Now this is putting a lot of flexibility in a small package. The minitaur looks like too much of a safe option. Take risks, Moog, you WILL be rewarded.
Somebody (on one of the other threads) mentioned a resurgence of analog gear this year. And how.
And here is yet another video from Nick interviewing Ken Macbeth. Looks and sounds great and Macbeth (the person) is very charismatic, sort of like the Scottish version of Dieter Doepfer, whom he makes reference to in this clip: http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2012/01/23/wnamm12-macbeth-micromac/ And as you’ll see, there is something even bigger for Synth.com folks.
Nice little box there. But I like this even better:
http://www.mfberlin.de/Produkte/Musikelektronik/MFB-SYNTH_3/synth3.jpg
And the sound quality is phenomenal. Even next to my Minimoog D.
The micromac should be one hell of a synth. But it is at 3X the cost of a minitaur.
I was wondering about the price… Where did you hear (read) that ?
On the vintagesynth forum. ~1000 pounds is what I remember as the projected cost from Ken. I’ll double check.
I would consider the MicroMac ten times the versatility of the MiniTaur. I couldn’t live with buying a Minitaur and justifying it as merely cheaper. If anything Moog did this too late, the analog revival is here.
IIRC the Vortex is about 1300 UKP for the desktop version and around 2k for the keyboard version. I think I saw that the micromac is also around the 2k mark. Of course I may be wrong… 
MicroMac is gonna be £995.00 GBP
I know, because I want one ! 
Ah ok, sorry If I made anyone faint. The Vortex price is about right though, and I know that because I’m on the purchase list
Based on what I’ve read, there stuff is not cheap but if you read some of the text on their site you will see that it’s made up for in workmanship, materials, and ultimately sound.
Having said this, I’ve never heard/seen any Macbeth gear in person but I have to admit that it certainly is appealing.
Now can somebody explain the combination lock control and a not I saw somewhere about a pot that takes multiple full revolutions to reach the full range?
Those are 10-turn pots, meaning that they spin around completely 10 times before hitting the bottom or top range.
The idea is that this makes fine-tuning easier because turning the knob is more precise.
I’m sure some people prefer them, but I’m not really a fan. I like to be able to grab the Frequency knob and detune it wildly over several octaves at a time, like on the Pro-One.
Still, the Vortex looks sweet. Ken has also mentioned that he’s working on a keyboard version.
The quality of the Vortex makes my LP look like crap.
Come on 
Have a week playing on a cheap keyboard, forget about the Vortex and get back to your wonderful Moog!
I think the best of both worlds was the concentric, geared knobs on the Oberheim SEM for VCO pitch. The outer knob let you sweep the whole audio spectrum while the inner gave fine control. I was pretty disappointed that that was about the only real change on the new SEMs. I guess Tom couldn’t find those knobs anymore. Too bad 
Oh yeah…Macbeth is amazing.
I think they were also problematic (the concentric knobs). The current arrangement on the Tom Oberheim stuff is pretty good; FreqBox does the same (uses the ENV amount for fine tuning in OSC mode iirc).
How so? I’ve owned and repaired many SEMs / FVSs and never saw a problem with them.
Thanks stiiiiive,just a little synth envy going on,guys with their model d’s and modulars.I still love my darlin’
re: SEM VCO Freq knobs, they were not problematic or poor design from a failure perspective, it’s just that Tom (apparently) didn’t like them which is why he opted to go with two controls per VCO. At least that’s what he said at the Red Bull lecture he did in Boston in 2009.
I think his gripe was that if you “bump them” they go out of tune.