When will Moog ever come out with the successor to the Memorymoog? The Polymoog was especially the worst of the two polysynths Moog did make before it went under in 1983. Before its collapse, Moog had planned to release the SL8 as its foil to the Yamaha DX7.
~Ben
Judging by the current tendencies at Moog Music (just look at the price tag on that Series 500 Ladder Filter), if there is ever such a modern successor to the Memorymoog with perhaps an improved decent 8 voice polyphony made of Voyager quality, the cost would be prohibitive.
Maybe when market conditions are better, with an unemployment rate of 5% or lower. Just maybe…
~Ben
Great idea, not sure why it hasn’t been discussed on this forum.
spits morning coffee all over monitor
Try doing a search on “polysynth” to see why everyone just spit their coffee all over their monitors…
I lol’ed at this.
(Side note, never even heard of the S8 before this thread. I gotta do some research on that one.)
Another idea no one’s brought up: I think Moog should make a new modular system. And why hasn’t anyone compared the Voyager to the Model D?
polysynths are a huge pain in the ass,and i guarantee you that moog will never make that mistake again.if you want poly that much,you will have to buy a different brand.
Or I could just buy their last one, the Memorymoog Plus with the LAMM upgrades.
~Ben
Utter nonsense. Moog didn’t make a mistake by wanting to produce a polysynth back in the days. They were only too ambitious with the limited electronics technology of the day. Sequential Circuit had the same difficulties with their Prophet 5 (originally a 10 voices synth that they had to remove half the circuits because of overheating).
But with today’s advanced circuitry, creating an 8 voice analog polysynth wouldn’t be difficult at all. It’s not here yet only because of economics, not because of limited technology this time IMHO.
You’re kidding, right? This topic has been bandied about for years on this very forum (and it continues to be a hot topic). A quick search on YouTube also reveals a numbers of example videos (try searching 'Voyager Model D").
And then there’s ‘Vintage, Voyager or Virtual’, a shoot-out between a Model D, a Voyager and Creamware MiniMax that was done three years ago and posted on KnobTweak, along with MP3 audio examples:
KnobTweak > Files > Voyager > Vintage, Voyager or Virtual > Comparison Test.pdf
You were kidding, right?
I was just thinking about this yesterday. Rather than waiting for Moog to build a polysynth, you can just build one yourself with modules from other manufacturers.
Tallying it up in modules alone, the total was $6120 for 10 Oscs, 10 Filters, 20 EnvGens, and 10 VCA’s, not counting cabinetry and power modules or shipping.
It would comprise about 70 spaces in two 44 space cabinets (synthesizers.com).
In our old polysynth thread I posted a poll about what kind of synth that we would want. Some people (in my opinion) had ridiculous expectations for an all analogue polysynth. They wanted it to sound fantastic, in a small package at an inexpensive price. I want the huge behemoth of a synth, which is a bit more realistic (in my opinion) for the nature of the technology we are talking about.
If I lost you at “$6120”, well thats not an unreasonable price if you think that 10 Slim Phattys is roughly 8 grand or the 2 SO4V from Tom Oberheim is $6990. The dotcom route is extremely more flexible.
We all want a polysynth, but its going to cost us to get one.
Referring back to the first post the SL8 was cancelled mainly because of the introduction of the comparatively inexpensive Yamaha DX-7.
Moog saw that their SL8 could never be manufactured inexpensively enough to compete with the DX-7 and its new sound palate so the project was cancelled
after only one kluged two box SL8 prototype was produced.
I do tire of the Polymoog bashing. It’s not like the Memorymoog was problem free when it was released, either… it was a massively hurried job.
The SL-8 had DCOs. You want a DCO polysynth? Your problems are solved.
And I don’t like Memorymoog bashing, either. That was the best they ever did.
~Ben
Yes, I thought my comments were obviously absurd enough that everyone would get that these are topics that have been debated to death. The memorymoog is not worth it at all. Polyphonic and moog don’t mix. I think that’s why they have stayed away, except for chaining phatties. Moog has always been about exploration of sound, and that doesn’t mix too well with chords. The patches, for them not to be muddy, have to be static to some degree and can’t be tweaked like monophonics and still stay coherent. Having multiple monophonic synths is cool, but in the context of sequencing and not performance. And if you’re recording, it’s so easy to overdub and stack, a polyphonic is just not practical. Moog would have to bet the farm on a massively but necessarily overpriced beast, and its just not worth it when there are so many other practical options, like the slim phatty. If anything, they should build a wide range keyboard housing that fits multiple phatties, with no little phatty keyboard necessary, but maybe a controller module.
well there is this lovely polysynth for a mere $35,000
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2011/04/07/messe11-mother-of-god-its-the-schmidt-poly/
my guess is that would be around the same price as a moog knob-per-function-polysynth
I think this is looking like that Moog, back in the day, was big enough already; they didn’t have to stretch out into ARP’s (and Yamaha’s) territory (when it comes to polyphonic synthesizers), correct?
In your humble opinions, when it comes to polyphonic synths (like the Polymoog and Memorymoog), Moog just can’t do that; that can’t be what Moog becomes. That can’t be Moog. That isn’t Moog.
~Ben
I learned this early on - the secret is to back off the mixer levels. If you run them topped out, you’re clipping the mixer like a minimoog. Back them down in the 30-40 area and they sound a lot better.