Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

Tips and techniques for Minimoog Analog Synthesizers
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stiiiiiiive
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Re: Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

Post by stiiiiiiive » Thu Jun 04, 2020 2:09 pm

It sure does :)
However, this is a send setting just for the ext input. To set the send level of the whole signal, you would ave to set the levels of each mixer channel, i.e. Osc 1-3 and Noise.

My point was that it's more convenient to have the mixer levels set up for a classic use, and then, when adding a pedal, having an input level setting on it allows to leave he Voyager mixer settings as they are.

Hope that makes sense too :)

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ummagumma
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Re: Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

Post by ummagumma » Thu Jun 04, 2020 3:40 pm

ah, that is interesting.

So if I use the mixer out into an overdrive with a Y cable, but also split that overdrive output & feed it into the Ext in, it will control it's own little feedback loop. As it sets the level in the mixer, which also is fed back into itself via Ext in

also thx for the tip on impedence matching with pedals: I hadn't thought of that, figured a volume level input would suffice

Markyboard
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Re: Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

Post by Markyboard » Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:47 am

stiiiiiiive wrote: Thu Jun 04, 2020 2:09 pm
Hope that makes sense too :)
Yup - but with semi-modular you get what you get. I kind of like the limitations that force you to think of work-arounds. And if there are none I use something else.

And yes, you can play with all kinds of feedback configurations. Just keep your monitor levels in check while experimenting.

rberg
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Re: Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

Post by rberg » Sat Feb 06, 2021 6:37 am

Hi,

as VCO signals have no dynamics I did not choose an aural enhancer that is based on multiband compression, which would on a static volume signal be nothing more than a wideband EQ. Also the highpassed distortion part of the aural enhancers didn't seem appealing to me because I prefer filter distortion of the full band signal.

However, how it sounds is more important than the theory and a boosted EQ might also drive the filter a bit - but not in its full spectrum.

So I turned to just a signal amplifier to saturate the filter a bit. Which is kind of subtle because this gem has a nice bit of headroom in the filter.

As I found no electrical specification I had to measure, and as I had no scope, I measured with a multimeter (difference see explanation below).

3 OSC out at full volume on the mixer: Multimeter shows 0.4 V ... 0.6 V

I thought the OSCs are running at 9V internally, but maybe that's wrong, or the signal is converted to pedal levels.

I attached a Minifogger Boost, put it on full volume (wo expr pedal) and then measured about 1.4 V output with a multimeter.

Result (volume compensated):
- Little bit gritty saturation
- More weight (bass, not related to the Minifogger filter as far as I can tell)

The sound improvement is huge from a sound engineering point of view. But some might call it subtle. It's more like one of this mixing magic things, and not giving full bite like driving a Minitaur for example.

So, what do we learn from the multimeter:
- The signal is instrument level, not line level, so instrument level pedals should be fine with it.
- Amplifying it by more than factor 2 did not immediately blow up my device (still struggle with which dB to use regarding U and P ...)
- Amplifying by somewhere like factor 2 might give a notable, great and subtle saturation. But I didn't doublecheck with just sending a signal through the MF Boost, maybe it's the boost and not the possibly driven filter.

Hope this measurement helps someone.

(Difference multimeter vs. oscilloscipe: A 50 Hz sine signal can be converted to peak-to-peak voltage by dividing the measured value by 1.414 (i.e. SQR(2)). A three oscillator sawtooth wave cannot be calculated backwards this way, because of frequency damping and in some circumstances phase cancellation. However, I suppose roughly we can see that it is instrument level and a bost of more than 2.)

rberg
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Re: Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

Post by rberg » Sun Feb 07, 2021 8:07 pm

I recorded it, so take a listen. It's factory presets.

a) Voyager dry
b) Voyager with MF Boost (max boost wo. expr. pedal)
c) Voyager headphone out trick

Roughly volume compensated, first time all dry. Then a second time with a bit processing (all processing the same, which is not perfect as processing would change when the sound gets heavier, anyway for comparison ...).

Here's the sound file: http://pumpingalien.com/mfboost.wav

Interpretation:
- Headphone trick gives more bite but reduces sound quality (which might be desired)
(Tried to keep the gain same, but ended up with a bit more gain, difficult to dial maybe)
- Driving wo. headphone loopback and an ext. amp (MF Boost) seems to produce cleaner results, esp. on the transients

A note to the headphone out trick:
Do not use a tr cable, do not use a trs cable, both would shorten R and L. Use a Y cable and connect trs to headphone out and one tr to ext in, isolate the other th. That's the only way that would not shorten R and L, which would lead to R and L amp drivers fight against each other.

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ummagumma
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Re: Minimoog Voyager Mixer Out/In

Post by ummagumma » Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:23 am

thx for posting this rberg!

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