With the wealth of recent products from other companies, monophonic, polyphonic, clones, and the end of the production of the Minimoog D reissue, it seems like Moog Music Inc is rather quiet. They aren’t even announcing any prototypes or projects that they might be working on. Have they run out of ideas ? Are they about to go bankrupt or what ? There’s a limit in trying to solely capitalize on the Minimoog D success, over and over again.
If Behringer and Dave Smith Instruments can offer polysynths with 12 and 16 voices for less than the price of a monophonic Voyager, maybe it’s time Moog Music did something about it ?
Time for a modern reissue of the memorymoog maybe ? (before Behringer does it for $1K)
I would like to hear peoples thoughts on this matter also. In my opinion though I cant really find any other synths besides MOOG that dont sound kind of shitty. I cant stand a single Dave Smith synth and that is really the truth as I wanted them to be another avenue to follow for quality synths. Also I dont like playing synths that feel like toys and many other manufacturers do just that.
I own a DSI OB6 and it can stand up to any Moog, as far as quality and sound. Even my 1975 Minimoog D. But as for other models from that company, except perhaps the Prophet 6, you’re right. Their new REV 2 doesn’t appeal to me at all.
It seems that everybody else is riding the analog polysynth train, except Moog.
I get the poly-synth thing but it just doesn’t effect me. I only play bass in my band and monophonic is sufficient for my needs. I just want whatever I play to sound fucking fantastic and all of my Moog synths do that.
Who knows? Maybe they’re busy enough selling M32s and Sub37s. There’s nothing that says you have to come out with a new synth every year to be successful.
The trend at the moment seems everything miniaturised. Korg’s Volcas have done very well and Elektron have ditched the “Machine” format for something different in the Digitakt. It’s easy to convince people (especially musicians) to buy many small things over one big one. So Moog continues with an updated Minitaur and the Mother-32.
Although it is cool to see some more modular action, the M-32 feels very limited to me. I realise that the point of modular is to patch it together with extra VCOs/VCF/EG etc. but to be really honest, one can come up with a similar simple voice within fewer HP…
It will be quite interesting as to what comes next. The same synth architecture that the Minimoog pioneered is going through a resurgence now and frankly it’s getting a bit tired. I’m not saying that this sound is bad, but it is far from new and innovative.
Moog Music of now is employee owned. So they are moving in a direction that they choose to as a company. Respect to that!
I guess I cant relate when people say Moog synths are limited because I think of synths as instruments and not as machines… I know I am in the minority though. My synths all sound incredible. I am not upset that they dont do more.
I say this as a Voyager owner, and I appreciate that different things do different things. If you only want to recreate a Model D on a modular, then why not just save some patch cables and do it with a predefined architecture?
My experience of an M-32 was that is was very simple. Not much more can be expected from a VCO/VCF/an ADR envelope/LFO/some VCAs.
The Sub 37 and Minitaur can do more than what’s printed on the panel using special button combos. I suppose that’s so you don’t “scare the horses” with the main interface.
Personally, Moog left where I was at with music/tech a long time ago. Or perhaps I left them.
Very sorry if it seemed I was criticizing your position personally. I recognize my position is the outlier totally. I just play Bass in a folk band on my model D and use all my other stuff for drones when we jam. That is not the typical use of a synth by any stretch…
Alain,
I’ve been hearing rumors since before the Sub Phatty was released that they are developing one. I’d like to elaborate further but I’ve heard this from two different people both of whom were credible sources.
All good, I don’t feel criticised. I appreciate that there are different people and styles, and they will need and use gear differently.
When I started out with this stuff, it seemed like I was following a similar development trajectory to Moog Music. Over the years there’s been a divergence and so I took my own path elsewhere. Not good nor bad, it’s just what it is!
2017 had been an interesting production year for MOOG, a couple nice upgrades to the SUB, some great S/W additions to the MIniTaur, but IMO, seems suspiciously quite. In the Games of Musical Thrones, all eyes on NAMM 2018, the folks at Moog are BRILLIANT with timing. Winters coming for house MOOG and we could possible see the release of PolyDragons … , soon others will bend the knee.
the new Moog Polymoog on the workbench is taking up a lott of their resources and time…its overdue for release they are working hard on it. But it obviously MUST be good…and done right. i respect them for taking their time but they dont want to let the horse completely bolt
I was at the Moogworks last week and emailed Cyril that I was going to be in town. He replied that they were really busy, didn’t get to see him. No idea what they are up to.
They are building one more Emerson modular for Sweetwater though. It was cool to see modulars under assembly. They are still assembling model Ds.
