iN NEED OF EXPERT ADVICE FROM REAL MOOGERS

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about a year ago I purchased a Minimax ASB VA Moog thining it would be a substitute for a real Minimoog. It had patch memory, midi, etc. Well, it’s not in the same league, (thin sounding). I also own an SH5, a Chroma Polaris, and an MKS 80 and a couple of JX8p’s. They all dominate that Minimax in terms of depth and character. Even my VIrus is warmer and more musical. It’s difficult to explain. I know I don’t want the Mini model D because of the lack of midi and patch storage. Seriously looking at the Voyager even the Voyager rack, and the LP. Then I thought about the Studio Electronics MidiMoog, or the SE-1. THe onlythink that makes me think twice about the LP is the lack of dedicated knobs for every parameter. I hear a lot of great things about it’s quality of sound.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

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First of all, understand that there is nothing that will take the place of a Mini D. Lots of good stuff around to come close, however, including the LP.

The LP is a great little keyboard, it is light and portable, and it will sound close in many cases. It certainly comes out at the right price point.

I have recently become interested in the Creamware stuff. As usual, I can’t check it out locally, but their Minimoog version gets a high rating from what I have read. It certainly sounds good on their website samples. PLUS it plays 12 voices. Kind of a Mini/Memory combination. Very portable, and only about $800 if I remember correctly.

It has all the knobs of a Mini, so it is like working with the real thing.

I am looking at their new Prodyssey, a copy of the old ARP Odyssey. It costs about the same as if I bought the real thing on Ebay, but it is new, is 12 voice polyphonic, and has added features and effects. All the original sliders and switches are there. Wish that I had one to play with to see if I really like it, soundwise.

Pricewise, you could buy an LP for the cost of the Prodyssey. No doubt that the LP is the choice here, but I have an LP. They make versions of the Mini, the Odyssey, and the Prophet V. It is probably no accident that to my ear the samples of the Minimoog sound better than the other synths. Nothing like the Moog sound. I do miss my old, thin sounding Odyssey at times though.

Maybe you can get a chance to try these things out.

My guess is that you will buy a Voyager or an LP. Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.

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THe onlythink that makes me think twice about the LP is the lack of dedicated knobs for every parameter. I hear a lot of great things about it’s quality of sound.

I have a Voyager and an LP. Being able to control functions on the LP has never been a problem. You push a a function button and turn the mod pot. It takes less than a second. I suppose if you wanted to control two functions at once, like resonance and cutoff, you would have to implement potmapping. That would take pre-planning for the patch. Or you could control the cutoff via an expression pedal. There are many simple ways to get your hands quickly on most of the LP’s functions. Once you own and become familiar with the LP, the lack of a pot for every function seems less an issue. You learn to save patches with whatever pots you might need active. In the end you have to ask yourself, “What is it that I really need out of the instrument? Sound or features?”

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Thanks everyone for your input. And a very good point about the pot mapping (per patch) of the LP. It would be rare that you would need more than four pots as well as other assignable controllers including foot devices withing a patch on a programmable synth. YOu could even write successive patches with different pot mapping for a single song , so it’s pretty flexible. and it’s not layers deep as pointed out. every function has a switch then you adjust the pot. Looks very good. and yes, qualtiy of sound is really the biggest factor.