Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

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1

Hey guys, just wanted to talk about how you use this feature on the Minimoog Voyager. Recently discovered it, after the long and enjoyed honeymoon period, where sitting and just playing with it, PANEL MODE STYLE, was the most joyful thing, to actually starting digging at what it can do in terms of deep exploration/synthesis.

I live in a country where test driving good pedals is pretty much impossible, so I was wondering what you guys use with the Mixer Out/In option. I wanted to use some kind of distortion/fuzz, and was thinking about the EHX Deluxe Bass Big Muff, but I don’t think these pedals can actually handle the hot signal coming out of this port.

So I ask: what could I try with it?

Have some pedals here, but didn’t have the courage to test them on my own, since they’re pretty much guitar pedals and can handle way less “hotness”.

Cheers!

2

I keep a moogerfooger ring mod patched to that almost always. Cool being able to ring mod the oscillators pre filter.

3

MIDIMurf pedal is a lot of fun

4

I experimented with this, to get some mild overdrive, but was ultimately unsatisfied: I eventually realized I need to attenuate the signal coming out of the Voyager to get it to work properly with pedals

then I stalled out and haven’t had a chance to dig in again

it would be nice to be able to use pot mapping, to make the headphone volume knob ( which I never use ) control the output level of the mix/out signal. maybe possible? haven’t checked

edit actually I never tried just using the headphone out. which would be the most logical way to do it lol. but you should never plug a mono cable into the headphone jack, if I recall

5

Well, consider using pedals with an “settable” input gain, or use/build a volume pedal :slight_smile:

6

I discussed this a while back. I hardwired the HP output ( left side only) to the external audio input for the classic feedback trick. I then set up pot mapping so that my expression pedal controls the amount of signal being fed back; use either the HP level or the external mixer amount for this. That same pedal is also controlling the send level of the Voyager output into my Empress multi drive effect. I set up after touch to control the filter amount in the normal direction and resonance in the inverse direction.

7

right! good tips, thanks both!

8

Thanks a lot for your inputs and tips!

My initial thought was to get subtle overdrive, but maybe I’ll have to review my options. To do that I’d need an overdrive pedal, or even a Moogerfooger. The idea for the ring modulator was actually very good and probably the way I’d like to go - the only problem being that it is actually very hard to find them where I live.

Had some experience yesterday with it - connected my Electric Mistress flanger/filter matrix to it, and some interesting results, mainly with the filter matrix. It made me realize that there’s a lot of potential in there, and this might be one of the most exciting exclusive features of the Voyager.

Thank you once again.

9

Coming back here for some more information.

Yesterday I almost got a guitar pedal to use with the effect loop, but decided to do some more research before jumping into the wrong device. The MXR GT OD seemed like a good option for a small amount of drive, but my impressions were based entirely on YouTube videos,with bass and guitarists always driving the thing too much and abusing the tone control.

The thing is, I don’t want a severe result, what I’m searching for is more to the character of Grandmother’s mixer kind of drive. Do you guys know if the best is to use an overdrive deal, like the one I’ve mentioned, or something like a boost? My greatest fear is that a boost could drive the Voyager too much and damage something.

Anyone here with some experience with either overdrive or boost pedals on the Voyager?

10

You won’t damage anything. I have a MF-Boost but it sits in a drawer. Unlike your needs I was looking for some balls out distortion. The MF-Boost may be perfect for the subtle distortion you’re looking for

One thing I learned with generating overdrive/fuzz/distortion is you can easily fool yourself into thinking some device is providing too much. If you overload the input of any device (easy to do with lie level signals) it will clip and feed through the chain over powering any other device. This is not usually desirable. Make sure each device is actually doing what it’s meant to do and that the controls actually respond.

11

I think Stiiiiiive’s advice is worth heeding. All my experiments point to this crucial element, to control the signal going INTO the pedal

I tried:

Big Muff
Fuzz Face
MF Drive
Garnet Guillotine
Maestro OD-60
Radial Regency
'70’s Radio Shack mixer, with a phono input

maybe some of them would have been useable with adjustable input. I have a volume pedal somewhere, if I find it, I will revisit

12

Maybe I’m not understanding what you mean by adjustable input. All my effects pedal inputs are controlled by a volume (or expression pedal/CV). This is no different than using the send amount from the mixer directly. But if the impedance is mis-matched then you can over-drive that pedal very quickly. Distortion type effects are tricky in this regard. A reamper is a good tool for this.

If you’re using the Voyager pre-filter insert point than the Voyager mixer conrtrols becomes your variable input. You can control these mixer levels with an expression pedal using the mod 1/2 inputs in conjunction with the pot mapping.

13

are you saying the Ext mixer dial is a send?

I assumed it only controlled the return signal level, into the Voyager?

14

I’m quite sure the Voyager mixer “Ext” knob is a return volume rather than a send one. If you use the external input, it will set the volume of what comes in.

15

I’m guessing we’re just having terminology confusion.

The external input is just like another oscillator. The external amount knob controls the amount of external signal going to the mix bus. So in this regard you can think of that control as a receive. But if you also use the Mixer Out/filter input jack then the external amount is also a send control for it’s part of the mix bus going out to external effects. Just like each oscillator.

Hope that makes sense.

16

It sure does :slight_smile:
However, this is a send setting just for the ext input. To set the send level of the whole signal, you would ave to set the levels of each mixer channel, i.e. Osc 1-3 and Noise.

My point was that it’s more convenient to have the mixer levels set up for a classic use, and then, when adding a pedal, having an input level setting on it allows to leave he Voyager mixer settings as they are.

Hope that makes sense too :slight_smile:

17

ah, that is interesting.

So if I use the mixer out into an overdrive with a Y cable, but also split that overdrive output & feed it into the Ext in, it will control it’s own little feedback loop. As it sets the level in the mixer, which also is fed back into itself via Ext in

also thx for the tip on impedence matching with pedals: I hadn’t thought of that, figured a volume level input would suffice

18

Yup - but with semi-modular you get what you get. I kind of like the limitations that force you to think of work-arounds. And if there are none I use something else.

And yes, you can play with all kinds of feedback configurations. Just keep your monitor levels in check while experimenting.

19

Hi,

as VCO signals have no dynamics I did not choose an aural enhancer that is based on multiband compression, which would on a static volume signal be nothing more than a wideband EQ. Also the highpassed distortion part of the aural enhancers didn’t seem appealing to me because I prefer filter distortion of the full band signal.

However, how it sounds is more important than the theory and a boosted EQ might also drive the filter a bit - but not in its full spectrum.

So I turned to just a signal amplifier to saturate the filter a bit. Which is kind of subtle because this gem has a nice bit of headroom in the filter.

As I found no electrical specification I had to measure, and as I had no scope, I measured with a multimeter (difference see explanation below).

3 OSC out at full volume on the mixer: Multimeter shows 0.4 V … 0.6 V

I thought the OSCs are running at 9V internally, but maybe that’s wrong, or the signal is converted to pedal levels.

I attached a Minifogger Boost, put it on full volume (wo expr pedal) and then measured about 1.4 V output with a multimeter.

Result (volume compensated):

  • Little bit gritty saturation
  • More weight (bass, not related to the Minifogger filter as far as I can tell)

The sound improvement is huge from a sound engineering point of view. But some might call it subtle. It’s more like one of this mixing magic things, and not giving full bite like driving a Minitaur for example.

So, what do we learn from the multimeter:

  • The signal is instrument level, not line level, so instrument level pedals should be fine with it.
  • Amplifying it by more than factor 2 did not immediately blow up my device (still struggle with which dB to use regarding U and P …)
  • Amplifying by somewhere like factor 2 might give a notable, great and subtle saturation. But I didn’t doublecheck with just sending a signal through the MF Boost, maybe it’s the boost and not the possibly driven filter.

Hope this measurement helps someone.

(Difference multimeter vs. oscilloscipe: A 50 Hz sine signal can be converted to peak-to-peak voltage by dividing the measured value by 1.414 (i.e. SQR(2)). A three oscillator sawtooth wave cannot be calculated backwards this way, because of frequency damping and in some circumstances phase cancellation. However, I suppose roughly we can see that it is instrument level and a bost of more than 2.)

20

I recorded it, so take a listen. It’s factory presets.

a) Voyager dry
b) Voyager with MF Boost (max boost wo. expr. pedal)
c) Voyager headphone out trick

Roughly volume compensated, first time all dry. Then a second time with a bit processing (all processing the same, which is not perfect as processing would change when the sound gets heavier, anyway for comparison …).

Here’s the sound file: http://pumpingalien.com/mfboost.wav

Interpretation:

  • Headphone trick gives more bite but reduces sound quality (which might be desired)
    (Tried to keep the gain same, but ended up with a bit more gain, difficult to dial maybe)
  • Driving wo. headphone loopback and an ext. amp (MF Boost) seems to produce cleaner results, esp. on the transients

A note to the headphone out trick:
Do not use a tr cable, do not use a trs cable, both would shorten R and L. Use a Y cable and connect trs to headphone out and one tr to ext in, isolate the other th. That’s the only way that would not shorten R and L, which would lead to R and L amp drivers fight against each other.