Moog's Next Polysynth?

[thealien666]

...At the end of the day, we're simply talking about being able to play chords on a synth, which 3-4 SP's will allow you to do, as well as functioning as individual monosynths when they're not in poly mode. A four voice all analog Poly-Moog for around $2400 aint bad, imo.......

Only $2400 ? Are you sure about that ? Isn't it rather $4000 ? (1 LP + 3 SP)

MSRP price of Little Phatty $1395 (can be found in stores for about $1300)
MSRP price of Slim Phatty $849 (can be found in stores for around $795) (3X = $2385)
Total MSRP price: $3942 (excluding sales tax)
Total lowest price found online: $3685 (excluding sales tax).
Both far from $2400.

Not only that, but we all know a Little Phatty and five Slim Phattys don't exactly sound like a Memorymoog either.

[unfiltered37]

Yeah, but do you think a new Moog poly would sound like a memorymoog? Fat chance. Most likely it would sound like a phatty poly, except way less flexible. I can't believe people are still holding out hope for a moog poly, not going to happen, unless you want to bankrupt them.

[Christopher Winkels]

...At the end of the day, we're simply talking about being able to play chords on a synth, which 3-4 SP's will allow you to do, as well as functioning as individual monosynths when they're not in poly mode. A four voice all analog Poly-Moog for around $2400 aint bad, imo.......

Only $2400 ? Are you sure about that ? Isn't it rather $4000 ? (1 LP + 3 SP)

MSRP price of Little Phatty $1395 (can be found in stores for about $1300)
MSRP price of Slim Phatty $849 (can be found in stores for around $795) (3X = $2385)
Total MSRP price: $3942 (excluding sales tax)
Total lowest price found online: $3685 (excluding sales tax).
Both far from $2400.

Much of the cost of the four voice you describe is from having four individual instruments chained together. That means four banks of knobs and switches, four chassis, four power supplies, four display screens, four MIDI interfaces, etc. Housing everything in one chassis, with one power supply, one set of MIDI ports, one bank of knobs with one box to ship it in brings that cost down substantially (plus allowing some leveraging of the economies of scale).

I don't think it could get down to the theoretical price point of $2,400, but it wouldn't be $3,600 either.

[LaxSlash1993]

...At the end of the day, we're simply talking about being able to play chords on a synth, which 3-4 SP's will allow you to do, as well as functioning as individual monosynths when they're not in poly mode. A four voice all analog Poly-Moog for around $2400 aint bad, imo.......

Only $2400 ? Are you sure about that ? Isn't it rather $4000 ? (1 LP + 3 SP)

MSRP price of Little Phatty $1395 (can be found in stores for about $1300)
MSRP price of Slim Phatty $849 (can be found in stores for around $795) (3X = $2385)
Total MSRP price: $3942 (excluding sales tax)
Total lowest price found online: $3685 (excluding sales tax).
Both far from $2400.

Much of the cost of the four voice you describe is from having four individual instruments chained together. That means four banks of knobs and switches, four chassis, four power supplies, four display screens, four MIDI interfaces, etc. Housing everything in one chassis, with one power supply, one set of MIDI ports, one bank of knobs with one box to ship it in brings that cost down substantially (plus allowing some leveraging of the economies of scale).

I don't think it could get down to the theoretical price point of $2,400, but it wouldn't be $3,600 either.

You stole the point I was going to make!

There's no way it would be cheaper than $3000, IMO. It would become too much of a competitior for their monophonic synths if Moog did that.

[Christopher Winkels]

Regarding the competition for monophonic synths: yes and no.

Yes in the sense that a $3,000 PolyPhatty (please, Moog, do not use that name) would undercut a $3,300 Voyager Performer in terms of price. But price isn't the sole consideration. If it were, people could just buy an LP and a pair of SPs and get twice the number of oscillators with up to three voices of polyphony, while still saving a couple of hundred dollars.

The VP has a lot of features not found on any of the Phatty models: the snazzy wood case, the third oscillator, highpass filtering, three dozen or so knobs on the front panel, larger display, better modulation options, the control pad, an output expander option, etc. When you buy a Voyager you're paying for the tremendously high feature count and deep front panel controls on a monophonic instrument. There's also ample scope for customization with different backlighting and wood options, or the XL panel option. A polyphonic Phatty would be - on a per-voice basis at least - a much simpler instrument with fewer control aspects. As it should be: not everyone needs a Matrix-12 level of sophistication in a polyphonic synth.

Or to look at it another way, the presence in the Ibanez catalogue of several seven- and eight-string guitar models doesn't preclude them from shifting lots of six string units, even if some of those six-strings might have a higher price due to exotic finishes and other options.

[dan thacker]

You can be as indignant as you want ,alien 666.I'll bet you anything Moog will not be making a poly for at least the next decade.Your "economy" theory is weak at best, [$5000.00 for the xl ],that does't seem like Moog is too concerned about the economy.

[dan thacker]

don't get me wrong,I love "vox humana"[hope that's correct!] poly moog has some fantastic sounds.I just think it's a little too potentially problematic.I don't want to fight,I just enjoy a debate.

[MoogMusicFan81]

don't get me wrong,I love "vox humana"[hope that's correct!] poly moog has some fantastic sounds.I just think it's a little too potentially problematic.I don't want to fight,I just enjoy a debate.

Don't get me wrong, but is it true that Kenny Loggins named his 5th solo album after this synth sound? Of course, the actual meaning of "vox humana" is Latin for "human voice."

~Ben

[EricK]

If they are going to make a polysynth, it doesn't need to be solely based on expansion modules. They need to make one contained within itself, with it's own architecture and a keyboard. Something that makes it different from what they are currently doing rather than continually releasing the same products over and over.

They would be doing great if they just made their current instruments better able to work together. They could have an interesting polyphonic synth if the Voyager Phatty and Taurus would cooperate like they should.

I for one don't think they should limit their polyphonic capability to how many units you can string together and how big your personal keyboard controller is. Put it all in the same package with a nice keyboard and innovate again.



A modular dotcom would still be cheaper.

[MoogMusicFan81]

If they are going to make a polysynth, it doesn't need to be solely based on expansion modules. They need to make one contained within itself, with it's own architecture and a keyboard. Something that makes it different from what they are currently doing rather than continually releasing the same products over and over.

They would be doing great if they just made their current instruments better able to work together. They could have an interesting polyphonic synth if the Voyager Phatty and Taurus would cooperate like they should.

I for one don't think they should limit their polyphonic capability to how many units you can string together and how big your personal keyboard controller is. Put it all in the same package with a nice keyboard and innovate again.



A modular dotcom would still be cheaper.

But I believe they should stay away from the Apollo that they planned to release as part of the Constellation ensemble back in 1974, correct?

~Ben

[EricK]

I believe that MC posted about the Apollo before...I don't remember if he said that would be a viable synth or not, I believe it was a polymoog prototype. Definately something similar to the Apollo would be nice, with a nice interface would be great, as far as I'm concerned.

But as far as connectivity, I'm referring to the fact that you can't just connect the Voyager to the Taurus easily and get it to track properly from the keyboard because you have to detune the Voyager's keyboard in order to make it useful, which renders the Voyager's oscs useless from the keyboard. You can't control the Taurus directly via CV either because the Taurus will get detuned by a particular interval but will track well after that. You can't exactly connect 15 RME's to the Voyager and have it plug-and-play-nicely and that's too heavy on the wallet also.


I don't want to hijack this thread talking about this though, but this is my main complaint about the voice expansion module method. It seems like when you start polychaining things with Midi, the potential for errors increases, especially when you are like me and haven't spent a lot of time messing with more complicated methods of Midi control.

E

[Pastoral]

Guys, was simply saying that four Slims at $600 each (street price typically) could buy you four analog voices.

[thealien666]

Guys, was simply saying that four Slims at $600 each (street price typically) could buy you four analog voices.

Still, who has 4 Slims to sell used for only $600 each? The lowest price on these online is about $750 (+tax). That's $3000+ right there. Rather expensive for a 4 voices analog synth, wouldn't you say? You can get a 16 voices Alesis Andromeda for around that amount...if you can find one.

[EricK]

Id say that is rather cheap.

[thealien666]

Id say that is rather cheap.

Maybe. But you can get a four voices analog Tetra from Dave Smith Instruments for around $800.
Of course, it doesn't have four genuine Moog ladder filters, I'll grant you that.

But at least it's not full of software bugs like the SP, from what I've heard...