Well guys, I can no longer contain my curiosity. How in the hell does the Voyager work?
To be more specific, I’m asking about how the presets work in conjunction with the knobs and switches. I’ve never actually played a regular Voyager, only my Old School. I’ve seen many pictures and videos of the Voyager, and the knobs appear to be REAL knobs with starting and ending points, not infinitely spinning knobs. And the switches are clearly not automated when you call up a preset.
So how does it work? If you select a preset does that mean that your octave selection on the VCO’s could change and will no longer be represented by the position of the switch in front of you? And what about the Mod routings, and other switch settings? And the same question goes for the knob positions.
I imagine that the answer is that the switch and knob positions mean nothing immediately after a preset is called up, until you move a knob or switch? Is that correct? And if so, how in the hell do you get used to that? I suppose that you would get used to it after a while.
I guess this is part of what attracted me to the Old School. ‘Cause the knobs an’ switches are just knobs an’ switches… no fancy stuff. But lately I’ve been curious if my assumptions are correct. I’ve seen how they handle it on the Little Phatty, which is slightly different with the LED’s that track the knob position. The P’08 is that way as well. But the Voyager doesn’t have those LED’s so I was wondering what that was like for performance applications.
My apologies if this is an old subject. I guess I’ve never had the opportunity to play a Voyager and see how this works myself.
Right, that’s what I imagined. So when you select a patch the knobs and switches don’t necessarily correspond to what you’re hearing, right? So then how on earth could you even tell how that patch was created?
For example, suppose a patch has VCO1 at 32’, VCO2 at 8’ and VCO3 at 16’. You select the patch but your VCO switches look like 32’, 32’, 32’ because that’s how you left them before. So how do you know what you’re dealing with? Educated guess? Experience? And the VCO octave switches are just one example. What about mod routings, VCO sync, FM, Lowpass/Highpass Filter? How do you even know which VCO’s are routed through the mixer?
I must be missing something. It seems like it would be so frustrating.
Oh, does the Voyager function like the Memorymoog?
My Memorymoog is currently being repaired. It wasn’t functional when I bought it, and I’ve never actually played one that worked. So perhaps when I get that back I will be asking “how does this Memorymoog work?” Except doesn’t the Memorymoog at least have individual LED’s to indicate Wave Shapes and Octaves, among other things?
And maybe I jumped the gun by putting the Memorymoog in my signature already. I guess I got excited
Yes. When you change a knob or a switch you will see the stored memory value on the left side of the display and the actual value on the right side. This is the same thing as it is working in your Memorymoog. In the Voyager OS the value of the switches or pots is connected directly to the circuits, in the normal Voyager the value is connected to the processor and the processor feeds the circuits with the values from the memory or directly from the pots or switches.
Sorry, I’m a German and I hope my English is clear enaugh.
Have fun,
Rudi
Exactly, if you want to recreate a stored patch you just turn knobs and flip switches until the panel value matches the stored value. Really easy, and I often do this when programming; it’s much more intuitive when the knob positions match.
Btw, DSI are offering an upgrade/new edition for their Prophet '08s which replaces many of the endless encoders with pots, which would make life a bit easier. It’s got a relative in/decrement and a pass-thru mode to make the transitions less jumpy.
So Rudi, when’s that pass-thru knob function coming out for the Voyager ?
Its actually not that hard to get used to, in fact if you really put the effort into it, you can listen to a preset and determin what the modulators are just be listening. You know if you change a preset that if you hear a sound that you know isn’t super low you know its not on 32. Its really just a no brainer really. You automatically know that the panel doesn’t match the preset therefore when you change something you want to change you just reach for it and go . This is whats beautiful about the knob per function interface, theres really not alot of thinking that goes into what you want, just tweak a knob and venture out. It becomes second nature.
I only play with presets, when I record I start from scratch on my programming. Id like to scrap all the presets and have 896 user presets.
Ah, I see. This is the part that I didn’t understand. Without this you would be kind of flying blind.
I look forward to experiencing this soon My MM woudn’t even do this when I got it, so I had no idea this is how it worked. I was just reading through the MM manual and it’s explained exactly as you described.
Actually that explanation is perfectly clear. Thanks!
Thanks for mentioning this! I hadn’t heard about it and it’s very interesting. DSI isn’t that far from me so I may just have to drop off my P’08 for the upgrade. I’m not a big fan of the rotary encoders.
So how do the Voyager’s knobs function? I know that the Little Phatty has three modes for the knobs (Snap, Pass-Thru, and Track). Do the Voyagers knobs only work like the “Snap” mode on the LP?
I do not own a LP (yet).
But I own a Voyager and some other synths for many years. Some for now 29 years.
When you use a knob, even if moving it only a little tiny wee bit, the new position is used no matter if the stored value for this knob is near that point or not. So it is like a “jump” mode. Actually this know behavior is named “jump” on the only synth with user selectable knob modes.
But maybe “snap” on the LP is the very same thing just named different.
Impressive list of synths in your footer. But you are not a real gear freak, because it is easy to notice this knob behavior by touching a Voyager.
mtmelvin,
If my fuzzy memory serves me, on the Memory Moog when you grab a knob and move it the edit light comes on. If you move it to where the program is set, the light went off.
On a Voyager, you get the knob location and program setting on the screen together. You know where you are as soon as you move a knob.
