Voyager Resolution

The Moog Forum Minimoog Forum
1

Hi all,
I’ve had a voyager performer for 6 months now and I’m still confused about the resolution of voyager knobs…
Let me state my simple questions:

  1. What is the actual resolution of the knobs positions as saved in a preset… 250 or 16384 (128x128). There’s a big difference there.
  2. Is there a difference between resolution saved and resolution physically available?
  3. If resolution saved is 16384 why did Moog decide to have increments of 250 displayed for all parameters?
  4. If resolution saved is 250, how does this correlate to 128 of MSB? Shouldn’t it have been 256?
  5. What software, if ANY, can record and play back the LSB along with the MSB. Logic and Pro Tools have only played back MSB for me. I’d be willing to utilize a different software to take advantage of this resolution.

Anyone have these questions or answers?

Jim

2

  1. According to the Midi sysex specs the parameters are stored with 16 bit. That is 65536 values.

  2. I am not sure if the knob positions are actually scanned 16 bit depth. And if so, a fly passing by a knob would change the value slightly. So there is for sure some smoothing present to stop the Voyager from change every parameter slightly several times per second. And the MIDI CCs are 14 bit (7 bit MSB + 7 bit LSB).

  3. My guess: Changing cut off value shown from 13847 to 13922 is not easy to use. And would no make sense on an envelope attack. And on an analog knob you would not even see 250 different positions. So this is just made to let the Voyager show you a rough idea. Even the Moog Source did not show the full bit depth for oscillator detuning. You could hear more detailed steps then the display showed. And after all, these analog instruments would differ anyway. So a value of 13847 might be exactly the same audible thing as 13922 on a different Voyager. I think you canÄt adjust trimmers to perfect. And they would change a bit anyway over time like electronics do slightly all the time.

  4. 16 bit truncated to two 7 bit MIDI CC?

  5. Don’t know. But recording two CCs, no matter if these do belong together to make a MSB and LSB should be possible an all serious DAWs. But drawing a controller with the mouse for MSB and LSB might be a different thing for them. So if you sue a controller sending MSB and LSB paired CCs (like the Voyager knobs), you should be able to record them and play them to the Voyager.

3

There used to be a passage in the original Voyager User Manual that went something like: the potentiometers on the Voyager are digitized with high 16 bits accuracy (65536 possible values), but the display only shows the averaged values, down to 8 bits (256 values). However, the full 16 bits are used and stored internally for maximum precision.

I couldn’t find it anymore in the online available version…?

But I distinctly remember it from when I had my Voyager EB model.

4

Yes, I’ve read something along those lines as well.

Stephen




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5

There were some answers in this prevoius thread:
Voyager Internal Resolution thread
Rudi wrote the internal resolution is 12 bits (4096 steps). Knob resolution and saved patches.
While it seems the MIDI resolution sent out via the MIDI output of the Voyager is closer to 256 steps. Just put a MIDI monitor on the output to see it for yourself.

6

My mistake. :blush: Internally the Voyager scans knobs at 12 bits resolution. But it does work with full 16 bits for control voltages though.

This is coming from the man who wrote the software himself, Rudi (in that other thread, thanks CZ Rider).