Help me make a decision in buying a Moog!

[Bryan T]

But if someone is embarking on a journey to LEARN analog synthesis and is looking for YEARS of exploration and experimentation, then no question what-so-ever the OS is the way to go. Especially with all of the things MOOG makes that you can add on to it.

If a person is on that journey, then I think the full-blown Voyager is the way to go.

[Christopher J. Boylan]

Here here, I agree.

Let's make his decision even MORE difficult!

[Christopher J. Boylan]

Ok, as long as we're going that way...

Let's take the money factor out of the equation for now. Let's face it coming up with enough dough for ANY of the above is painful, it's just a matter of how long you're willing to endure that pain.

But if MONEY was out of the picture, for someone NEW to synthesizers, the choice shouldn't be between the Old School and the Little Phatty at all. It should be between a LP and a full blown Voyager.

With no presets for a reference, to a newbie, the Old School can be a real bear! Heck, the Old School is more complex than an old Model D! I promise you that I could tweek the knobs on an old Model D so that a newbie would take HOURS to find his way to a musical, playable patch. Old School has to be that much harder!

With LP, it's like orgasm after orgasm with each and every patch you go through, compared with the relative experience he must had with the OS (probably equivalent to the little puppy looking at something with his head tilted) <--- please don't take offense to that, James. Anyway, of COURSE he's going to choose the Little Phatty.

I'll bet if James sat down with the choice of a VOYAGER and a Little Phatty, and had the experience of going through the patches on the Voyager, his decision would most likely be quite different. It would have been the difference of walking into a bedroom and then walking into Madison Square Garden.

[EricK]

I promise you that I could tweek the knobs on an old Model D so that a newbie would take HOURS to find his way to a musical, playable patch. Old School has to be that much harder!

That right there probably turned thousands of players away from Moog. "I don't see what all the fuss is about, this thing doesn't make any sounds" When I tried out an LP for the first time at GC, it didn't make any sounds. I checked the power, the speakers and then it dawned on me...Its a Moog. I reached for the filter cutoff and Boom the sounds came back on lol. I chuckled to myself at all of the years my Micro remained silent for this reason lolol.

You won't find any argument from me that the LP doesn't sound good. Its probably just like a modern day Prodigy or MultiMoog, Midified and with memory.

But if you were 30 years ago and you were back in the day and had to make a choise between a Micro and a Model D, then surely the Micro would be more appealing pricewise. But for its limitations, you essentially get what you pay for. THe sounds are definately contained therein and when you get to thinking about an LP plus lots of foogers versus barely affording a Voyager, the options become clearer.

Just imagine what it must have been like in the modular days! Jeez!

But yes, its like a beginning motorcyclist starting out on a 650 when after a while of driving , begins to yearn for the 1200 beast when they realize that they can't dig in to curves like they want to.

EricK

[Bryan T]

With no presets for a reference, to a newbie, the Old School can be a real bear!

That's how I think, too. The OS is a specialized synth. It is certainly capable of a lot, but for folks who are learning or who need presets, then the LP or Voyager are the way to go. Personally, I need the presets for quick recall and I value the MIDI implementation.

One can certainly learn a lot about synthesis with the LP, but you'll eventually run into things that it can't do (though you'll also get good at finding workarounds). I love my LP and value all that it can do, especially for what it cost.

Bryan

[Voltor07]

With no presets for a reference, to a newbie, the Old School can be a real bear!

That's how I think, too. The OS is a specialized synth. It is certainly capable of a lot, but for folks who are learning or who need presets, then the LP or Voyager are the way to go. Personally, I need the presets for quick recall and I value the MIDI implementation.

One can certainly learn a lot about synthesis with the LP, but you'll eventually run into things that it can't do (though you'll also get good at finding workarounds). I love my LP and value all that it can do, especially for what it cost.

Bryan

Couldn't agree more!

[Christopher J. Boylan]

Practice and knowing your instrument...those are the keys to creating sounds.

I just sat here and thought about that for a few moments. Nice sentiment.

A Moog, especially the Minis, both Model D and Voyager, are so much more than musical instruments. You can spend endless hours... days on end turning those knobs to hear the result while exploring it's endless boundaries and NOT necessarily need to have it result in anything musical. It's probably the only instrument that has this... sort of a side trip you can take for reasons other than musical. Just for the trip itself. It's amazing, truly amazing just how special these boxes of wires and plastic are.

I know that there are many that feel that some instruments have other uses such as using a banjo to pound nails or and accordion to stoke the embers of your fire - that's not what I'm talking about. You've never heard anyone say that the difference between a trampoline and a Minimoog is that you take your shoes off to jump on a trampoline.

Sorry - my bad. Bit of a side track there.

My point is, that Moogs are truly wonderful things that exceed what they are intended to be - things that go so far beyond that of other instruments.

I think it was Charles Shultz that said, "Love is a warm puppy'. Well, it's very obvious to me that he never owned a Moog.

[Voltor07]

Chris, what you say is very true. A guitar will sound like a guitar, a spaceship will sound like a spaceship, and a harpsichord will sound like a harpsichord. But a Moog can sound like all these and more! When you buy a Moog, you change your lifestyle, not just your music. A Moog is special. It can sound like almost anything, and like nothing at all.

I could go on and on trying to describe what it means to own a Moog, but the fact is, you can't really give words to it. I don't mean to sound philosophical, but when someone asks, "What is a Moog?" I can't ever seem to find the right words for it. It's a Moog! To be a Mooger is to be able to create amazing sound waves that many times can't be reproduced by anything else in the world, maybe the universe. Just my two cents.

[jamezdd73]

Wow, so much can happen over one day! Here I was thinking that this topic was done and dusted, and on it's way to the back of the pile, but wow! I left out earlier how I've also played on a Voyager Performer Edition, so the OS wasn't my only exposure to the Voyager. Undoubtedly the Voyager sounded fantastic, however I still felt that the LP was more suited to my current style of music writing and performing. I also have had some experience with shaping and sculpting sounds, so I didn't just look at the OS like a "puppy with its head tilted on it's side" (no offence taken, btw! I laughed! ).

Anyway, I am only a young lad, still in school, so I've got many years to get a proper job and save up a decent amount of cash to invest in one of these beautiful machines. But I am still extremely pleased with my purchase of the Little Phatty (still haven't gotten it yet). If I were a paid musician, perhaps my choice would've been different, but because I won't be making money (anytime soon) out of this investment, I decided that for now the LP is a better choice.

Thank you all for the thoughts and suggestions!

[Bryan T]

If I were a paid musician, perhaps my choice would've been different, but because I won't be making money (anytime soon) out of this investment, I decided that for now the LP is a better choice.

Hey, some of us are paid musicians (not paid particularly well, but paid none the less) and we rock LP's. It is a great piece of equipment for making music. I think you made a good choice, not that you could make a bad one when choosing between Moogs!

Bryan

[jamezdd73]

If I were a paid musician, perhaps my choice would've been different, but because I won't be making money (anytime soon) out of this investment, I decided that for now the LP is a better choice.

Hey, some of us are paid musicians (not paid particularly well, but paid none the less) and we rock LP's. It is a great piece of equipment for making music. I think you made a good choice, not that you could make a bad one when choosing between Moogs!

Bryan

Well... when I say "paid musician"... what I really mean is... if I were Keith Emerson...

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put down the LP or anything, I just meant if I were some super-star synthesist I'd probably buy me a Voyager. And a LP... and probably every other Moog I could get my hands on...

I reckon I'll put the LP to more use anyway, than I would a Voyager, at least this early in the game.

[johnjay]

Hello all, I'm new to the Forum and new to the Moog world. I'm new to keyboards too, I play guitar. I seem to have been bitten by the Moog bug a few weeks ago and I'm trying to learn all I can.

It's a bit hard to get a sense of what can be done on the Voyager that can't be done on Little Phatty.

This thread helps a lot and I think I understand comments like:

But if he's going to explore and experiment at home or in the the studio, he's going to run out of territory very quickly and start saying things like, "hey... my LP doesn't do THAT.... or even THAT!" The LP has it's place as a down and dirty extra analog synth for those that NEED the sounds it produces and want the authentic MOOG sound at a cheaper price.

But if someone is embarking on a journey to LEARN analog synthesis and is looking for YEARS of exploration and experimentation, then no question what-so-ever the OS is the way to go. Especially with all of the things MOOG makes that you can add on to it.

Does anyone have examples of the types of sounds you can make on a voyager that you can't make on a Little Phatty?

[EricK]

Well the Voyager thas dualing Low pass filters that can be changed to a lowpass/highpass filter essentially creating a bandpass filter. You can also space the cutoff frequencies out to crete some true stereo effects.

Also The voyager has LOTS of CV inputs when compared to a LP and an expansion box that is essential for loads and loads of CV OUTS.

The Voyager has an Extra Osc which can double as an LFO for Freq Modulation of Osc 1, and the Voyager also has programmable destinations for such interesting VOltages that occur from turning Osc 3 into a control source.

As far as actual sounds go perhaps some others can help you, but any with 3 Oscs are going to be pretty darn intense (rather than saying fat)

Eric

[johnjay]

Thanks for the info.

I can see how the bandpass filter combination could create sounds that you couldn't get with just the low pass. I've been playing with the Alturia mini V demo software to help me understand more about Moog sounds but I don't think I can get band pass sounds with that. Maybe I could use the Alturia modular to get an idea of what bandpass brings to the table.

Of course, that brings up the whole comparison of analog vs. digital, but I won't go there.

"pretty darn intense" sounds is probably not what I'm too interested in so maybe a third osc doesn't matter to me.

The range of the oscs seem to be different on the voyager vs. phatty. Is that of parcticle importance?

And it seems that phatty doesn't have a noise generator, is that correct? I guess you can bring a noise generator in from an external source.

I haven't found any side by side comparisons of the two instruments. Does anyone know of any?

John

[jamezdd73]

The best thing to do, as I have learned myself from this thread, is to go to a shop which has both of them, play them side-by-side, and then go from there.