Oh, I beg your pardon???
Sure, Buchla is good, but what about all the patch chords? With the Voyager and the CV Expander, all you need are a few of them. How manhy does the 200e take?
You’re saying you wouldn’t want a Buchla because it uses patch cords? …to each his own, I guess. Anyway, it can store knob positions and patch cord location by using the 210e router module.
I don’t want to start a Moog vs. Buchla type of thing, but the Buchla is no ordinary synth. The Voyager is great, amazing, the best in its class, I can’t say enough good things about it, but it is pretty standard as far as monosynths go (3 osc, LP/HP filter, LFO, etc.) The 200e is something completly different.
If the Voyager is the Bently of synths, then the 200e is a space ship!
Of course, all of this is completly irrelevant because I couldn’t afford a 200e in a million years!
Awww, that’s not what I meant. Only that the Minimoog Voyager / CV Expander appears to need less patch cords than the 200e. I’m sure that the 200e is one incredible synth, but I personally consider it too affluent for my taste.
I’d never hope to impose my beliefs upon a whole class of people, though. That’s what we’ve got George W. Bush for. 
Amen to that!
one thing i find funny is that some of the people on this forum complaining about the cost of the voyager are sitting on a stockpile of gear and i’m sure that it wasn’t cheap.
at the time i bought my voayger i was broke and was making payments to a music store layaway. i played the store model and i loved the sound,i was able to create alot of the sounds from old synth records from the 70’s. including that stupid numan/cars polymoog patch or close enough to it for a mix.maybe it took a little reverb or plugging into a 69 fender tube amp.but i did it 
it seams that some of you forget the appeal of having a real flesh-n-blood moog sitting in front of you to tweak till dawn. that just can’t be done with VST or some roland.price is not the issue. it was worth the price to me. and i’m not even a damn keyboardist.
as far as monophonic goes. go and throw out all your miles davis,and john coltrane. mono is out. don’t you know you can sample wind instruments and play them VST with full polyphony now. you out of date hacks. 
don’t forget the model D was mono for that matter.
I LOVE MY VOYAGER!!!
Randy
as far as monophonic goes. go and throw out all your miles davis,and john coltrane. mono is out. don’t you know you can sample wind instruments and play them VST with full polyphony now. you out of date hacks.
Har har! I couldn’t agree more. When you’ve fully exhausted the possibilities of one voice, then you may move on to two.
Me, I’m no Charlie Parker. I’ve got a lot of work and learning to do before I can claim to have used up the potential of the Voyager.
-Hoax
Quote:
one thing i find funny is that some of the people on this forum complaining about the cost of the voyager are sitting on a stockpile of gear and i’m sure that it wasn’t cheap.
Quite true. If you’re happy with your Voyager for what you paid for it, great. The whole point I’ve been making is how much a given KB instrument contributes to my sonic palette. ANY mono synth is more limited than a poly synth for the music I play. I already HAVE 2 mono synths, a Moog Source and an Arp Odessey, so it would be kinda pointless to own a Voyager. Even if I did have one, I wouldn’t take it out to some of the gigs I use to play in my area, too risky for the cost of that instrument.
The Voyager is just about hand built, no one can knock the quality of the instrument. Sure its expensive, but its absolutely beautiful. Anyway Moog, DSI, MacBeth are making analog synths and if they can’t make a profit by selling them, they wont be around. So don’t misunderstand what I’ve been saying about the cost vs. the sonic contribution, its just not for me.
Mike T.
well, to be honest I think it was not worth the money.
I got a faulty one and had to pay up to get it working. Was lectured by the sellers and manufacturer about what i should have done etc.
I have waitetd 6 months for it to arrive after ordering. 3 Months of waiting for repairs.
I agree with one of the other posts that it would have been nice to have simple instrument that works, period. THEN it would have been ok.
My posts were previously removed because they were interpreted as “complaints” (which they werent. Just stating facts.)
A 2000 Pound investment should work. And a customer paying that amount of money should be treated well and should not be lectured.
I still own the thing but don’t play it anymore. It just siits there and I just can’t get any good vibes out of it anymore.
If i sold it I would have lost so much money.
It really was a bad idea to buy it.
And don’ get me wrong. I am one of those guys who ALWAYS wanted a moog synthesizer and have listened to moog sounds al their life. I don’t want to spread bad vibes and don’t want the moog name tarnished.
I believe when they offer something faulty they are doing themselves injustice. My opinion.
If other people want to get a voyager, go ahead, the newer models will probably be excellent and rock solid. It is just that I feel left out of the experience.
When playing music I want fun and good vibes.
I will be looking into getting a groovebox.
Hi Martin,
As far as I can tell, that wasn’t the fault of Moog’s development team. It had to have been the fault of the vender who sold it to you. People will try anything to one-up somebody else, nowadays. If I were a sadistic creep, I’d hunt the poor devil down and break his kneecaps. JUST KIDDING!
No, really. If the one doing the repairs is the same person who sold it to you, I’d collect the recepts from all the repair jobs, do some intensive research on the general failure rate of the Voyager and take the guy into court. Chances are, it wasn’t Moog Music’s fault that your model failed.
My experience with most things is never to buy 1.0 of anything. It applies to software, cars, synths, you name it.
I waited until Alesis got the bugs worked out of their ION before I bought one. No problem with it. I kinda laid back on buying some of the other things I bought for the same reason.
I’ll do the same thing with the DSI KB Evolver, which is the next instrument I am going to buy. I probably won’t wait a year or longer as I’ve done in the past, but I will lay back 3 or 4 months from the time it starts to ship, because I have to. It will take some time to put the money together.
The Voyager is a beautiful instrument. But again, for me ANY mono synth is not a good investment because I already have two that work fine, and an ION that fills the roll of a lead synth for me, while being a poly synth. Is an ION the same as having a Voyager? NO. But it doesn’t have to be. I can always crank up my Moog Source, my Odessey, or my Prophet 5 if I want to play an analog. The DSI KB Evolver isn’t going to be built with the same quality of a Voyager. The Voyager has a great wood cabinet and is really well made. Any synth can have problems though, so holding off until they get debugged can’t hurt.
I spoke with Dave Smith at DSI the other day. I called him and asked him when the KB Evolver is going to ship. He told me that within the next few weeks they will start getting some in from where they are being made. He mentioned that they were being made “Across Town”. Yep, in California. Same with the Voyager, its being made right here in the USA. Sure, a lot of the components are probably from overseas, but that’s not going to change any time soon. Bottom line is, Moog and DSI are employing Americans to build their synths, and if it costs more and I can afford it, I just have to suck it up.
Mike T.
Micket,
This is a bit off topic, but how is the Ion? I’ve been considering getting a Micron to sit opposite the Voyager. At less than $350, how could I resist?!
Is the Micron already that cheap?
Yeah, I’ve seen them that low from dealers on eBay. They’re even cheaper used.
I had a micron in my studio for a while. On the whole I was very impressed with the sound of it. It’s really good for single oscillator stuff especially (little less so for multiosc, funnily enough - I didn’t get any really nice pads out of it, for example) and it has loads of modulation possibilities. Its envelopes, particularly, are brilliant, and the filter types are genuinely different. There is a lot of mooginess in the moog one at least Alesis have implemented a lot of very clever shortcuts that, for the most part, suck the pain from editing. Pretty nice sounding reverb for such a cheap unit.
Negatives:
- the main rotary encoder represents a very significant single point of failure and the one on the test unit I had (which was new out the box) already felt a bit dicky
- to make matters worse, you will be using it a lot: for some parameters it requires a huge number of turns to get from the lowest to the highest value (e.g. modulation depth: lowest val = -100.0%, highest = +100.0%, each click represents .1%!) and, at present, there is no shortcut to speed this up
- the xyz encoders are not good: you cannot adjust parameter values if you turn them very slowly
- no aftertouch
The only modeling synths that I know of to include aftertouch are the A6 Andromeda (which isn’t considered a modeling synth in sme circles) and the Novation X Station series that came out, last year.
Actually, the Voyager is said to toat a preasure-sensitive keyboard. Is this so?
Actually, the Voyager is said to toat a preasure-sensitive keyboard. Is this so?
Yeah it does.
Quote by Doki Doki:
Micket,
This is a bit off topic, but how is the Ion? I’ve been considering getting a Micron to sit opposite the Voyager. At less than $350, how could I resist?!
As previously posted, the Micron has been having some problems with the main control knob breaking off. Its on a plastic shaft and has a push function as well as a rotary function. So people have been snapping them off. Too bad, what a value for an 8 voice VA.
The ION is excellent, especially when you consider what it costs. The Micron wasn’t out yet when I bought my ION, but no matter, I wanted all the knobs and programing capability it offers. Mine has v1.05 OS and I’ve haven’t had any problems with it at all.
Positives: Ingenious user interface. I wish some of my analog gear had the controls and the LCD screen the ION has. 3 OSC, you can have 2 different filter types on a patch, endless modulation options, built quality if about right for what you pay. 8 voice is nice because it can cover more ground than a mono, and its got enough balls to do splits and layers and not come off whimpy. Very snappy envelopes, minimal effects, but who cares?
Negatives: Early models had some encoder problems, it would “ghost” Some parameters would change without you touching them. If you buy a new one with v1.05 OS, you won’t have any problems with it. Some folks complain about the endless rotors have to be turned too much to get them to do anything. The other side of the coin is when you are fine tuning things, you can be a LOT more accurate and get better fine adjustments. Can’t have it both ways.
The only real different between the sound of the Micron or a ION, or most any VA for that matter is in the filters. If you try to do a dynamic filter sweep like you can get from a Prophet 5, the ION or the Micron come up short. However, for most things you do with it for playable sounds, its pretty hard to distinguish the ION from an Analog, it really doesn’t sound Digital at all. Its not quite as gutsy as some of my Analogs, but when I start to take gigs again, the Analogs are staying home and the ION goes out to play. If it were whimpy, I would have sold it.
Don’t expect a build quality anywhere near the VOYAGER, you get what you pay for. That being said, the ION is built really well for what it costs. The Micron looks good too, except for breaking the main control knob.
I would suggest you try to get a USED ION instead of the Micron, OR wait until Alesis fixes the problem with the main control knob before buying the Micron. The Micron is more difficult to program than the ION, but Alesis has done a great job in making use of the controls it does have in order to edit patches. I’ve seen IONs going for 475 and up on Ebay. Just be sure to ask for the serial number to see if its an early one, and be sure it has v1.05 or higher of the OS and you’re good to go.
Mike T.
I’ve been considering the Ion since it was reviewed in Keyboard, two years ago. Then, as soon as Micron came out, last fall, I saw it as Alesis’ answer to the MicroKorg. (It seems to have two things over the MicroKorg: double the polyphony and the rhythm / pattern sequencer.) But, is sound quality sacrificed in the Micron, because of the extra features? Let’s have a comparisson, please.
Thanks for the responses, I’m looking to get some pads and organ-type sounds (I’ve got bass/leads/FX covered!). As for the filters sounding digital, not a problem as I can just run it through the Voyager or MF101 if need be. Digital filters, although they may sound good, will never sound or behave like analog. I’ve never had a problem with digital oscillators, though (e.g. Roland JD800).
Suthnear, you said you couldn’t get a good pad out of it. Can you explain why?
As far as the sound quality being sacrificed on the Micron, tough to say. Alesis added the reverb chip to the Micron that the ION doesn’ t have, so probably not. The processor power is still used for the SOUND on the Micron as it is on the ION. If there’s any decline in the sound of the Micron it would have to be very minor.
Pads- you can get good synth pads on the ION engine, so it depends on what your expectations are. You won’t get the ION to sound like an Oberheim in terms of ballsy synth strings, but there’s one factory patch called “OberPad” that has a pretty good string emulation. You can also get a few sounds similar to the Arp Solina, the only thing that is sort of missing is the LFO combo you got out of the original. Organs-the ION does a better Farfisa than a Hammond organ sound. Don’t settle just for the factory patches. Many of them can be beefed up with increasing overdrive, changing effects or increasing the MIX on a few of the OSC to fatten the sound. You can use different filter combinations and change effects that are compressed to Chorus or Flanger and that can make a dramatic improvment. It depends on what sound you are trying to get whether you will be 100% happy with the results.
The main thing about the ION or the Micron is the TONE is very analog. I don’t think the filters sound “digital”, they just don’t carry the ballsy sonic power of an analog. So if you want to do hair raising filter sweeps that will shake the walls, you’re out of luck. But for very musical sounds the ION or the Micron sounds really like the original analogs.
Doki, running the ION or the Micron through the Voyager is the BEST of both worlds. You still CAN’T MATCH a Moog filter, end of story. But what you get for what you pay is a nice addition to any KB rig if you know what to expect and you play to its strengths.
Mike T.