UK synth company Modal Electronics is in administration for insolvency, according to UK government records.
The company was incorporated in 2013, and in the last decade has released a wide range of synths, including high-end keyboards like the Modal 002, Eurorack modules, the budget CRAFTsynth line, the portable SKULPT synthesizer, and the Argon8 and Cobalt8 keyboards.
In March of 2023, the UK Companies House – the organization that registers company information and makes it available to the public – gave first notice of plans to strike Modal Electronics off their register. This action was suspended, though, in April.
Today, though, Companies House gave notice that Modal will be struck off the register and dissolved after 2 months, unless cause is shown to the contrary. Unaudited financial statements published earlier this year show liabilities exceeding assets.
Modal is now in administration, which means that it’s now controlled by an insolvency practitioner, who will be responsible for trying to resolve the company’s situation or liquidating it.
via YakumoFuji
Well damn, I guess am glad that I dropped my dough on their last synth then
Hopefully things can be resolved and they can move past this hiccup
Bummer, that’s unfortunate. They made some interesting stuff especially the older non-budget gear.
It’s a darn shame they [made¿]pretty good stuff had the 002 for a short time; some beautiful deep stuff on that kit. Got it directly from’em, but is was kinda buggy so sent it back & they ended up refunding my$ I guess they didn’t want tooo ship it back (to me) from the UK so the situation must’ve been somewhat tight then; leaving me mildly shocked¿oh well kid’s¡! thanx folks
They’ve had some great instruments over the years. I agree with the above post about their early non-budget stuff being very impressive. I was never a fan of the feel of their controls, but I admit the synths I’ve played all sounded good and had a nice keybed. I think in the age of the Hydrasynth, it’s really tough to compete with what ends up being fairly standard VA and wavetable products. I wish them the best of luck and I hope their creative folks find work with other companies that can take advantage of their ideas and expertise and move forward.
Perhaps we’ll see some good sales of current stock at retailers.
On the subject of companies going out of business, I think sites like this have a certain responsibility to keep the existing ones alive. Jomox, a much loved and respected manufacturer of high quality and in some cases (Sunsyn) legendary synths and drum machines, just released the Mod FM, afaik the first true FM synth with per voice analog filtering and vca’s. Yet not a word about it on this site. Quite disappointing imo.
(My bad P.K. Music, this comment wasn’t meant as a reply ro your comment, I must have clicked the wrong reply button.)
While you are assigning responsibility for keeping companies in business, know that Synthtopia has a feedback form on every page of the site that visitors like yourself can use to suggest topics for coverage:
https://www.synthtopia.com/feedback/
Companies also have to take responsibility for sharing news about their products. Synthtopia monitors hundreds of websites, news feeds, social media sites, etc for synth news – including JoMoX’s own news feed (https://jomox.de/rss_english.xml). The last announcement that JoMoX shared as news on their own site was in July of 2022, and the last thing they posted to FB was in Feb 2022.
Synthtopia covered the JoMoX Mod FM when it was introduced two years ago (https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2021/09/17/jomox-mod-fm-analog-digital-modular-fm-synthesizer-sneak-preview/). We generally do updates on products when companies have news that THEY share that they think is newsworthy.
Now, now. I did write “a ccertain”. Not “full”. Thus I stand by that comment. Thank you for the info btw, I was unaware of the opportunity to share your workload.
but you also wrote “not a word about (the Jomox FM Mod) on this site” and they clearly wrote more than a word about it. Do you stand by that comment too?
“not a word about it on this site”
Jesse, what the hell are you talking about?
https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2021/09/17/jomox-mod-fm-analog-digital-modular-fm-synthesizer-sneak-preview/
That is a two year old article about the prototype. The production model was made available this september, and is not the same unit. That’s what I’m talking about.
Admin: Off-topic comments deleted.
Keep comments on topic and constructive.
The gist of what Andreas wrote: Nothing interesting from Modal since Paula quit and they went all digital. Iho.
I once received an electric shock working on the 002 test rig whilst working there which gave me small burns on my hands. Philip Taysom told me that I had those burns since walking into work in the morning, in order to avoid reporting the incident to the HSE here in the UK. I feel sorry for any employees remaining there, but they’ll move on to better things. Taysom deserves everything that’s coming to him.
Terrible as a new synth comes out of the company right now love the gear and build quality
governments rescues Banks and other company’s from bankruptcy but hope some company steps in to take over. New financial management. There are a lot of big Chinese investors
Who might be interested
Hope the best for the people who work there
Good luck to you all
Blimey that’s a shock. I hope they can keep going somewhow. They made some classy synths at reasonable prices.
the 002 and 008 always seemed like dream machines to me, they have designed some beautiful instruments, hopefully they make it through.
The 008 is literally my dream synth….one day I will own one, but it costs more than my car, so I will have to wait a few years at least.
Sad news. If it can’t get sorted, I hope the employees land somewhere wonderful.
They’re not bankrupt, they’re just restructuring..
This isn’t the end of Modal.
They haven’t had an office in the UK for a while.
They’re probably just not going to be registered in the UK anymore.
I believe it’s more than restructuring! It’s been run by administrators which will have been tasked to find a buyer for the remaining stock, intellectual property rights (basically buying the designs), if there is no buyer the administrator will start selling off remaining stock to raise capital to pay back creditors. Modal has not been profitable for a number of years, it has been stated they invested heavily into a new design synth that was going to replace their flagship synth but the design was never going to work, the Carbon was a miss mash of parts laying around – it properly will not see the light of day. Maybe some other company will take their products on who knows?
https://www.gearnews.com/is-modal-electronics-bankrupt-rumours-of-imminent-demise-unfounded/
I’ve got the Argon and had issues with the first 2 that were sent where the aftertouch was not working properly, 3rd delivery was ok, I had to work very hard to prove the AT had issues. Modal were saying it was a software issue and were very steadfast in their response. Anyway, I think the biggest issue with it was the volume and how the effects impacted it. V3 has resolved these issues and its now living up to expected performance. Its an excellent synth for the money, but releasing it with these issues, will have, as it did, created negative discussions on forums and this impacts sales of all Modal products. The lesson they should learn from it is not to release a product until it works as intended, or as advertised. It’s a good synth now, but wasn’t so much with v1 firmware .
i thought they were working on a new keyboard? seems like odd timing
Dude, there are so many smile-making brains out there bringing synths to life. Perhaps life boats will make it ashore and those ideas (and cool products) will still keep coming. Hats off to you FS and Will. Personally I simply think there’s so much potential still available.
I want MFB to return morn than anything.
MFB died with Manfred Fricke death in 2021?
I think the development ambitions to release the revealed Carbon 8, are a little misguided, there’s a big issue of e-waste in the world and this definitely needs addressing, in design, and feature of any new products and support cycles. I am surprised that Modal haven’t taken more of an interest in a new and novel way of doing things, such as ‘modularity’ and ‘upgrade abilities’ that could co habit a physical platform. It’s been mentioned so many times that Cobalt looked almost identical to Argon and now Carbon, that with hindsight, you wouldn’t really Release Carbon in its current form factor. Roland have a better grip on this paradigm, then Modal and that’s a really sad truth, however there’s a lot more room for companies who pursue this template and opportunity to work closer with software and sound ware platforms to mutual benefit. Good luck Modal. I’m in for the win, but get your house in order..
Argon and Cobalt are great concept designs, hasted releases and poor manufacturing quality hint at systemic trouble at the organisation. All points to poor product/quality management.