Modal in difficulty '23 : restructuring mid '24

inmazevo · 2023-10-02T10:24:35.641Z

I’ll miss modal quite a bit, I think.

Even if they come back, it’ll be a while if ever to get just what they have now ‘going’ again.
A side effect of restructuring is the loss of talent. They’ll lose just about everybody that makes modal, modal.

So when they come back, even just with what they have now to sell and support, the new people will be learning how to do that for a while, not doing anything new.

In sports it’s ‘rebuilding’ – in college sports it’s ‘graduation’
New team all around.

Sometimes it works.
But it won’t really be modal unless they’re really, really lucky.

Shame too. My little Craft Synth 2.0 is a great little toy of a thing that doesn’t sound like a toy at all, and I have on several occasions used it and my experience with Skulpt as an excuse to get one of the more upper-level synths, but couldn’t figure out which one I wanted. Argon as the Uber-craft, or Cobalt as the Uber-skulpt. I might just grab another Craft AND Skulpt and tie them together and call it good enough.

There did seem to be a marketing failure there. 300-400 more for a single synth that munged those two together (argon/cobalt) and I’d have grabbed one instantly, but I don’t even have space for two ‘m’ versions of argon or cobalt.

LyingDalai · 2024-01-24T20:16:51.642Z

Seems they’re not dead yet…

https://www.instagram.com/p/C2fk4F2NZk4/?igsh=MTV1N3h5cWxib3l4aQ==

cutlery · 2024-01-24T20:47:22.020Z

Nice. Looks like a few Carbon-8’s there, too.

jiffybox · 2024-01-25T05:39:14.990Z

Those booths looks so tiny for such mighty makers.

_RRR · 2024-05-01T09:20:38.208Z

Straight from their website:

Modal Electronics – 1 May 24

Modal Electronics completes strategic restructuring and commits to...

Modal Electronics completes strategic restructuring and commits to sustainable transformation of the brand and the product line New ownership structure unlocks ambitious next-generation product plan Hong Kong, 1st May 2024 – Modal...

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Modal is back in business; hope to see (and hear) more in the coming weeks

Bignill · 2024-05-01T09:50:39.286Z

Alltronics sure need to widen their synth offerings

Screenshot 2024-05-01 at 11.49.042118×1178 447 KB

Screenshot 2024-05-01 at 11.52.201598×1416 298 KB

_RRR · 2024-05-01T12:02:39.347Z

From the Synthanatomy’s article:

Alltronics Holding Ltd is a manufacturer of premium consumer and music technology products, says the press release.

According to the Alltronics website, the company has a factory in Shenzhen called Shenzhen Allcomm Electronic Company Limited (“Allcomm”). Interesting! That makes the whole thing much easier for them. Alltronics also made all the Modal synths in the past.

Make sense to me now.

J3RK · 2024-05-01T15:19:07.466Z

Good news! I didn’t want to see them go. When their site went down for a few days, a friend of mine needed to update is 002, and couldn’t. Luckily Paula helped a bit, and now the site is back onilne again. Hopefully it stays that way.

My daughter is using the Cobalt 8X a little less for now, and asked me to move it from her room to the studio, and she’ll play there when she wants to. I’ve been growing to appreciate it again, and have been playing on it a bit in between other things.

Bignill · 2024-05-18T15:07:16.868Z

Jukka · 2024-05-18T16:23:08.661Z

This is reassuring. It’s the sort of thing past and future buyers need to know.

The Modalverse direction idea is ambitious, but quite achievable. I would like to see other companies open doors like this.

Modal has a good base of products and technologies for future sales of existing products and for growth into new ones as well.

ADDED : Thinking back, they have had a Modalverse approach in the past, as this was the origin of the Craft synths.

SoundReverend · 2024-05-18T17:07:40.024Z

I did not understand if the developer of the synths is still around? And who was it?

Jukka · 2024-05-18T17:11:58.549Z

SoundReverend:

developer of the synths is still around?

Which synths are you referring to ?

They’ve made a lot of different synths, and they’ve had many developers as well, so it’s not singular as you have written.

SoundReverend · 2024-05-18T17:33:32.889Z

Ah ok, I thought there was Paula who left and then George who left and started U.D.O. and someone else who then was in the lead and created the synth platform for Argon8 and Cobalt8 from the original Modal stuff

I guess it is not that easy.

Jukka · 2024-05-18T18:00:32.586Z

Some other names i am somewhat familiar with is Matt Jackson, and Jackson Almond.

You no doubt know, but for others tuning in, one of the central things done as a developer ( hardware, software, mechanical, manufacturing engineering, as well as product management ) is you meticulously document all aspects of the your work. It’s the same as backing up, no single loss should erase progress made. Another engineer can and will take what exists and build on that. This is what intellectual property is. And IP is acquired and sold every single day.

A good example of this at Modal is the presence of the technology of their 00 product line inherited into their other synths.

This tranferability of IP is what makes a Modalverse sort of development model work. It is important when using this sort of model though that you focus on consistency and cohesion across your product lines going forward.

DavidL · 2024-05-18T18:06:15.149Z

Be interesting to see what exactly modalverse ends up being for people who end up hopping on that train. If it’s merged into Modal, or shipped as some sort of subsidiary

Jukka · 2024-05-18T18:23:59.491Z

DavidL:

modalverse ends up being

TBD ! No cookie cutter for that. There are so many parts involved, and they’re all “moving” parts. It’s very different depending for instance on the size and fit for the IP involved. Depends very much also how deep a pocket you have, and what sort of time horizon you are setting.

Some IP is very cheap up front, for instance acquiring IP like from an Electrosmith.sort of company.

Also think about options to commercialize open source IP. Doing this makes great sense if done in a highly ethical, and completely legal way.

FilipNest · 2024-05-18T18:31:00.778Z

If this is the same company that allegedly didn’t pay suppliers or staff I don’t give a shit what their new model is, they, their name and their products can go to hell.

SoundReverend · 2024-05-18T18:57:43.815Z

Do you have any sources for that? Was that before they went “Chapter 11”?

Jukka · 2024-10-25T01:11:57.622Z

Message from Modal on Facebook on their progress, and the struggles they have been through, getting the company back, and making a full recovery.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve received a lot of messages asking about our progress, and instead of responding to each one individually, we’d love to share a brief update with you all!

The Modal team has been juggling multiple challenges at once. After the recent acquisition, we transitioned to a much smaller team to manage operations—what once was a group of 15 is now just 3 dedicated individuals!

Our primary focus has been getting our product manufacturing back on track and creating a solid development plan, all while ensuring our wonderful Modal customers receive ongoing support. We’ve also made some difficult choices to breathe new life into the brand, keeping Modal’s core values and vision in mind. We’re excited to share that we’ve completed the CARBON8 development and kicked off production of this eagerly awaited synthesizer.

With the help of our new parent company, Alltronics, we’ve also discovered a few unexpected hurdles. Unfortunately, our website was compromised by malware, and the IT team is hard at work sorting through the issues to clean everything up.

We are also reorganizing the digital infrastructure for our brand accounts, which are crucial for distributing important components like MODALapp. It’s a bit challenging since the previous owner and administrative staff haven’t provided us with full access to these digital spaces, but we’re making progress!

As you can see, there’s a lot happening behind the scenes! While we juggle production, shipments, product development, and keeping everything flowing, we could surely use a few extra hours in our day to tackle all our responsibilities.

If we could resolve everything with a snap of our fingers, we would! But we know that after such a challenging restructuring process, patience, dedication, and passion will guide us in reinventing how Modal operates moving forward.

We are incredibly grateful for the unwavering support from our Modal customers and friends. Thank you so much for being part of this journey! A special shoutout to James Dyson, whose wisdom, encouragement, and inspiration mean the world to us. He not only organizes our user groups on Facebook but also helps with Beta tests, offers sound design help, and answers many technical questions in the community.

The Modal team has a bright vision for our brand! We’re working hard on new products, and we’re expanding our distribution network so Modal can continue to lead in music production with innovative synthesizers and music creation tools.

michaeljk1963 · 2024-11-18T13:53:50.338Z

Anyone know where I can get a copy of the ModalApp for Mac? I have a Cobalt8M and really liked having the app available. Now I have a new desktop as the brains of my Studio. When I go to their website, I get a warning that it’s been hacked and (Edit: as @Jukka’s post points out) there is a press release from them saying their website is compromised. The Mac App Store lists the ModalApp but you can’t download it at present.

Second Edit: @AMBello was kind enough to offer to send me a zip of the app, which reminded me that I still have the app on my laptop, but I am assuming I need the installer file for whatever additional files need to be installed at various places (like the Library folder). Maybe I will try to copy it over from my laptop to my desktop and cross my fingers?!?!?

Third Edit: I am really dumb sometimes! I didn’t even think to look on my new Mac first–the Modal app (and anything else it needs to run) is already installed on my new Mac. When I first set up the new Mac, I used Migration Assistant from my laptop, and hadn’t realized I already had the Modal app on my laptop (because the Cobalt8M has been in a box since I tore down my old studio roughly a year ago and I used a Mac Pro as the computer for my old studio–I am not even sure why I have the Modal app installed on my laptop, but now I am glad I did). So, can you guess how I found out? Not by actually looking in my Applications folder. Nope. When I tried to copy over the Modal app from an external hard drive, I got a message letting me know a “newer” version was already there. Duh!!!

Anyway, problem solved (for me) and my Cobalt. I have the Modal App controlling the Cobalt just fine.