These pictures are from Moog’s invitation-only pre-launch event,
last December, at High Bias Recordings in Detroit, MI, where we
were treated to an improvised up-close concert by Holy F*ck.
Afterwards, I was given a little time to play with a Minitaur
prototype before they shot a quick demo video.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/johngrabowski/sets/72157628726623559
(Photo Credit: John Grabowski - Sweetwater)
Awesome! My favorite thing about the Minitaur thus far: its appearance tells me that I will be able to afford it!
What’s it like? I mean your experience playing with it?
Hi Kenneth,
I promise you that I am not being a shill for Moog when I say:
Even the hi-res pics didn’t prepare me for how cool it would
be when I first held one in my hand.
It’s a perfect blend of old-school Moog modular and Moogerfooger
styling. By that I mean that it really would look at home amongst
a bunch of 'foogers, even with no keyboards in sight. My very first
thought was: “I’ve got to find a way to mount it with all my 'foogers.”
As I said previously, the layout is brilliant. It made so much sense
that I actually did the Minitaur demo video with it in front of me
This speaks volumes on how intuitive it is to use this thing.
I also had a blast running the CP-251 and Etherwave Plus control
voltages into its CV inputs.
As for the sound… That was the first time I really got to experience
something from the Taurus family with plenty of amplification, and
now I “get it”. I understand now that this is a sound that truly can’t
be imitated by carefully tweaking a different analog synthesizer.
I premiered the demo video for our 155 Sweetwater Sales Engineers
this past Tuesday though a monstrous sound system and was inundated
with questions about when they could get their own unit. There’s just
something about it that’s creating a lot of drool here 
help an amateur out here . . . will running my phatty through the minitaur result in any cool sounds that I couldn’t get with just the phatty alone? My guess would be, yes of course, especially considering what I read on the forum about what separates the taurus filter from the others. But, I’m wondering if it’ll be worth it. If nothing else, guess I can just wait until people start posting videos . . . but that requires patience. 
When it comes to voltage-controllable analog gear, more is
ALWAYS better. But, at least for me, a more exciting prospect
would be using the (optional) CV Outs of the Phatty into the
Minitaur’s CV Ins and then using both synths to each generate audio.
As far as Phatty Audio Out to Minitaur Audio In, I’m sure that there
are lots of cool things to try. You’d basically have 4 Envelopes,
2 LP Filters, 2 VCFs and 2 LFOs all working on the same audio
signal. How could it not be cool? 
excellent point, my friend. “How could it not be cool?” true, indeed.
Regarding the LP audio out to Minitaur audio in scenario, the thing to remember about any filter is that it works best when there is something to actually filter out. You’d probably want to have the LP filter cutoff set pretty high to be able to hear the Minitaur filter affect the sound. Of course there are probably interesting interactions at a number of different settings. Tweak those knobs.
Am I right in thinking this has CV in, but not CV out - so it can’t double as a MIDI to CV converter? Please tell me I’m wrong, as it would be nice to MIDI control my ARP Axxe via this as well as using it for bass, to save on buying a Kenton or whatever.
This is what you get. No outs I’m afraid.
You’re wrong as long as it doesn’t MIDI out.