Forgive me if others have written about these things; I just want to see if others are as affected by them. I am the owner of MiniMoog Voyager Signature Edition (#230) and I also have a Model D (probably from the early 80s - #10558) I’ve done extensive listening and have found the following niggles on the Voyager:
Filter doesn’t track the keyboard in octaves (Resonance all the way up, Keyboard tracking to 10 - the best I get is a sharp major 7th)
Oscillators don’t seem to track 1V/oct (I’ve tried with the modified CV-out of my Model D, Roland MC-4, Doepfer Regelwerk - all of them seem to give a sharp major 7th - maybe related to #1, above)
Filter doesn’t track the glide circuit.
Oscillators are a little tame (esp Square wave)
I value the self-oscillating filter as a “4th oscillator” in my sound design. Has anybody found these problems and / or solutions?
Yes, items 1,2 & 3 are known issues and have been addressed in this forum before. None are showstoppers IMO - ‘niggles’ is probably a good way to describe them
Regarding the Voyager oscillators, they are adjusted to track 0.935 V/octave. If you route an external 1V/oct CV thu an attentuator (either on the VX-351 or CP-251) you should be able to adjust the CV signal to make the Voyager’s oscillators track properly.
The filter not tracking the glide circuit has been reported as a hardware problem by the Moog folks, meaning that a hardware modification would be required to correct. For now, the only workaround is to use the lag circuit in the CP-251 to slow down the key pitch CV to the filter. Not a great solution, and somewhat troublesome to set up, but better than nothing.
Regarding the ‘tame’ oscillators, they are what they are, but keep in mind that you can make your own adjustments to the oscillators (pre-filter) using the Mix/Out loop. This is a good place to plug in an EQ, tube preamp, or other signal processor (overdrive, distortion, chorus, phaser, flanger, etc.).
Patrick,
better this way then the other way round with more then 1 volt needed per octave. Amplifying controll voltages is not that easy. This tracking problem of yours is easy to solve, even without the VX-351 or CP-251 (but these are fun anyway). You just need a varaible resistor. It is easy to maky a cable with this. Some people solder these little helpers for their Moog Modular, because attentuators were allways too few on them.
And if I remember right, some other 20 or more years earlier Moog gear had “feature” this too.
The minimoog and the voyager are diffent beasts with different characters. The Osc’s could hardly be called “tame.” The mini was all discrete circuitry andit is just not possible to build all discrete circuits without a hefty price tag in todays climate.
We can all obsess about how the voyager doesnt sound as phat as a mini for days on end but its pointless as its an endless argument,just like the continous mac v pc threads in computer forums.
The mini and Voyager are two different machines with different components built years apart. BUT! If someone gave me the choice of a voyager or mini model d i would take the voyager over the original mini everytime because of its versitality and phat sound.
I agree with the last post (goldphinga)… They are two very different yet very similar machines. If I had to choose between them I couldn’t..
They both make up my whole synth rig on stage. In other words all I play (in terms of synths) are a Mini D and Voyager EB. I wouldn’t ever want to be with either, because they both have so many unique strengths and weaknesses (spelling?) …
I usually start songs on my Voyager, and really go off on it, then I start playing some of that JJ Perry style mini D, attenuating the Frq of Osc 3, doing the filter.. YUMM..
I think for people that aren’t musicians ( show goers ) are always more impressed visually by the Voyager. But its usually the model D’s low end that gets those ladies shaking their booties.. Then add them together in a riff for mind blowing sexual auditory possibilities ! lol