of ARP (all entirely without mentioning the Centaur,
which is no mean feat), Moog's rise and fall is written up in an
article by Bob Moog in a recent KEYBOARD, and with Dan on this group I
wouldn't THINK of holding forth on what happened to Sequential,
although I could with a reasonable amount of accuracy IMO. Oberheim,
though....

The basic problem run into by Oberheim was that they were being
undercut by the Japanese manufacturers, whose newer digital designs
were more trendy, less expensive, and easier to produce in mass
quantities. Tom Oberheim left the company, which was bought by ECC
DEvelopment Corporation (a pair of brothers with a hankering for big
business, as near as I could tell) and began retooling to compete
directly with the Japanese in the realm of analog synthesis, an area
which (at the time) they were not overwhelmingly respected. (Keep in
mind, you teenagers, that in those days there was no such thing as
house music, and you couldn't GIVE away an old Roland analog synth
box.) At the time of the switch (late 1985), OB's product line was the
Xpander, Matrix-12, and the drum machines DMX, DX and DXStretch.

ECC had an American design team put together some good-quality
medium-pricepoint synths and so on, and arranged for a Japanese firm,
Sakata Shokai, to manufacture them. This included the Matrix-6 and
Matrix-6R, Xk, and Prommer. The Prommer was a great idea that jumped
on a technology with a very short shelflife-- no one wanted to burn
their own EPROMs, it was too much hassle. (Although a DX Stretch and a
Prommer gave you almost Godlike ability, in 1986 terms....) The M6,
M6R, and Xk all ran into horrendous problems with quality control; the
units were re-engineered to an extent by Sakata to keep costs down,
and the changes weren't fully researched ahead of time. OB pulled out
of Sakata, and moved to Hammond Suzuki, but the damage had already
been done. HS helped put out the first run of Matrix-1000s, and the 
ill-fated Perf/X line, whose software was an utter disaster. There
were to be five such items: The Navigator, Cyclone, Systemizer,
Chordinator, and Vector. Only four got to the ad stage, and only
three were ever released.

All during this time, the items originally built in America were
STILL being built in America, along with the DPX-1 sample player
(another idea well ahead of its time, alas), and the quality control
was much better. OB finally pulled out of Japan entirely, set up 
to manufacture the Matrix-1000 and Perf/X boxes in the USA, and
announced several new products, including the Eclipse synth, none
of which ever made it past the prototype stage. (I know where I
can get the prototype of the Eclipse, but I'm not THAT much of a
collector.) But this wasn't enough to save OB, whose cashflow
troubles led to ECC's bailing out in late 1990 (I think).

When Gibson reopened Oberheim as a division of Gibson Labs, they
had a total of five or six employees, and this gradually dwindled.
The remaining Perf/X box shells lying around in a warehouse were
turned into the Strummer and Drummer (the Chordinator and Vector
reborn), and new software for the other Perf/X boxes came out.
The Xpander and Matrix-12 were made on a special-order basis, but
the only real cashcow was the Matrix-1000, which was and is a fine
little synth. The current status of OB is unclear; their death has
been announced in several places, but you can still buy new M1000s,
and the only sure thing about them is that they will NOT release
the OBMX, which sank what was left of their R&D effort and is now
being pursued independently by the men who designed it, according
to my latest scuttlebutt. What happens to OB from here, I don't 
know. I occasionally dream of Tom Oberheim, Marcus Ryle, and Michel
Doidic coming back, rescuing the company, and rereleasing the Xp
and M12 with all the same voice hardware but updated software and
CPU for more features. Yeah, dream on....|-<

As a final note for trivia nuts, here are the ad slogans for
the three incarnations of Oberheim, in reverse chronological order:

OBERHEIM DIVISION OF GIBSON LABS: "The Real Thing"

[At the time, it WAS, but there wasn't much of it actually made.]

OBERHEIM DIVISION OF ECC DEVELOPMENT CORP.: "Practical Innovation Continues"

[Innovation, yes. Practical, no. PRACTICAL things WORK.]

OBERHEIM ELECTRONICS, INC.: "Some Things Are Better Than Others"

[This one speaks for itself, and it is the truest slogan of all....]

-- 
mike metlay * atomic city * box 81175 pgh pa 15217-0675 * metlay@netcom.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I bow to the obvious superiority of a culture that coins words like "snog."

From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Apr 21 11:22:42 1993
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Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 11:22:28 -0400
From: jdisegi@acs.bu.edu (Jonathan Disegi)
Message-Id: <9304211522.AA241185@acs.bu.edu>
To: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu, dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
Status: OR

Thanks a lot for the informative (but sad) history lesson!!
I figured the Avatar had something to do with ARP's bankrupcy:
I took a look at one last summer, and it basically looked like a 
doctored up Odyssey with an extra row of switches for each of the 
guitar's pitches, and it lacked a keyboard.  The guy wanted $175 for it,
and said it never worked properly, and listed for $3000.00 in '77 or '78.
What was ARP thinking?  They designed brilliant synths like the 2500, 2600,
OMNI, Oydessy, and the String Ensembles.  Right when they were really doing 
well, it seems suicidal that they decided to squander all their money and time
into designing the Avatar.  After all, what the hell good is it when it is
a monophonic synth, and a guitar is most definatly polyphonic?  Weird!  
I still regret not buying the Avatar because of the 'stigma' attached to it!!
Also, what is the ARP PRO-DGX like?  I have a chance to buy one in Boston for
$99.00.  I love my OMNI, so what's this baby like?

I still say that ARP's analogue string patches are rivaled by NONE!!!!!!!

jonathan.
at BU.

From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Wed Apr 21 01:15:07 1993
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From: dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu (Andrew C. Crowell)
Message-Id: <9304210512.AA11284@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
To: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 0:12:49 CDT
In-Reply-To: <9304210243.AA47922@acs.bu.edu>; from "Jonathan Disegi" at Apr 20, 93 10:43 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL5]
Status: OR

Previously, Jonathan Disegi wrote:
> 
> 2) I have always been curious about this, but no one has ever given me a 
>    straight (accurate) answer:
> 
> 	We all know that MOOG, ARP, SCI, and Oberheim are no longer, but
> 	*WHEN*, and more specifically *WHY* did they go under?  I assume
> 	It had alot to do with the inability to progress to digital 
> 	synthesis, but that is too easy.  I want to know the juicy details
> 	about the demise of these 'classic' synth manufacturers!!!

In ARPs case, it had nothing to do with progressing to digital synthesis.
Here's the ugly ARP story...
	ARP was fascinated in the early '70s with the concept of developing
a "performance synth"...sort of what we got with the carry-about controllers
like the Lynx, or the Roland SH-101, or a few other ideas. ARPs solution,
however, was very half-baked in the light of the technology of the day.
This solution? The ARP Avatar.
	The Avatar was the first "guitar synthesizer"...something of a 
misnomer, really. It was more correctly the first synth to track pitch and
convert this to CV to control a synth. Unlike current-day guitar controllers,
though (which use hex pickups to get discrete string pickup), the Avatar
used the straight output of the guitar itself...which, in the light of
pitch->CV technology, was a _bad_idea_. Strings, of course, put out harmonics,
and considering also that the Avatar could only track one pitch at a time,
the guitar became a pain to play with this device connected to it. 
	Well, simply put, the Avatar was a bold-faced mistake. The synth
had chronic mistracking problems, no programming improvements over the
keyboard synths of the day, made the guitar difficult to use...you get the
point. Stupidly, though, ARP continued to try and push this device _even_
_though_ the technology to make it work simply wasn't in place in the
time it was being developed. They poured tons of cash into the Avatar
project, neglecting development on keyboards, where other companies like
Yamaha, Korg, and Roland were beginning to make serious US market inroads.
	By the time ARP woke up and smelled the coffee, it was too late!
They rushed development of some products, coming out with truly half-assed
devices like the PRO-DGX and the Quadra, both of which had some major
problems attached to them. By the time they got around to developing the
ARP Chroma, which was designed to save the company and which was truly an
advanced product for its day, the jig was up. They were millions in the
hole to creditors, had suppliers tying up shipments of materials and parts,
and naturally, went bankrupt, selling out to Rhodes. Rhodes picked up
some of where ARP left off, mainly on the production and marketing of
the Chroma...but ignoring the venerable and much-used lines of earlier
synths and, of course, the Avatar.


D.A.C. Crowell
Computer Music Project/School of Music
University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign
(dacc@cmp-rt.music.uiuc.edu)

-- 

From analogue-request@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu Tue Apr 20 22:43:51 1993
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Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 22:43:49 -0400
From: jdisegi@acs.bu.edu (Jonathan Disegi)
Message-Id: <9304210243.AA47922@acs.bu.edu>
To: analogue@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu
Subject: The demise of Moog, ARP, SCI, OBIE, etc.
Status: OR


1) Can everyone stop bitching or unsubscribe, I wanna read posts about synths,
   not frivilous whining.

2) I have always been curious about this, but no one has ever given me a 
   straight (accurate) answer:

	We all know that MOOG, ARP, SCI, and Oberheim are no longer, but
	*WHEN*, and more specifically *WHY* did they go under?  I assume
	It had alot to do with the inability to progress to digital 
	synthesis, but that is too easy.  I want to know the juicy details
	about the demise of these 'classic' synth manufacturers!!!

Thanks a lot -- I'm really curious!

Regards,

Jonathan.

