having had my source propped up in the corner for some time i thought i would give it a blast for old times sake. the source was my mainstay for synth bass gigs for several years until it developed “crazy source” which is a known problem due to corroded contacts. I took it out on tour with morcheeba and it always behaved,and it even worked after a half pint of lager was knocked over it coating the circuits! crazy source causes the source to behave randomly and trigger itself, which on gigs proved quite scary. one time the source was on bass duties on a heavy funk gig and went crazy on its own.i was resigned to playing bass on my rhodes for a tune and then thankfully a little devine intervention in the form of the toliets flooding cleared the club and got me out of a nightmare situation.
anyway silly stories aside, i had a few favourite sounds on the source and really wanted to test out the voyager side by side with it. I recreated my favourite source patches with very little effort, pretty much exactly on the voyager. damn it, it nailed the source perfectly. The funny thing is that the voyager actually has more bass end power than the source!! so there you go all you doubters-the voyager knocks what i thought was my bassiest synth-for six. The main differences in the sound is that the voyagers filter is less bright than the source when fully open(or maybe its the oscillators?)but this seems the only difference to my ears; its very slight. also,inserting a dummy plug into the right output also gave a much more authentic source/minimoog sound.
i think its easy to forget that the voyagers filter does not sound like the minimoogs or sources until it is summed to one output with a dummy jack in the other remaining out. try it out and it makes an amazing difference for getting those really old style sounds. so i conclude the voyager can sound exactly like the source or the mini or with the filters in stereo completely unique! on top of that the fact that we can now select different filter poles means that i can also get close to perfectly emulating my korg ms20.For the first time i actually contemplated selling my ms20 and source(tho i’m too sentimental to do that) and thats a testament to how versatile the voyager really is.marvellous.
yeah a mono jack plug without a cable. you can get them from any good electronics shops. makes a big difference. i have routed audio back through the ext in before which works ok,but i dont think it really improves the sound. the dummy plug in the right output really gives that old source/mini filter behaviour.
The Source rocks for gigging . . small, light, easy under the arm, relatively cheap and with the encore midi kit you get 256 patches.
The Voyager is too precious to take out gigging and somehow i don’t consider it as robust as a classic minimoog . . . I’ve always felt the Voyager to be female, where the Model D is all man . . . and The Source is the upstart kid.
It even tolerated a power brownout and kept going. I found a bad extension cord and I was only getting around 90VAC instead of healthy 110VAC. The Andromeda couldn’t handle it and most of my other gear crapped out, but the Voyager didn’t complain once.
Source is a great gigging monosynth though, used that one for YEARS! (encore MIDI kit is a MUST)
Source is a great gigging monosynth though, used that one for YEARS! (encore MIDI kit is a MUST)
the rotary encoder handled differently with my encore kit installed.
my technique on the source involved selecting a parm such as filter cutoff, then working the encoder, sort of like a third mod/pitch wheel. before i put the encore kit in, i could really spin the encoder fast, making for cool filter sweeps and such.
with the encore kit in, a fast spin of the encoder resulted in a momentary drop in voltage to the VCOs, creating a pitch-drop. i had to be careful about how fast i spun the knob, otherwise things got a bit poopy.
on the other hand, 16 banks of 16 programs totally rocked. and the thing was so compliant on patch changes that i routinely made banks with between 4 and 16 variations on the same sound, calling them up within sequences to provide accents, effects and such…
about the only thing i wished for was MIDI out from the source so that i could sequence directly from the instrument.
reeeally loved that little Source, even though the McDonalds-esque graphics sometimes made me say ‘you want fries with that?’ under my breath…
is the same effect acheieved by just hooking up a single output jack (LEFT/MONO)? I guess I’m not getting the dummy jack idea … why it would work different than running the voyager in mono?
is the same effect acheieved by just hooking up a single output jack (LEFT/MONO)?
no, it’ll sum the two filters together as a mono signal.
I guess I’m not getting the dummy jack idea … why it would work different than running the voyager in mono?
model D minimoogs had a single lowpass filter. the voyager has two filters. the two filters can be set with different cutoff frequencies, which makes for a slightly different sound from the original mini. although you can set both filters to be very close to each other, it’s not dead on, and purists can hear the difference.
there are two ways we’ve discussed which remove one of the filters from the output, making the voyager sound more like a model D mini.
one technique involves plugging an extra cable or a ‘dummy jack’ into the right output, and running the left [mono] output to your amplifier/mixer. by having something plugged into the right side, it routes one filter away from the left [mono] jack. by not plugging this right side cable into anything, you won’t hear that filter.
the other option is to go from the right output to your amp or mixer. if you do this, i believe you’ll have two knobs which control cutoff - the big knob which adjusts both filters’ cutoff frequencies, and the smaller knob beneath which adjusts the ‘right’ filter’s cutoff frequency in relation to the ‘left’ filter.
My wife and I got to play around with one at Guitar Center yesterday. I really loved the sound (and was surprised at the good condition - there was a little wear and tear, but the sound was there and the keyboard was still perfect). I almost bought it on the spot, but held back, since I already have a Voyager. The price was $549US - waddaya think? Should I have bought it?
