X Y controller...

[MBlom]

Hadn't seen this until now. AWESOME!!! And soooo inspiring!!

[rarecomponent]

Great vid CZ...sounds as good as it looks.
The possibilities of this XY seem a great many.
I particularly like the possibilities of vocal tones...
this will made to measure .
It looks as though the actual physical controlling looks a delight
...another Moog triumph ...how come we hardly see these?

[Vsyevolod]

It seems like not having a 'return to center' for the X axis is a missing feature. At least if you're using it for pitch control.

Stephen




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[CZ Rider]

Yeah, no return to center makes the 959 a bit tough for pitchbending. Have to really use your ears to get back in tune and some live playing situations could be difficult. But I would imagine the 10% setting was intended for that use on the Minimoog/Modular. The range is exactly two semitones up or down and has a very fluid response. The 959 on the Minimoog is a bit limited by the inputs on the Mini. Only have the options of VCO,VCF,VCA.

The 959 is quite versatile in a modular environment though. It simply is two pots being adjusted from one control stick. If you like turning knobs on a modular, turning two with one control is much more interesting. While everything on a modular is not voltage controlled, using a VCA helps here. Just had a patch where the up/down movement was patched into a high pass/low pass filter combo. Where the bottom yeilded typical Moog type low pass filter contour. As the stick is moved up the bottom end went away and more of a high pass type contoured tone. To compensate for the bass loss, I patched the CP3 mixer out through a fixed filter bank and patched that through a second VCA then back into the final contoured VCA. Patched the right/left movement to the VCA CV input so the left had no output and right had full output. With this patch many tonal varitions are now possible and the 959 will stay at the setting if you want. While you could adjust two different knob settings, adjusting the one is great way to do it and find all kinds of "sweet spots" with those variations.

Still have not been able to date the first 959's? I know they were built in 1970 up to 1973. But can not find any mention or photos from the late 60's. Those wedge ones built for the CEMS were done in November 1970. The catalog for all system I,II,III and model 10 list the 959 as an option, but not certain when these brochures were printed. Seems like a rare controller and possibly only made on order. The 959 is quickly becoming my favorite of all the Moog accessories!