What's your favorite MF order?

The Moog Forum Moogerfooger Forum
1

Greetings, 'foogers.

I’m currently running my Voyager through six Moogerfoogers, and I’ve been experimenting with their order in the chain. Right now the order is this: Voyager to FreqBox to midiMurf to RingMod to ClusterFlux to Phaser to Delay.

Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions on this? I’m just curious what others prefer and why…

Thanks, everyone

2

Hi, the answer to this question varies for me.

My go to bass / guitar rig involves the filter, ClusterFlux & delay. The filter is after fuzz & synth pedals but before eq, drive, compression & amp simulators. The ClusterFlux is usually following the amp sim, but is used to make the signal stereo. The delay is actually in the ClusterFlux’s loop. Sometimes the ClusterFlux ends up first when using its playable oscillations. Then digital reverb / more delay / looper always last.

When the big rig is in play, the ClusterFlux is usually replaced by the phaser or the MuRF and the ring mod follows the filter. Freqbox sits with the fuzz pedals in the front and usually with a compressor dimed to flatten the input. Sometimes MuRF and ClusterFlux are inline in either order. Delay usually at the end.

The general scheme I use is: envelope sensing up front, motion in the middle, echo at the end. The effects loops of both the ClusterFlux & delay are heavily used with phasing / ring mod / freqbox sounds.

Basically anything goes and nothing is fixed. I have my favs tho.

3

Hi namhshaman,

When it came time to permanently rack my 'foogers I had to decide the order that I’d stick to more often than not. Here’s what I choose and why:

  1. MF-107 FreqBox. It likes an unadulterated input signal (other than compression) yet often outputs a wildly harmonically infused output. That’s why the next pedal is…

  2. MF-101 Lowpass Filter. This lets me tame and shape the output of the FreqBox.

  3. MF-102 Ring Modulator. It’s next because I wanted it to be affected by the Phaser, MuRF, Delay, and Cluster Flux. And because I didn’t want the MF-101 to filter out any of the upper sideband frequencies.

  4. MF-103 Phaser. I like the effect of phase sweeps going through the delay. But, every now and then, the Phaser gets moved to the end of the chain because it’s so beautiful in stereo.

  5. MF-105M MIDI MuRF. The harmonic motion it creates sounds great before the delay but, like the Phaser, its alternating stereo panning of the frequency bands sometimes makes me want it at the end.

  6. MF-104M Delay. This delay usually precedes the ClusterFlux since it’s mono while the Cluster Flux creates a gorgeous stereo image. The delay is almost always the second-to-last 'fooger.

  7. MF-108M Cluster Flux. It’s just not a stereo Chorus if it’s not in stereo. So it ends up last a lot. Sometimes it trades places with either the stereo Phaser or stereo MuRF if their stereo effect is more important.

Note: If I’m not restricting myself to Moog-only effects then all bets are off.

4

I have mine in the exact same order as DemonDan. I also sometimes put the phaser last when recording, but since I prefer it before distortion, I usually have it placed after the low pass and before the delay. I use my pedals for guitar 75% of the time and as studio effects for the rest.

I view the Clusterflux as the ultimate mono to stereo widening pedal. Even if it’s not an obvious chorusing effect. It just has a way of making things feel huge.

5

Very informative input, gentlemen. You all made some excellent points.

Now I’ve got more experimenting to do. I tried moving the Phase to the end, and I did like the stereo-ness. I really wish the Phase had a Mix knob. I feel like I lose some volume when I turn it on. I’ll have to try moving the ClusterFlux to the end and see where that takes me.

Thanks, everyone

6

Yes, there were some things that I`ve never tried out yet. Shows that there are so many and almost no wrong ways of arranging Moogerfoogers.

When I use all of them together I go with the following order:

FreqBox → Filter → Phaser → ClusterFlux → Delay

But as I mostly dont use all of them for one instrument or track and dont have them racked yet, I use the stereo Moogerfoogers as the last ones quite often. Personally I find the aux out of the MF-104M not very satisfying for melodies. I only use it for effect sounds.

By the way: Which of the Moogerfoogers do you control with your cp-251(s) most? For me, its the FreqBox at the moment. I control pitch, wave and envelope with it or use the cp-251 to pass on the osc- or env out. The least cp-controlled Moogerfooger is the MF-104M, because its LFO makes it very versatile already, and some of the cpd sounds seem to be a bit “gimmicky” to me. That said, when I just fool around with the Moogerfooger I love to control everything of every Moogerfooger with the cp-251…

Cheers, radioland

7

Hey Radioland. What do you mean exactly?

8

With the murf at the end of the chain, and the delay immediately before it, you can get the delay to ping-pong between the L&R channels provided you time it correctly.

Phaser into the Ringmod is great.

CP 107 combo is like an incomplete mod buss and osc for a nice partial synth “voice.”

The order I sue the most is obviously 107-101.

9

Thanks for that Alien8. I always forget those and thus I decided to try yesterday. Good sounds got out!

It put a home made + an EHX Cathedral un the delay loop and added some mid-speed light sinusoidal modulation. It ended in some creepy ambiance :slight_smile:

On the other hand, I couldn’t get anything interesting but feedback using ClusterFlux loop. I could make it jump from an octave to the second higher thanks to the square LFO, but nothing sexier. Any suggestion?..

10

Try a delay pedal. You loose the chorus / flange effect, but gain some wow-ness. By far my favourite combo (stereo Moog Delay / 3D tone generator). It’s really neat how the controls begin to interact with eachother too. I haven’t gone much beyond that in the Flux loop because it was soooo goood.

11

Thanks, I’ll try that :slight_smile:

12

Sorry that I didn`t use the correct term, I meant the “delay out”. The manual says that it can be used “for stereo applications”. But if you use the mix and delay outputs in a stereo situation, you get the dry signal panned to one side and the wet signal in the center. When you use a DAW to move the MF-104M-output around, you can only move the wet part, as the dry signal is still mono.
I tried it out with my Sub Phatty, and with a sweet lead sound and moderate feedback the result sounded disorientating to me.
I used both outputs on a demo-type track for effect sounds. You can hear it at the beginning (bird sounds): https://soundcloud.com/radioland-1/santiago-1

I like this combination a lot, too. With the 107, the 101 and the cp-251 alone you can get some great sounds, they like each other. :smiley:
Here are some patch explorations with this and other combinations:
https://soundcloud.com/radioland-1/blick-dur-nas-auts-glas-gaga-inna-u-ussa-1
https://soundcloud.com/radioland-1/alp-sigel-im-winter
https://soundcloud.com/radioland-1/gollum-in-the-cave

stiiiiiiive, thats exactly what I experienced as well. All I got was even crazier feedback... So Ill try out the delay and other effects in the fb insert again.

Cheers, radioland

13

I get it now. I’ve always wondered ho can the delay out be used for stereo duties too.
That being said, I remember the very first seconds of the of the Dead Weather’s song 60 feet tall : vocals, guitar, and light drums are injected in a delay which is hard panned; it does not feel that bad… but I guess that’s different from having the dry part hard panned.