The Manfred Mann Minimoog/Oberheim SEM combo

[Palle]

Hi!
I just wonder if someone has info. on how Manfred Mann used the Oberheim SEM with his Minimoog. Two extra oscillators for fatter sound, or did he alternate between the two sound generators? I´ve never heard/red much about it.
I´m also a bit curious about how they were patched together, especially to the Minimoog. I´ve got a model D myself, and got interrested as Oberheim got their new SEMs out.

[Revtor]

Musically, I have no idea although Id love to find some of those tunes.. Technically though, well there was a thread on the same thing recently at Muff's..

https://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewt ... highlight=


This is from an original SEM manual apparently..

Oberheim / Moog

~Steve

[thealien666]

The 3 oscillators of your Minimoog together isn't fat enough for you ?
You need better headphones, or better monitors...
Either that, or your Mini may be sick ?

Even the 4 oscillators of my Korg MP4 can't quite reach the level of "fatness" of my Mini !

[Palle]

My Minimoog is absolutely fat enough, but since Mr Mann did it...
Anyway, thanks for the information. My line is drawn at drilling holes in vintage stuff, so this won´t happen. Me and my quite-fat-enough Mini will satisfy ourselves when springs are installed for the pitch bend. After that, there´ll be no more surgery.

[Revtor]

Being able to control a SEM or two from the Mini's keyboard, having a little outboard Mixer to blend them, or running it into the ex. input would no doubt open the sonic landscape. I don't want to drill holes either so if I was going to mod mine I'd run any jacks/switches etc. out from the left hand controller inside the case, like how KL designed OptoKey's MIDI jacks.. A couple of solder points on a pcb here and there if done correctly aren't going to hurt anything. Added functionality is always nice to have for when you want it!

Gives you an excuse to open it up and clean out the boards, tune things etc etc.
~Steve

[Sweep]

Although I can't help with the main topic here, I can add a small snippet to the question of three oscillators possibly not being enough:

Manfred Mann had a modified MiniMoog with four oscillators at one point. It also had a small ribbon controller instead of either the pitchbend or the modwheel (I've seen a photo, but can't remember accurately).

This would, I think, be the third of the four Minis he owned, if my information is accurate. (I'm not a massive Manfred Mann expert, but I've discussed his Minis with the owner of the fourth one and the former - after Mann - and current owner of, I think, the second one, and someone I know has played the four oscillator one when it was in the workshop a few years ago.)

[Palle]

Well, you get the fat, but also the LFO modulation. That would be my reason, if I somehow could install a fourth oscillator.

[EMwhite]

... also, the pair of envelope generators and obviously, the multimode filter.

Fascinating that Oberheim used to produce the instructions to hack up your Minimoog and it's also very interesting that you use the same trigger input as an output along with the 'special' cable that came with the original SEM. CZ Rider writes about this in the link to muffs that is posted above.

Here's the full manual: https://archive.org/stream/synthmanual- ... 0/mode/2up

[Piktor]

I don't know if this fully answers the OP's question, but I recall some information from interviews in Keyboard Magazine that I read long ago.

1. Mann did not use the Minimoog exclusively. He also used the Electrocomp 101. http://www.platform-end.co.uk/html/moogs.html

2. I wasn't aware that Mann had used a Minimoog-SEM combo, but I do know that Jan Hammer did. He made extensive use of the Oberheim's sync function by sweeping the synced oscillator with a pedal. As the Minimoog does not have this capability, it seems that this might be justification for combining a SEM with a Minimoog. The album's referenced below should give you a good idea of what JH was doing with this combo.

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthread ... lead_sound

"... combo between his MiniMoog and an Oberheim SEM. The SEM was used to provide the osc sync sound.

This combo was used on "The First Seven Days" & "Oh Yeah" and Jeff Beck's "Wired" & "There and Back"."

[Rob Smith]

Tommy Mars of Zappa's band loved the Electro Comp 101 ..... Great horn sounds....https://youtu.be/tYEHn39EQEs Electro Comp 101 is to the right of the Mini.

[CZ Rider]

The CV out was not a hack to the Minimoog, but was a last revision factory improvement. The last Minimoogs had the CV out and had the S-trigger socket properly labled as "S-trig in/out".
Photo of the rear of the last revision Minimoog.


That stock revision looks interesting because there is a scale pot indicating there is a special circuit and not just the simple Oberheim mod with only the keyboard CV out. Perhaps it includes the pitch bend and possibly the osc. modulation?
That is how I would do that mod, with a summing amp adding in the keyboard CV, pitch wheel and osc. modulation. Jan Hammer must have had a similar mod to his Mini to control his Mini/SEM combo as pitch bend was such a large part of his playing style.
Naturally this all happened before MIDI. Today it would be so much simpler to use a MIDI keyboard controller to link both an SEM and Minimoog via a proper MIDI to CV converter. If I absolutely had to use the Minimoog as the controller, I would go with the digital scanned Opto-Key mod without the MIDI. And sum the very stable CV out from the Opto-key with the pitch bend and mod ammount. Simple mod really, with a small circuit to add those voltages, the Opto-Key a little more challenging though.
Would be interested to hear more about those early Mini/SEM combos and how they were implemented. Guessing Mini output into the SEM external audio input would be a great place to start. Five oscilators with the ARP like SEM variable state filter. Might have to give that combo a try.