What other bass pedals are there that can produce nice bass sounds?
You could always get one of the many MIDI foot pedals available and hook it up to any synth of your choosing. I imagine you could do wonders with some foot pedals and an RME.
The Voyager or Source can get very close, but misses out on a certain “oomph” that is unique to the Taurus pedals. But you’ll only feel that “oomph” through a decent PA system with subwoofers, for most other applications the Voyager or Source will suffice. I have a Taurus pedal patch for the Voyager on the Yahoo Squarewave site, under “Analoguediehard”
I’m curious about the Taurus pedals.
First, do people who buy them actually play them with their FEET? Their hands? Are there CV connections so cheaters can control them via keyboard?
Second, what is so different about the Taurus? Does it actually have a different electronic architecture than other Moogs?
Taurus I pedals have no CV/trigger I/O (Taurus II does though).
The appeal of the Taurus are its sound and its package.
The sound of the Taurus pedals is unique. You can get close with a Voyager or Source but Minimoog, Memorymoog, no other moog can touch it - I tried. The Taurus has this solid bass tone that eludes emulation. Even the single VCO “TUBA” preset is massive and solid. Boosting with EQ does not get the same effect. Three things give the Taurus its sound - the VCF, the AC coupling between the VCF/VCA, and the overdrive of the VCF.
The Taurus pedals were designed by Dave Luce of Polymoog (in)famy. Bob Moog told me that Dave copied the Taurus filter right out of the 904A module from the modular systems. It isn’t an exact copy component wise. What separates the Taurus VCF from other Moog synths is its feedback architecture - it uses a 3080 OTA for the recovery amp for the currents off the top of the ladder transistors. This is a simple circuit, component wise - and unique to the Taurus. I did a study of the filter circuits from various vintage Moog synths, and the ones that were popular favorites (Minimoog, Memorymoog, 904A) all had simple circuits for the feedback architecture. Feedback circuits have a big impact on the sound, acknowledged by guitar amp designers for decades. The Taurus filter has a good resonant quality to it that happens to be optimal for bass timbres - but not much else. Definitely a one trick pony, but a very very good trick.
The AC coupling between the VCF and the VCA happens to impart a bass boost at a corner frequency of 20hz - revealed in the service manual. This coupling affects the filter response around the spectrum near 20hz, which is why EQ boost does not get the same effect.
The architecture is very simple - dual ramp-only VCOs, VCF, VCA, and very limited EGs. No LFO, modulation, nothing. Filter keyboard tracking is fixed at 50%. Filter EG is zero sustain AD/shared R (no sustain control), VCA EG is full sustain AR. The VCA EG does not have a decay stage - the SUSTAIN control is not the conventional sustain control we know from ADSRs - it merely attenuates the EG drive to the VCA (lowers the volume). Dave Luce seemed incapable of designing a proper EG, as the EGs on the Polymoog are not conventional ADSRs either.
An inspection of the Taurus audio output on a scope reveals that the ramp waveform is heavily rounded around the top 1/3 of its peak, revealing overdrive of the VCF. The Taurus filter is driven hard - harder than a Minimoog. An overdriven Moog VCF adds pleasant even ordered harmonics, similar to the overdrive action of vacuum tubes. It also imparts a compression effect. Set two near-unison VCOs on any other synth and you’ll hear them phase in and out; you don’t hear that in a Taurus I pedal because of its overdriven VCF imparting a compression action. Others have guessed that there was a compressor circuit in the Taurus I pedals - they were close. The compression also heightens the harmonic sweep between beating VCOs, which is why the “TAURUS” preset sounds so rich and full.
When Moog released the Taurus II pedals they neglected to replicate these three sonic traits - and they didn’t deliver anywhere near the beef of the original Taurus I.
The package is the other neat trait. Taurus I pedals are a completely self contained synth with the important controls designed to be operated by foot. It’s a great big stomp box to guitar players - first reaction to most guitar players who play my Taurus pedals. You can set the volume and filter cutoff with your feet, change the presets, toggle glide, octave, release - all with your feet. The presets are useable right out of the box and you could program your own sound from the panel controls. The Taurus II didn’t have any presets or foot controls. Moog correspondence from the Norlin days reveal that the Taurus II was a response to requests to bring the controls to arm’s reach of a standing musician. Too bad they forgot the other important attributes.
Most Taurus owners play them with their feet (Steve Hackett’s brother played them with his fists on some prog rock songs). If you haven’t had pedal lessons on organ, they can be a balancing act and it takes a lot of practice to play clean notes without looking down. The “BASS” preset begs to be sequenced or be played by hand, but you can’t play very fast on those footpedals.
If you want to check out mp3 samples I have them on a website
http://www.retrosynth.com/~analoguediehard/studio/keyboards/moog_taurus/
wow MC good description!
I’m sold! show me where i can purchase a brand new one! (
just kidding!)
Want to be an Actor in a month or two, it’s time to act now.
It won’t cost you a dime. Future 6 actors (new 6 for each movie), most successful people with most referrals - 3 female and 3 male aspiring actors/models will be chosen for supporting role in the upcoming movie
I want to be an actor, but before I do:
Hey, MC… thank you so much for your post… that is exactly what I was hoping to find out. I mean, that level of information!
I’ve always been baffled by the rising Taurus prices.
I suppose I understand a LITTLE better now. It’s good to have something that sounds so great. But I wonder… when you have something that sounds that great, do you use it on every single song? And if you don’t… was the price justified?
Rhetorical questions, I suppose. : )
Anyway, thanks again for the info!
I found my pedals in your neighborhood - Rumble Seat.
I’m not an actor but I play one in my living room.
There is nothing in my studio that I use on EVERY song. Memorymoog is a brawny polysynth but I don’t use it all the time. I don’t use Taurus pedals all the time. Sometimes I use a Strat, sometimes a Les Paul. Sometimes I like decaf, sometimes high octane.
What justifies the price are two things. One, will I get at least ten years of use out of it? Two, will it be an investment that will appreciate in value?
Frankly I don’t subscribe to the latter because it’s sad when a great instrument is out of reach of struggling musicians. How many guitar players can afford to drop $150,000 for a vintage pristine 1959 Les Paul standard? How many world class violinists can shell out millions for a Stradivarius? It’s just illogical.
I’m “Mr. Practical” and I look for minimum ten years of use when I buy an instrument. The upgrade treadmill is a waste of time and money.
MC,
this is THE answer to all the myth and rumors of the beafy original Taurus’ sound.
Thanks !
No one has to tell why there is no CV in available:
the oscillators are very different from all other Moogs. Except the Moog Satelite and the Minitmoog. And those were no cv/oct but Hz/oct inside (to my little tech knowledge).
theres a vintage multivox bass pedal synth that seems to have been taurus influenced. i dont remember the model number offhand and have little recollection of what it sounds like.
fwiw, i know lots of people love the original taurus, but i think its sound is quite overrated. its very unimpressive as a synth, though it obviously does do good simple bass tones. IMO, youre better off getting a bass pedal midi controller and hooking it up to another analog synth. ive got a set of taurus 2’s i may put up for sale soon in case anyones interested.
mini
ditto.
Ahhh, the famous Moog Taurus.
Progressive rock would actually never have happend without it 
I don’t think that there is anything as groundshaking (in the true literal sense of the word 
) as the Taurus.
I have a Taurus II, which is nice, too, but no true match for the real thing.
I once bought it (about 10 years ago) as an alternative since I couldn’t get my hands on a Taurus I. It was actually the pedal board and a Rogue synthesizer, no pole and not the original sound module. It was in pretty bad shape when I got it. No wooden side boards on the pedals and the Rogue keyboard double triggered.
I had both devices midied and refurbished, and it’s quite a nice and neat piece of equipment now. The Rogue rests on the pedalboard and they share an on-board power supply which I built into the spare space of the pedalboard.
Great for walls of sound together with a wide Mellotron 8-voice chord and a Minimoog solo sound. Gives you instant prog rock
I’d love to get my hands on a parts list and the schematics for the Taurus I… I’d fire up the soldering iron and make my own Taurus clone.
There was a company, MAM (Music And More), that was working on a Taurus clone but it never came out. Too bad, it might have been nice. Here’s a fuzzy rendering of it:
http://home.debitel.net/user/jhaible/additional_schemos.html
Scroll to “JH Minotaurus,” about halfway down. No idea how authentic it is.
The “JH Minotaurus” is just the VFC, VCA, and EGs.
If you wanted to clone the pedal assembly and VCOs, they used custom resistor arrays that are long out of production.