Wiardgroup

I cannot forget the fantastic experience I had with mine and have been
desperately searching for a replacement ever since. I've been in touch
with Chris numerous times over the last several years and he's been
helpful with my numerous questions. I hope you do get in touch with
him, somehow. He didn't respond to my very last e-mail so who knows.


--- In wiardgroup@yahoogroups.com, "Grant Richter" <grichter@...> wrote:
>
> That is a great little instrument.
> 
> It was originally slated to be the Wiard Model 3600, but I decided
to pass on it because we 
> could not find knobs to fit the little nubby pot shafts. They are
just like TR-808 tuning 
> pots. I feared the lack of knobs would limits sales too much.
> 
> Electronic Musician magazine gave it and outstanding review, citing
it as one of the best 
> engineered and most musician friendly instruments of its type, in
spite of the lack of 
> traditional knobs.
> 
> The story goes something like this (numbers may be in error, this is
just gossip not a legal 
> deposition).
> 
> The Mini-Modular is an ARP Oddyssey in a more compact package with
MIDI and extra 
> features. The filter is a state variable instead of a 4 pole. The
whole instrument is built out 
> of 1% metal film resistors for stability and low noise.
> 
> Chris originally sold them as kits for $400, and about 50 people
bought them that way. 
> Everyone else wanted them pre-assembled, so Chris found someone to
do that assembly 
> for $200 each, and added that with no markup to the $400. Twenty
more were sold at the 
> $600 price.
> 
> Chris then hooked up with a sales distributor, who added another
$100 for sales 
> commision bring the total price to $700. As far as I know, not a
single one was sold at that 
> price.
> 
> Chris did a brilliant job of engineering on the Mini-Modular. His
PIC based MIDI to CV 
> converter was tested for months by Darwin Grosse and is bulletproof.
Chris McDonald, 
> Darwin Grosse and myself put months of work into perfecting the
technical and aesthetic 
> details of the Mini-Modular.
> 
> Gabe Catanzaro came up with the idea to make them look like the
holloween style ARPs. I 
> did the actual faceplate drafting and designed the module prepatch.
The prepatch is labled 
> right on the faceplate with the orange color.
> 
> I was enamoured with Jim Johnson's TB-303 program at the time and I
made sure the 
> Mini-Modular was the perfect hardware voice for that software. It
even supports MIDI on-
> off switching of glide (portamento), some thing I had to fight with
Chris to get included so 
> the TB-303 software would work correctly.
> 
> Ya, a lot of dedicated people put much loving work into the project
and it fizzled out like 
> so many good ideas. Sigh. In comparison, the Pet Rock took in six
million dollars and it's 
> MIDI to CV converter didn't even have inputs or outputs ;^)
> 
> I wish I knew how to get in touch with Chris McDoanld today. I would
like to license that 
> PIC based MIDI to CV converter design for other Wiard projects. I
wrote to him at all the e-
> mail addresses I could find, but no reply. Probably his heart is
broken and he just wants to 
> forget the whole thing. I can't blame him.
> 
> > > i remember the Evenfall too!
> 
> > Wish I hadn't sold mine. I'll make a nice offer on an
excellent/mint one.
> >
>