Mod Wiggler, the well-known modular Synthesizer forum, was acquired by US-based family-run synth shop synthCube.
The world is taking place online these days, including in the case of synthesizers. Photos of new gear and studios are shown, small jam videos are uploaded, and discussions are held with positive and negative effects. The pioneers of social media are forums.
They still exist today and are remnants of the old-school online world. A time without Facebook and others. This week, the interesting news broke that Mod Wiggler, one of the most famous synth forums, has a new owner.
Mod Wiggler SynthCube
New times have dawned for Mod Wiggler. Once again, better said. After Mike McGrath passed away in 2019, “Flatscan” took over the forum’s fortunes, including changing the name from Muff Wiggler to Mod Wiggler.
Then, the next change this week. The US-based family-run synth shop synthCube is the new owner of Mod Wiggler. They have acquired the forum and will take on ownership, which includes the duties and responsibilities involved in maintaining the site and community, said SynthCube.
The previous owner concluded that he did not have the resources to manage everything as a single person
I’m proud with what I’ve been able to do these past 4 years – re engineering the site to be far more reliable and responsive, dropping operating costs, while keeping this an accessible and welcoming place that is the de-facto home for modular synth know-how.
But there is only so much one person can do. Securing this community for the long term means it can’t be owned by a single person. It means letting it go so it can be better managed by an established team that has respect for the scene and MW’s place in it.
SynthCube’s Plans With Mod Wiggler?
No financial ones, as promised by synthCube. They want to continue Mod Wiggler as it was before. That means ad-free, made for the community, and supportable via Patreon and volunteer contributions.
They also explicitly stated that Mod Wiggler is not intended to become an advertising platform or support forum for synthCube:
They want to preserve it for the community, ensure its management is not dependent on a single person, prevent it from going into the hands of a digital marketing company, and honor and maintain Mike McGrath’s legacy as the founder.
You can read the entire explanation from the former and new owners of the Mod Wiggler here
I’m excited to see where Mod Wiggler’s journey leads. We will see whether the promises are kept. The statement that it wasn’t adopted for business shifts is already crumbling a bit.
synthCube is currently offering a 20% discount in its shop to welcome the Wiggler family. Mmmh, isn’t that marketing/business?
Anyway, it’s better that a nerdy synth shop with the same enthusiasm as the community took it over than a soulless big company. Good luck to the new team.
More information here: MW
Good news – great to see it being looked after by the right people
a cesspit where all the loosers from (or not so from) the music industry leave comments of pure hate, sexism, and all the shit related to the worst side of humanity
a cesspit where the first looser is the moderator, a small man who bans a user because it is forbidden on his website to delete a post i made myself
I need to moderate the comment section otherwise you have a trillion of spam comments.
“It’s forbidden on his website to delete a post I made myself”
First, sorry if you are so frustated that you need to comment in this way
BUT the system doesn’t allow user to delete comments simply because the website doesn’t have a login mechanism for users. It’s simple and not censorship. Moderation happens if the comments are far off what the topic is and are not related to music tech but to politics and other stuffs. Cheers
I wasn’t talking about Synth Anatomy but Modwiggler that is the topic of this post.
Modwiggler is the website whom policy is banning a user only because i tried to delete a thread i made myself.
And i wanted to delete my thread only because i’ve had enough of all the hate comments under my thread, hate comments made from a bunch of loosers that in the best case they hadn’t even read my entire post before leaving their hate comments. I’ve had enough of all that useless hate shit so i tried to delete the thread, then the Modwiggler moderator saw that i tried to delete the thread and he banned me for that reason (private e-mails proove that).
So basically they left online the thread, they banned the creator of the thread and by doing that they also prevented me to reply and give further details and explanations of my thread, and they left a bunch of loosers to continue their mockery under my thread.
glad to see the synthanatomy censorship in action.
you are free to leave a comment here, but only if you talk well about the subject.
Every comment must be activated first!
Moderation happens if its far OFF topic, related to politics and other things. If you need to talk about these topics, please not here. Feel free to criticize a product. Hate speech, personal attacks… are censored.
You are actually getting this right, including deleting my comment when someone made that god awful sexist and misogynistic comment, and yes, I lost my temper and let them have it. Thank you for being proactive and making this as inclusive and positive a space as possible. I know you have a thankless job aside from running this site.
We don’t always see eye to eye, yet here is it, thank you Tom!