Proposing the Matrix Series - modular voice-box and more

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Once you start dreaming up new Moog gear, you cant stop (the same with buying Moog gear :unamused: ). As our son is still keeping us awake, Ive had some night hours to let the thoughts flow, and I thought about the two big Moog-related wishes: A polyphonic Moog and a new sort of Moog modular.
Maybe a new line of boxes, as wide as a cp-251 and as long as a Moogerfooger, could be an answer. This is how they could look like:

The first box has 4 individual voices with knobs for octave, frequency, waveform and level, rocker switches for hard sync and FM and jacks that double up on the knobs. With the jacks labeled “global” you can control all four voices together, and the out jack gives you the mix of the four oscillators.
Use this as a drone-box or add four voices to your existing setup!

The second box offers 4 filters with the control possibilities of the MF-101, the Multidrive of the Sub Phatty and the HP/LP functionality of the Voyager. Again you can control all four filters together via the global jacks, and you can send a mix of four inputs through one filter via the mixer. The global output sums the output of the four individual filters.
Use this as your 4 VCFs for your 4 VCOs of the first box, or as a standalone filter bank!

The third box gives you 4 wide-ranged LFOs with continuously variable waveforms. Like on the voices box, one LFO can be hard synced to and/or FMed by the one before it. With the mixer you can use other CVs to shape your modulators. Maybe a noise-jack could be added in each section.
Use this as mod busses for your 4 VCOs and VCFs (and VCAs in the next box) or as great modulation (or even sound) sources for whatever you like!

The fourth and last box offers 4 individual envelopes and VCAs. The envelopes can loop (the loop knob controlling number of slowly decaying repeats) and the four outputs can be panned and appear as a stereo sound at the global output jack. Again you can control one or more parameters globally via the global jacks.
Use this as your last piece in the 4-voice polyphonic synthesizer, use it as the long awaited env/vca for your Foogertron or explore the interesting multi-stage-LFO you get with the envelope out!

Add to these four rackable boxes a 37-key controller keyboard with 8 individual outputs for gate, pitch, velocity and pressure, and some mixers and mults, and you can start having some serious polyphonic fun. When you have two of each box and a controller keyboard, you get an 8-voice, simple but effective polyphonic semi-modular synthesizer :mrgreen: !

If every box costs no more than 400-500 bucks, this should be a success…

What do you think?

Greetings, radioland

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It’s not easy for me to see the use of any of them if bought individually, with the exception of joining them up with an existing modular. And if that’s going to happen, they need to be in 5U format. Purchasing all four of them together makes sense for adding onto an existing keyboard like the Voyager or Sub37 or LittlePhatty.

But enough with the Poly nonsense already… :stuck_out_tongue: (Actually, I really admire all the work you’re putting into documenting your ideas. Don’t stop…)

Stephen




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Thanks for the appreciation! As someone who didn`t know a lot about modules and stuff it was easy to dream up “new” ideas. I still think that for someone without a modular, but with a few Moogerfoogers, some of my ideas could be interesting. The “modulators” module for example could work well with all of the Moogerfoogers, offering 4 more independent LFOs, finally with the different waveshapes of the 104M and 108M available as CV outs.
The “envelopes & amplifiers” module complements the Freqbox well and would supply the things the “Moogerfooger modular” is still missing.

After thinking about these ideas I went on an exploring trip through the internet and found out about 5U modules from .com, club of the knobs, mos-lab, moon modular and so on. So now I know what already exists, and that many here have gone the modular route - so maybe I`ll do that too…

Yeah, I know… but :smiley:
After proposing the “matrix series” I found out that club of the knobs had some similar things already in their catalogue, for example a polyphonic EG, so maybe this could really be of some interest in the future…

Cheers, radioland

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When I thought about the missing gate/env/vca-moogerfooger in the MF-109M thread (http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=21547) and my bunch of moogerfoogers, a new idea came to my mind :sunglasses: .
If you didn`t want more than 4 matrix boxes, you could make the voices and modulators box one by adding high and low settings to the octaves knob. So you could decide yourself if you wanted to use the oscillators as audio or low frequency oscillators.
The space you saved like this could be used for a new box, the “Matrix”:

This would give you more control options and would work really well with anything moog / analog.

-The mixer is basically the same as in the cp-251, but you can adjust all the input levels.

-The LFO offers double simultaneous outputs of 5 wave shapes, and with the phase knob you can shift the phase of every wave shape for interesting rhythmic patterns.

-Three active attenuators do what active attenuators do…

-Three different kinds of noise can be used at the same time.

-The sample and hold circuit is about the same as in the cp-251, but nothing is hard-wired.

-The ring modulator handles audio and CV (as should the mixer, multiplier and octaves).

-“Octaves” could be a modified ring modulator, offering the original signal, one an octave above and one an octave below it. Imagine how you could get three time divisions of one CV…

-With the 5-way multiple you can rout whatever you like to one of the other matrix series units.

All in all: One more little drawing that will never be realized - but hey, sometimes I can’t keep my mind from wandering… :laughing:

Cheers, radioland