Mintaur vs Taurus 3 for sequencing only ???

The Moog Forum Taurus, Minitaur & Sirin
1

I just bought a Mintaur -its still shipping and have a chance to get a Taurus 3 cheap $1300
Any point in getting the Taurus 3 if you would never use the pedals --or is the Taurus 3 got a better sound
My requirement is a bass synth for sequencing only
I have a Voyager Performer but find it not so good for bass sequencing --its a great lead and sound effects synth

thanks in advance
David

2

Unless you need internal patch memories or and arp for live work, then I’d probably say that the Minitaur is slightly more flexible than the Taurus 3 in that it adds square waves, full ADSR plus in software keyboard tracking and phase sync. And it’s a lot kinder on your back.

3

I have both and over the course of 2 days was able to faithfully duplicate 20 Taurus III patches on the Minitaur without too much trouble.

If you are already a Taurus III user, what you’ll miss (if trading to Minitaur platform) is:

  • Arpeggiator (a performance feature but as you said, you’ll be sequencing so no issues there)
  • 3 addition LFO types - Ramp, Square, Saw (but you’ve got both [fine control of] Midi and CV input on Pitch and Cutoff so can send in ANY modulation CV you choose such as reverse ramp, sample and hold, etc. Not to mention ‘random’ that you set up yourself per step on your analog or midi sequencer
  • a ‘dialed in’ Mod wheel setting per patch (ie. Taurus III has a MOD AMOUNT setting that stores at what level, the ‘modulation wheel’ is set to from 0..4095) I’m not aware that this is stored with a patch in Minitaur with the current release of the editor, it’s more of a realtime setting so you simple need to move the wheel up to the desired setting after bringing up a new patch.
  • T3 LFO speed can be dialed in by Hz. and tenths of Hertz. while the Minitaur uses a value of 0..16384; Obviously you can sync tho Midi and the tempo of your daw which is more important (for the record, T3 can do this also and both offer sub-divisions)

Ummm, that’s it. I don’t have a oscilloscope so cannot compare waveforms; and was doing my A/B comparison with an SWR WorkingPro 12" Bass Amp (and a set of Bose Companion 5s) and Minitaur was very very convincing.

As a Bass player, I will never part with my Taurus III pedals, so I have both but at 1/2 of the price, and if you have no need for pedals (or the addtional 40 lbs. and bulk) grab yourself a Minitaur; you can use the extra $700 for something else in your studio or rig.

Not sure if you’ve been there, but jump over to SoundCloud under my name “EMwhite” for a few clips (Taurus, Taurus III, and Gordon’ish). They are not necessarily wonderfully musical pieces (the opposite, in fact) but it will demonstrate some classic Taurus bass’ey sounds and that was after a somewhat quick dial-in of the sounds. If you do get there, be sure to ‘download’ rather than play through their player because I think the audio is better if you download the track. There are also a few ‘lead’ type examples there that leverage the Square wave. I’m not a keyboard player, “I only play one on TV”; but you’ll get the idea.

If you haven’t already done so, and want to hear Minitaur behind the sequencer, there are a bunch of clips starting to pop up on YouTube, etc. I should also mention that Minitaur sends Midi CC so you can record tweaks that you might make live to another midi track while your sequence is playing (helpful).

4

Oh yeah, I forgot the T3 has the extra LFO waves. Also the Minitaur adds an extra octave at the top end over the T3 and an audio input that the T3 does not have.

But like EMwhite I’m keeping my T3, and I may even get the Minitaur too.

5

Just a additional point to waht Mr. Arkadin said; from a Midi note perspective, Taurus III will appear to NOT scale as high as Minitaur but that’s because it was designed with an “offset” that can be set to Low, Medium, or High. From a OSC perspective, I believe they scale identically.

My Minitaur is not here at the moment so I can’t verify but I played back a recording I had with the Intervals of the upper edge of the registered and a HI setting on Taurus III sounds exactly the same.

6

Really? I thought the top note on the T3 via MIDI was 60. Please do verify.

7

Ah.. Yes see my first sentance. Midi note value, you are correct.

But as far as frequency is concerned, I’m saying the audio range is identical.

The LO, MID, HI setting acts as a transpose secondary (or primary) to a Midi kbd octave select.

I suppose they did this so that you could choosr a specific 2 octave range which obviously is all the pedals and oct footswitch can address.

8

Ah OK, so top note is still C4 on Taurus 3, but the high transpose gives C5, even though the MIDI is still sending C4.

9

Im going to get the Taurus 3 as well --I just can’t see how they could reduce the size of the components on the Minitaur and not compromise on the sound
see review here
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2012/03/16/sonic-lab-moog-minituar-review/
_I am told by those who know, that because internally the control voltage is Hz/V. To add more octaves would have required significantly more power and required an internal PSU, making the whole thing bigger and therefore impacting on the cost.
_