Moog Music Forum

dan thacker wrote:I wish i lived on the same planet as people who can drop four grand on a synth with no warranty.I'm from planet "making monthly payments!"

I've reached that planet simply by setting aside a monthly amount, and when I had finally enough I bought my Mini.
You could also do like some people, and sell some of your stuff to get enough money too.
Also, I'm an electronics hobbyist, so buying an expensive old analog synth like a Minimoog didn't scare me too much. I can always try to fix it myself if it ever breaks.
In fact, when I bought mine, I had to clean it thoroughly because it had been in storage for many years in a damp and humid basement. But I got a good deal because of this.

And even if you stay on planet "making monthly payments", there's no certainty that your new synth won't break outside of its warranty... My Old School effectively broke during the first 6 months I had it (defective sample-and-hold FET transistor), incidentally, but I was lucky it was under warranty and was fixed.

Whatever people happen to invest in, they will tout, whether its a psychological need to tell themselves that they made the right choice and are not missing out; or seeking out gear that appeals to them specifically, its a confirmed phenomenon

right, and I've also noticed most of the Model D touters on this thread coincidentally(?) have invested in such...

my bad for a pointless topic- hey moderator! let's bag this party?

moogslob wrote:

Whatever people happen to invest in, they will tout, whether its a psychological need to tell themselves that they made the right choice and are not missing out; or seeking out gear that appeals to them specifically, its a confirmed phenomenon

right, and I've also noticed most of the Model D touters on this thread coincidentally(?) have invested in such...

my bad for a pointless topic- hey moderator! let's bag this party?

bit of a strange/cheap way of ending a discussion when arguments seems to be short ?
the above works for voyager and models d owners the same way and in the same amount i guess
an open comparison of the goods and bads of both machines everybody could benefit from, mho

I own neither a voyager or a mini. I can hear a difference when someone is playing one or the other live. I like the sound of both. Most of the time in a mix with a band it doesn't make a difference to me. It's just those moments when the sound hits you in a special place. Hairs stand up on end and I get a slow forming grinch grin. It has happen with the voyager, it just has always been more intense of a feeling with a mini D.

bit of a strange/cheap way of ending a discussion when arguments seems to be short ?

sorry, you're right-

And let's all remember, these are TOOLS for us as artists to create with- A kid with chutzpa can provoke a night full of goosebumps with a MG-1, vs a low-on-soul collector could ever do with a trunkful of Ds, Voyagers, whatever-

I suppose I'm just getting weary of the daily affirmations that the synth I sold a roomful of gear for is lacking in the tone department...

now can we move on?

as said before, i more often touch the voyager then any other synth i own, including the model-d.
the voyager really is a good sounding synth and pleasant to play ( execpt for the "spread"" on the place where i always expect the "resonance" knob )
but i would shed a real tear if that model-d would ever break too. it's really two different moogs.
indeed i guess for my studio the voyager offers so much more, for just tweaking the model -d still is unsurpassed

dan thacker wrote:I wish i lived on the same planet as people who can drop four grand on a synth with no warranty.I'm from planet "making monthly payments!"

Well, some are rather living on the "look at my fancy car" planet. I rather invest in synths and use a small car. And most cars will loose its value faster then a good synth. My 1979 Minimoog I bought more then 25 years ago is still doing fine and the value went up and up.

Yeah I drive a beat up 11 year old POS. I'd much rather look like an ass driving than playing a softsynth.

Has anyone ever modified a Model D to include patch memory/recall?

willi wrote:Has anyone ever modified a Model D to include patch memory/recall?

Sort of....Sequential Circuits made a programer that could be used for your Model D back in the 70's called the Model 700. It was more of a helping hand than a complete patch storage. The Mini needed the oscillator card to have the osc CV inputs seperated to three seperate inputs. Then you would use the 700's two programable envelope generators CV to control the Mini VCF and VCA with the jacks in the back. So for each patch program you had three seperate oscillator tunings and two delay, attack, decay, sustain, release envelope generators. The envelope for VCF had a programable ammount like the contour ammount dial on the Mini. There was no way to program the mixer settings, osc waveforms, filter resonance, modulation routing and such. But it would help in a live setting. The programer on the early modulars like the one Keith Emerson had was similar in what the patch contained, oscillator tunings and envelope settings. Had 8 banks of 8 presets, and could be sequenced through any number from 1 to 8 in a bank. So you could patch it to change on every keypress or external sequencer step.
Works on one of my Model D's seen here:

And a close up of the SCI 700.

Still it did not make the Mini sound like a Voyager.

Lol. Very interesting! I guess that goes to show that the patch recall feature of the Voyager is something that involved various circuit changes to accomodate, like having a CV mixer instead of one directly under the control of a potentiometer. I wonder how involved it would be to integrate all those changes into a Model D that supplied the rest of the guts like OSC and filter. A small SoC could control the modulation routing and stuff with a few relays. Something like Vactrols or LDR's might be the simplest to integrate and affect the sound the least. It might be challenging to get the control right, trying to match various pot curves and vactrol responses, but those curves could conceivably be tuned if there is a computer controlling them. What a weird hybrid beast that would be... I'm sure purists would balk but maybe it would be an interesting project if someone is already tearing into a broken Mini. On the other hand the Voyager benefits from those design changes in other ways, such as accessing more CV points via the expansion interface connectors.

willi wrote:Has anyone ever modified a Model D to include patch memory/recall?

MC wrote:

willi wrote:Has anyone ever modified a Model D to include patch memory/recall?

LOL, the Source never sounded like a Minimoog. Nor did it had all the Minimoog features. But it had a nice S&H missed on the Minimoog.

I beg to differ. Though I've never played one, every video I have seen sounds exactly like a model D.

So the voyager sounds nothing like a model d but a source sounds just like one? This thread confuses me.