It needed TLC. They all do after 30 years. It got plenty. And a good home. It got that too.
Fully refurbished (by KK), recapped, new sliders and buttons, new power supply, new springs in the pedalboard. The works.
It also has a nice little friend to play along with in sync, a Rogue. In this config, I can play different octaves and waveshapes. As singles, neither the Rogue or the Taurus II can do that.
Four raw vintage Moog oscillators, 18 notes pedalboard, on a 400 watts quadruple woofers system, in a small room. Ear plugs advised for those used to play their music on an i-Thingy.
I like to call the pair the Taurus IV. Pretty soon, we’ll see how the Minitaur measures up. I guess I’ll have to call the trio the Taurus VI
But I think that when you finally get your Minitaur, you’ll probably hear why the Taurus II was never really a Taurus, but simply a Rogue with a footboard. Although it does sound pretty darn good.
I’ve played for many, many years on my trusty old MG-1 (The Rogue’s better, but underrated, mislabeled brother. )
Yep, thanks. I like my vintages to be tops. Costs a little more but it makes a lot of difference. I think you have seen my Liberation?
The Rogue was never my favorite, I always found it very odd, like they cut a lot of corners to bring the product to the market. But it is also very raw. The both of them played together brings up a lot of weight, and since both of them are top shape, tuning them together is not a big issue, actually not at all so far.
I am glad the Taurus IV plays with the feet, I got the hands pretty busy moving sliders on this first day. But it’s only temporary. Once I get a few good sounding patches going, i’ll play hands off. I always wanted a bass pedal to keep my feet busy while I play the guitar. I hope I get the hang of it in a short period… I may not have all that many years of adequate mobility left in me.
I loved my Rogue- it had a wonderful nastiness, and that auto trigger switch was great for mid-solo freak outs with s&h combined- I forgot you were the one with the minty Liberation- ack!!! nice 80s representation with the T2 as well! how about an Opus3 to round it out?
An Opus3 ? … lemme see, you mean a cheesy polyphonic organ crossed with a Moog Oscillator with preset waveform for brass, and a string section with both high pass and low pass filter? Like this one?
Cheesy organ does sound pretty good going through Moog low pass filter, even with limited envelopes.
should’ve known better!
a bandmate from the 90s played an Opus- It didn’t sound all that Moogy, but did a great job filling in spaces, if you know what I mean- and of course it looked good on stage!
Nice looking Taurus II there! I like the idea of patching for a 4 oscillator Moog. Can get some interesting sounds that way. Never really understood why the T2 gets so little respect? It has plenty of bass and can make some great sounds. Plus in/out jacks for interfacing with any CV synthesizer including an external input to the filter. Really versatile for a pedal synthesizer, especially by placing the controls where you can easily reach them. I have both versions of the T2 with the standard and the controller only version. Usually patch the T2 controller into the Moog modular to get the ultimate Moog pedal bass. Great for transposing sequences on the fly too.
So what would you call a 4 oscillator Moog using the Prodigy? A Pierogi?
The Opus is one the Moog keyboards that has the less amount of Bob into it, yet it has the biggest Moog logo at the back of them all I think. You walk into an empty musical room, with an Opus on stage, showing it’s back, and you just feel like : allright, let’s take up a seat and wait.
I think the Moog filter with envelopes makes a dull instrument much more interesting and that surely is the case for the organ section of the Opus. All in all, if I had to part with some of my vintages, there would be a few to go out first before the Opus.
One of the things I learned early (from YouTube) playing synths, is that a little bit of effects can add a lot of spice to a sound. I like the Lexicon MX-200. (very affordable). I have one full time on my keyboard setup and one too on my guitar rig. It does its magic on the Opus, of course, and it makes the polyphonic section sound just like a church organ.
I got the Taurus II assembled in its original state only for the time of the picture. Nice but not very practical. Seconds after that, it went where it supposed to go, in between a couple of foogers on my guitar rig
That was funny right off the bat, but maybe more to me than it is to you, unless you happen to be fully fluent in french (I was born french-speaking). You see : the first three letters of Pierogi are the same as Pieds (and it also pronounces the same), the plural french word for : feet
Sort of off topic but I restore old Pinball Machines. Not much better than picking up a $150 relic and restoring it to glory. Lots of playing left in the old 60s and 70s machines; I hate seeing them in the scrap heap or parted out.
As for your Moog gear; kudos. If prices were not so high, I’d be picking up Rogue and Prodigy, etc. I was “lucky” enough to pick up an Opus 3 on eBay and I’m a fan. A big big fan of it.
The Strings through Chorus is incredibly warm and the Brass section through the filter is also tremendous. I don’t have much of a need for the Organ myself (I have a proper Hammond) but gotta love that old school pitch wheel.
Opus is disrespected as being the least Moog Moog but in it’s home beneath my little Phatty and above my 88 key controller it ads warm strings if not ripping low-pass processed Brassy timbres.
I used to too.
Once I had six machines in a one bedroom, upstairs apartment.
My downstairs neighbors hated me.
Then it was an Elvira, Space Invaders (wide body), Fun House, T2, Blackknight 2000 and a Haunted House.
Years later I restored a Kiss machine for Paul Stanley. It had never been played.
Stored in a warehouse for years. Battery leaked and the rubber had decayed.
I still want to make velocity sensitive flipper buttons.
Harder you hit the button, the harder the solenoid hits the ball.
I’d also love to make one of these below for Moog.
Have it use analog synth sounds too.
It would be a great attention-getter at Namm shows!
Thanks for sharing, always nice to read about other Moogers and their gear, the way they use it etc…
If luck happens to strike for you again, let that be a Prodigy, the nicest of the little Moogs. It’s got everything. Minimoog like envelopes, knobs instead of sliders, a more conventional layout than the Rogue or MG-1, nice set of CVs in (later version). The only thing missing is an LFO LED (why?)
There seems to be a fairly large number of them in Great Britain, I have seen a lot on E-Bay. My own Prodigy is one of the X, retrofitted with 110v power supply and modded with a standard jack and V-trigger, instead of regular Cinch-Jones. Nice for Step64 CV sequencing.
Those Opus 3’s are great instruments. More of a Herb Deutsch creation, one of my favorite poly Moogs. Another Moog that does not get the respect it deserves. There are so many sounds you can dial in with a little experimenting. I often think of the string section as missing the button presets most other manufactures had, and instead, give a variable filter section that can get most of the stringer tones you can imagine. Also I think of the organ section as a square wave oscillator with individual faders on each footage. Try a 16’ and 2’ for those Wakeman leads. (Missing the glide though.) And has the pitch wheel for more classic Moog styles. A well thought out machine, probably my most unique Moog.
I did add some inputs on the back of mine for audio, filter CV and S-trigger. Makes for some interesting sounds patching a sample and hold on the filter and such. Can also route back the string section audio into the VCF section, and control it all from the panel via the left/right sliders. Fun stuff!
You guys rebuild Moogs and pinball machines? Must be a connection?
When I was 18 I helped a family move into a new house. They had an early 1970s pinball machine that wasn’t working at all and I offered to fix it. I got it up and running 100% without spending a dime on parts.
Always loved pinball machines way better than video games.
A friend of mine wrote the machine code for a new game that was in development for a while (now shelved) called “Lost Vegas” which was to be a re-make of the absolutely horrible “Dolly Parton” game. I was to supply the sound effects for the game and had a good handful put together based on, you guessed it; Moog gear and effects.
But the maker of the Sound board flaked out, the artist disappeared and a year later it doesn’t seem like anything is happening. But the code is done (runs on a classic-Stern aka ripped off Bally platform).
I’ve got mainly 60s to late 70’s Gottlieb machines with just a few early solid state machines. 15 of them in my basement (not too heavy going down the stairs; on the rare occasion that I sell a machine in order to buy something new, getting it UP the staircase is not easy!!)
In case you are interested in how I spend the other 1/2 of my time when I’m not tweaking knobs: www.EMwhite.org and click on the ‘Gameroom’ link.
It would be difficult to add a CV input for the pitch on an Opus in case that’s what you were referring to.
It’s a divide-down synth.
It is possible given some mods (The Polymoog had it), but it wouldn’t be trivial.
I’ve added external audios through the chorus and filter before.
That’s fairly easy.
On the same one, I added a clear, lit mod wheel. Looked cool.
I think of the Opus as being almost completely the opposite of a Minimoog, but as such is very complimentary.
It can do great strings and pads behind a Mini or over Mini bass.
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