Recently I bought a Subsequent 25 and I really like it. I checked for other Moog products afterwards because the Subsequent 25 tastes like more. What I would be really happy with is a Moog that has true 3 voice polyphonic (so not paraphonic).
Unfortunately it seems that the next step regarding polyphony is a Moog One with 8 voice polyphony and features that are not necessary for people who use sequencer software, such as arpeggiator and effects. This all together results in a much higher price for the Moog One.
Why a request for 3 voice polyphony? Well, basic chords exist of 3 notes and 3 note chords are used very often in my genre (dub techno/ house). So from my perspective it would be really cool if Moog could design a new synth with true 3 voice polyphony, a small keyboard (max 37 keys), with MIDI in/out and no features that can be done by sequencer software. So basically it would mean: sound only, no arpegiators/effects. More or less like a Subsequent 25 with 3 note polyphony (and maybe a 37 key keyboard)
I have a poor culture regarding house/dub/techno and I don’t want to discuss your needs but here are some thoughts
If chords are what you’re after, paraphony can be a good compromise. Polyphony will bring you new options for voice articulation, which is different than just “stabbing” some chords.
On a side note, about duophony, I find 2-note chords interesting as they do not fully set the harmony. They rather leave a role to other parts (e.g. bass line), or they leave some space for harmonic tension/resolution. Here is an example: imagine you play a chord composed of 2 notes Eb and Bb. They can be seen as the fondamental and fifth of a Eb chord but also as the minor third and minor seventh of a Cm7 chord. In function of the bass you will play, they’ll paint a different picture.
Same for, say, E and G: they can be part of a C chord, an Em chord or even a G6 chord etc. Playing those without playing the bass right away and bringing the bass later can be interesting. You got it: the lesser the notes in the chord, the more the possibilities
I came to find paraphony to be a stimulating constraint too; I consider that the unique filter and envelope are something to compose with rather than a limitation. You can see this technical specificity to be a mean to obtain specific, original sounds, e.g. having one note with a long attack and a little melody with quick attack simultaneously…
If you have a MIDI polyphonic synth, here is something I like to do with my Little Phatty and a little 4-note digital synth: LP’s MIDI out into the synth’s MIDI in, synth’s audio out into the LP’s audio input. Set the LP’s oscillators volume to zero and adjust filter and envelopes to taste. Here’s my Moog-ish polyphonic synth
If you really prefer polyphony but you cannot afford a Moog One, there is an alternative: use several monophonic Moog synths. To do so, you need something to manage the voice distribution. Here are a couple alternatives:
go software: I’m quite sure some little applications can do that
use an hardware voice management unit like for example the Spacebraincircuits MidiVolts
finally, go polychaining. Not sure what the Sub25 allows, but the Little/Slim Phatty, Minitaur and Voyager allow that…
Hi, thanks for your reply and suggestions. Interesting to read about this.
What I do now is record each note of the chord on a different audio track. This means 3 audio tracks with the same synth settings and the same automation settings for the filter etc. This works but is quite a lot more time consuming. Because only after recording 3 times I know the result.
While I could buy 3 Subsequent 25’s it would be a lot more easy if Moog fills the gap between the 8 voice synths, and the monophonic synths…
I think paraphony has a different more gritty sound that polyphony generally does. I like it a lot and some times play my Sub 37 with one hand and my Matriarch with my other to get more notes of it. Its definitely a fun sounds.
That said, I’d also just love a less expensive 4 voice polyphonic synth from Moog to get that warm creamy Moog sound that I love that I can play more like an rhodes, etc. The Moog One is too much synth for me. Since the Subsequent 25 is like the little sibling of the Subsequent 37, I’m hoping one day they will come out with a similar little sibling to the Moog One.
I had a Minitaur for a while and tried poly-chaining it with my Sub 37 and it worked for chords but not really polyphonic playing. I eventually sold the Minitaur. I now also have a Matriarch and I’ll play that as a 4-voice paraphony and it has a great sound, but if I want a right hand melodic line over left hand chords it doesn’t really cut through because of how nice and fat the osc are so instead I play the melody in the Sub 37 with a slightly brighter patch and it works well.
The other thing about trying to play paraphonically on the Matriarch is the is key velocity doesn’t affect the volume of the osc that you are playing so if you want a quieter left hand chord and a louder right hand melodic line, you can’t do that. You can route the key velocity to control volume but its for the whole keyboard and not each individual osc.
Do people from Moog actually read this forum or is this unclear? I have no clue how many suggestion they receive, probably a lot, but -at least for me- it would be nice if they read this one
Because all the basics are already in house at Moog, I guess it will not be very difficult for them to make a 3 voice polyphonic synth.
Well, if it would be that easy they could easily open a custom shop Just check the boxes regarding number of voices polyphony, size of keyboard, effects or not, arpeggiator or not. And so on
My customization wishes can be found in my first post here
It wouldn’t be a moog but you could get a sequential pro3 it’s monopohonic/paraphonic. 3 voice paraphony
It wouldn’t be a moog but you could get a sequential take5 true 5 voice polyphony.
You could get a moog matriarch I believe it’s 4 voice paraphonic but of course it’s semi modular and is really designed to be a monophonic semi modular synth that has the ability to be paraphonic. The real question is do you want true polyphony. You could even get a sequential prophet 5 rev four . It’s great but big bucks. Thier are other sequential synths that have DCOs and are 8 voice or 16 voice polyphony . There’s the sequential prophet6 that has 6 voice polyphony why do you want 3 voice polyphony? If I wanted a polyphonic synth I would liketo have aleast 8 voices but would settle for 5. I play jazz though and my chord voicing have extensions. Dense harmony and ornamental voices. Big Friggin Chords lol polychords. Not your garden variety three note convention of three voices. If you do house or EDM then three note voicing might suffice. And last but least if you opt to play a digital synt there are some that offer 128 or even 256 if I remember right. It’s been awhile since I’ve looked at current digital workstation romplers. Point is digtal aka sample based synths offer more polyphony at a lower price point. 8 voices in the analog realm is huge sounding though. Hope this helps take care
Thnx for your suggestion! I also have a Sequential rev 8 which is pretty okay.
But: since I have a Subsequent 25 (earlier this year) I really want to have thát with 3 voice polyphony. And many people making house/techno will love that too.
For us the sound is the only thing that counts. All other things such as keyboard, effects, arpeggiators etc are not needed and making it unnecessary more expensive. We use DAW’s for that. So even a 3 voice polyphonic desktop version would be great. Like an upgraded Minitaur
I’d suggest a one osc ( like on the moog one with seperated variable saw and beating variable square ) , 8 voice 2 eg, 1 or two lfo’s, noise .price 2-2,5k
Well, I clearly do not agree with one oscillator. 2 oscillators are a must for me
Actually all I need is a 3 voice Subsequent 25. The keyboard isn’t even needed
For many (house/techno) producers that would be awesome
Maybe some kind of custom shop would be nice to serve the needs of many choose number of oscillators, choose number of lfo’s, choose number of keys (0-61) etc
So now the excellent Subsequent 25 is discontinued and the new Messenger is on the market, but without the 3 voice polyphony that I and many others really need to have a workable workflow for house, techno and dub-techno (because we need to be able to make basic chords).
I cannot get the sound of a Moog Subsequent 25 from any of the soft synths that I have (like Serum-2 etc) in an appropriate way. Even if you would get close to the sound, physical knobs are really needed.
So I am repeating my appeal to have a 3 voice polyphonic synth made. Basically all we need in this genre is a synth like the Subsequent 25 but 3 voice polyphony (and no keyboard is needed). Just a sound engine like the Minitaur, because in these genres everyone uses a DAW for sequencing and effects.
I am pretty sure that, next to the sound capabilities, it will also be commercially interesting.
You could get a Sequential PRO 3. It’s not polyphonic but it’s paraphonic. Itsthreevoice paraphonic. Has three different filters. prophet 6 and OB6 and a ladder filter.
Like me. I use 3 voice polyphony for my house, dub and techno stuff es well.
Exactly. It is like touching a real human face instead of touching an empty mask.
Forget it. Moog does not care what customers want (LOL). My personal impression is that they define product lines more according to the optimum of slicing and selling the brand image with the easiest way of production of instruments
My favorite examples are the modular systems. People begged for more modules, more concepts, more configuration possibilities for so many years. Moog ignored that, for a reason at least unknown for me. And the modules are really really easy to build, good handling, fantastic sound, with a good cost to win ratio. No chance.
I spoke with two hardware developers who had worked for Bob Moog. They made improvement suggestions for some of the hardware problems of the later keyboard synthesizers, but he ignored that and kept his product policy not looking to the left and the right.
Not to be misunderstood, I admire Bob for his genious mind and pioneer work in synthesizer technologies, and following a straight way in implementing a new technology was the only way of establishing this in music in my opinion, but the Moog company missed the change to more customer orientation unfortunately.
And that’s exactly the point! The generic consequence is that customers and musicians look to the left and the right if the Moog company doesn’t. They buy products of other brands which offer the synths they want…
