Hi again.
Ok, it's not my intention to troll against moogmusic or the voyager, I truly do love my voyager and think it's the ultimate solo synth.
But I've been reading about how the Voyager's filter is not tracking the portamento-effect (glide-function). I never paid much attention to it, before I compared my Voyager to the minimax (Creamware's minimoog emulation), and realized that the original minimoog could do this, and more importantly a filter-tracked portamento (esp. with a high resonance setting) sounds much better.
Does anyone know why Moog choose to do this with the Voyager? Such an expensive synth should have had this feature IMO. Can a OS-update fix this, or could a proficient hardware-tech upgrade the Voyager to make the filter respond to glide/portamento?
Sorry if this seams to be a stupid question...
thanks!
Voyager's filter not tracking the glide/portamento?
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peter ripa
- Posts: 162
- Joined: Mon Nov 03, 2003 10:23 am
- Location: sweden
- Contact:
Thanks for your replies.
Greg, could you please confirm for me, if a VX-351 would be sufficient for getting a glide-controlled filter? I really had decided against buying any of these extra devices, because my interest lays in programming standard vintage minimoog and arp patches. However, now I almost wish that I didn't discover this flaw.
That sudden jump in filter-cutoff when going from a low to high note, and the static resonance during portamento between notes sounds nowhere as musical as a glide-controlled filter. I really wonder why Bob Moog skimped on this feature. It should've been a no-brainer. Having to huy expensive addon gear isn't really an acceptable option for something that should've been there in the first place.
If I should need both the CP-251 and VX-351, than I'll just leave it for now. That's too much money and hassle for me, for now at least.
thanks!
(Please ignore my rantings, the drawback of being a synth-geek...
Greg, could you please confirm for me, if a VX-351 would be sufficient for getting a glide-controlled filter? I really had decided against buying any of these extra devices, because my interest lays in programming standard vintage minimoog and arp patches. However, now I almost wish that I didn't discover this flaw.
That sudden jump in filter-cutoff when going from a low to high note, and the static resonance during portamento between notes sounds nowhere as musical as a glide-controlled filter. I really wonder why Bob Moog skimped on this feature. It should've been a no-brainer. Having to huy expensive addon gear isn't really an acceptable option for something that should've been there in the first place. If I should need both the CP-251 and VX-351, than I'll just leave it for now. That's too much money and hassle for me, for now at least.
thanks!
(Please ignore my rantings, the drawback of being a synth-geek...
Fellow synth geek here - no apologies necessary!
I'd be happy to check it out for you - I'd like to know myself!
Interestingly, I was thinking of the additional cost of a CP-251 when Peter offered his suggestion (I do think he's right, but I'll confirm and let you know). A CP-251 ($$$) is a bit more than the cost of the VX-351 ($). As an owner of both expanders, however, I can tell you that they add significantly to the flexibility of the voyager, and I recommend both unreservedly. It's the closest thing to a real modular for the money! Should you decide to get both, spend an additional $40 and get the rack mounting bracket. Just something to keep in mind for a future purchase.
I'll get back to you on the glide thing!
gregae
I'd be happy to check it out for you - I'd like to know myself!
Interestingly, I was thinking of the additional cost of a CP-251 when Peter offered his suggestion (I do think he's right, but I'll confirm and let you know). A CP-251 ($$$) is a bit more than the cost of the VX-351 ($). As an owner of both expanders, however, I can tell you that they add significantly to the flexibility of the voyager, and I recommend both unreservedly. It's the closest thing to a real modular for the money! Should you decide to get both, spend an additional $40 and get the rack mounting bracket. Just something to keep in mind for a future purchase.
I'll get back to you on the glide thing!
gregae
That's great Greg!
The CP-251 and VX-351 seems very interesting. I'm sure you can do some great stuff with them together with the voyager. The problem is, that I'm only a student with limited cash flow, who also got his sights set on the XK-3 ..now how cool would the XK-3 and Vger be together (for a Keith Emerson wannabe anyway)?
Living in Europe, the moog-stuff costs considerably more than in USA, so this would be a rather expensive purchase for me. Here where I live, the listed price for the Voyager is about $4000 (converted to US dollars). Though I haven't regretted the purchase yet. What sound this thing can make...
Anyway, looking forward to hear about your findings on the VX/filter issue!
The CP-251 and VX-351 seems very interesting. I'm sure you can do some great stuff with them together with the voyager. The problem is, that I'm only a student with limited cash flow, who also got his sights set on the XK-3 ..now how cool would the XK-3 and Vger be together (for a Keith Emerson wannabe anyway)?
Living in Europe, the moog-stuff costs considerably more than in USA, so this would be a rather expensive purchase for me. Here where I live, the listed price for the Voyager is about $4000 (converted to US dollars). Though I haven't regretted the purchase yet. What sound this thing can make...
Anyway, looking forward to hear about your findings on the VX/filter issue!
Bad news on the filter portamento issue:
I had hoped that by just connecting the keyboard pitch CV
output from VX-351 into the filter CV input on the voyager,
that the filter would follow the glide/portamento.Sadly, it
doesn't work. The only way I found to make this work was
the method that Peter described in an earlier post - use the
Pitch voltage output form the VX-351 processed through the lag
circuit in the CP-251. I found it a a tad trickey to adjust the
lag circuit to match the pitch glide, but was able to do it.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I agree that this seems
a glaring omission and hopefully can be fixed on a future OS
update.
The XK-3 sounds like another cool piece. For organ sounds,
I use a Voce V3 (B3 rack mount) connected to a Motion
Sound R3-147 (rack mount Leslie) for my 'Keith Emerson'
moments. Using this combo, I can get Keith's sounds but
not his 'sound'. I keep trying, though! I've been a hugh fan
of ELP for many years and have everything they ever recorded.
FWIW, I remember the days of being a student and lusting after
tons of cool gear. Eventually, I graduated and started a life-
long pursuit (as a hobbiest) of electronic music. I still lust after
cool gear, but my wife keeps me grounded: "No, you CAN'T
have it all!"
If I ever figure out a better way to make the filter portamento
work I'll be sure to post it here. Other than that, we'll have to
wait for a solution from Moog.
Cheers!
gregae
I had hoped that by just connecting the keyboard pitch CV
output from VX-351 into the filter CV input on the voyager,
that the filter would follow the glide/portamento.Sadly, it
doesn't work. The only way I found to make this work was
the method that Peter described in an earlier post - use the
Pitch voltage output form the VX-351 processed through the lag
circuit in the CP-251. I found it a a tad trickey to adjust the
lag circuit to match the pitch glide, but was able to do it.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I agree that this seems
a glaring omission and hopefully can be fixed on a future OS
update.
The XK-3 sounds like another cool piece. For organ sounds,
I use a Voce V3 (B3 rack mount) connected to a Motion
Sound R3-147 (rack mount Leslie) for my 'Keith Emerson'
moments. Using this combo, I can get Keith's sounds but
not his 'sound'. I keep trying, though! I've been a hugh fan
of ELP for many years and have everything they ever recorded.
FWIW, I remember the days of being a student and lusting after
tons of cool gear. Eventually, I graduated and started a life-
long pursuit (as a hobbiest) of electronic music. I still lust after
cool gear, but my wife keeps me grounded: "No, you CAN'T
have it all!"
If I ever figure out a better way to make the filter portamento
work I'll be sure to post it here. Other than that, we'll have to
wait for a solution from Moog.
Cheers!
gregae
Thanks Greg!
..although it wasn't the answer I hoped for.
I think I'll send an email to Moogmusic, it would be interesting to hear what they have to say about it. If enough people bugged them about this, maybe they would come up with a solution. MoogMusic seems to be very responive towards their costumers, and having this kind of a shortcoming in a $3000+ monosynth quite frankly seems a bit strange.
Always nice to meet an ELP-fan! There's still a few of us left... I watched an ELP-dvd with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, from the Montreal concert in 1977 and a Brain Salad Surgery-documentary...wow... When ELP was at their peak (70-77), they were completely in a league of their own IMO. For me, Emerson is the only prog-keyboardist who truly managed to incorporate classical and jazz elements into rock music without over-simplifying the original ideas.
Regarding the XK-3, I think this one could come very close to the Emerson "sound" with the right tweaking. It's supposed to be the best clone out now. It's funny, we're having great difficulties in the year 2004 recreating a hammond sound done more than 30 years ago. All this digital recreations today isn't all good. I really believe most people have become less critical in terms of sound. I mean, listen to the hammond sound on Trilogy... Does it get any better than that..?
At any rate, it was a real bummer with the portamento thing. I read about the portamento-trick in the Voyager manual using the CP-251, but it's really not what I'm after. Having to fine-adjust both the pitch-portamento and filter-portamento is just plain nuts. Not very desireable in a live situation. OK, I'll quite complaining for now! Thanks again for your help!
..although it wasn't the answer I hoped for.
I think I'll send an email to Moogmusic, it would be interesting to hear what they have to say about it. If enough people bugged them about this, maybe they would come up with a solution. MoogMusic seems to be very responive towards their costumers, and having this kind of a shortcoming in a $3000+ monosynth quite frankly seems a bit strange.
Always nice to meet an ELP-fan! There's still a few of us left... I watched an ELP-dvd with a friend of mine a couple of weeks ago, from the Montreal concert in 1977 and a Brain Salad Surgery-documentary...wow... When ELP was at their peak (70-77), they were completely in a league of their own IMO. For me, Emerson is the only prog-keyboardist who truly managed to incorporate classical and jazz elements into rock music without over-simplifying the original ideas.
Regarding the XK-3, I think this one could come very close to the Emerson "sound" with the right tweaking. It's supposed to be the best clone out now. It's funny, we're having great difficulties in the year 2004 recreating a hammond sound done more than 30 years ago. All this digital recreations today isn't all good. I really believe most people have become less critical in terms of sound. I mean, listen to the hammond sound on Trilogy... Does it get any better than that..?
At any rate, it was a real bummer with the portamento thing. I read about the portamento-trick in the Voyager manual using the CP-251, but it's really not what I'm after. Having to fine-adjust both the pitch-portamento and filter-portamento is just plain nuts. Not very desireable in a live situation. OK, I'll quite complaining for now!
Thanks again for your help!OT: ELP
Well, I know it is a little off topic, but since you guys were talking about ELP... besides having all ELP and Keith Emrson CDs I have about 700 ELP concert recordings. If you want to see it check out my website. (www.sikattila.com under hobby). You can find tracklists etc. At some point I will make a searchable database, just need to find some time...
Of course the reason why I bought (and actually started to play piano) the Moog Voyager is to play Emerson tunes.
Of course the reason why I bought (and actually started to play piano) the Moog Voyager is to play Emerson tunes.
brain_11 -
Nice to hear from another ELP fan! Keith Emerson was the reason that a LOT of us got into keys and synths. The last time I saw Keith was in 2000 at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. At that time I met another guy who told me that Emo was his inspiration for getting into synths. Seems there's a lot of us out there. Weird that I only seem to meet (virtually) fellow keyboard heads online. If I'm out and about, and meet someone who is a musician, it's always guitar, bass or drums - almost never keys. Weird.
BTW, I also have all ELP recordings - on vinyl as well as CDs (but I'm probably dating myself here), and the four commercial DVDs available. I'll definately check out your site!
Cheers!
gregae
Nice to hear from another ELP fan! Keith Emerson was the reason that a LOT of us got into keys and synths. The last time I saw Keith was in 2000 at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. At that time I met another guy who told me that Emo was his inspiration for getting into synths. Seems there's a lot of us out there. Weird that I only seem to meet (virtually) fellow keyboard heads online. If I'm out and about, and meet someone who is a musician, it's always guitar, bass or drums - almost never keys. Weird.
BTW, I also have all ELP recordings - on vinyl as well as CDs (but I'm probably dating myself here), and the four commercial DVDs available. I'll definately check out your site!
Cheers!
gregae
700 concert recordings?! holy crap... you're a big fan, that's for sure..
On my part, I spend more time practicing ELP-music, than listening to it.
At an entrance examination earlier this year, I played Emerson's piano concerto. I'd like to think it raised some eyebrows... Emerson's scores are sure fun to play, ...and challanging..
Unfortunately I've never had the pleasure of seeing ELP or Emerson live, but from what little I've seen on dvd, they put on a good show!
On my part, I spend more time practicing ELP-music, than listening to it.
At an entrance examination earlier this year, I played Emerson's piano concerto. I'd like to think it raised some eyebrows...
Emerson's scores are sure fun to play, ...and challanging.. Unfortunately I've never had the pleasure of seeing ELP or Emerson live, but from what little I've seen on dvd, they put on a good show!
<< At an entrance examination earlier this year, I played Emerson's piano concerto. I'd like to think it raised some eyebrows... Emerson's scores are sure fun to play, ...and challanging.. >>
Really? Cool! You must be an accomplished player. Do you have any recordings of yourself? I'd really like to hear you!
Speaking of the Emo concerto, I discovered a piano concerto by Michel Camilo (no, that's not a misspelling) last year that reminds me of Emo in a big way. Check out his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra on Decca. Very 'Emersonesque", IMHO.
gregae
Really? Cool! You must be an accomplished player. Do you have any recordings of yourself? I'd really like to hear you!
Speaking of the Emo concerto, I discovered a piano concerto by Michel Camilo (no, that's not a misspelling) last year that reminds me of Emo in a big way. Check out his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra on Decca. Very 'Emersonesque", IMHO.
gregae
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Cruel Hoax
- Posts: 123
- Joined: Thu Nov 20, 2003 1:44 am
Evil!
Evil!
Please, someone tell me that there's some way to remedy this problem. It shows up on 70-80% of my patches. Resonance is just part of my style, and to have it just mis-sync'ed while sound designing is discouraging, to say the least.
I keep my SH-101 around, just because it handles portamento elegantly. And it cost me US$100!
Surely the Voyage must--- ah, I'm becoming redundant. What should be the truth ain't necessarily the truth.
Yeah, I know. Spend 300 more and adjust the lag independent of the current program and you can approximate accurate synth response, though it won't respond to your stored programs.
Unconscionable. Truly ridiculous.
I hope the good folks at Moog can fix this glaring omission, because it hinders me every day, in every musical context.
"Throw money at it to make it cumbersomely workable." Yeah. How about giving us a real solution?
-Hoax
Evil!
Please, someone tell me that there's some way to remedy this problem. It shows up on 70-80% of my patches. Resonance is just part of my style, and to have it just mis-sync'ed while sound designing is discouraging, to say the least.
I keep my SH-101 around, just because it handles portamento elegantly. And it cost me US$100!
Surely the Voyage must--- ah, I'm becoming redundant. What should be the truth ain't necessarily the truth.
Yeah, I know. Spend 300 more and adjust the lag independent of the current program and you can approximate accurate synth response, though it won't respond to your stored programs.
Unconscionable. Truly ridiculous.
I hope the good folks at Moog can fix this glaring omission, because it hinders me every day, in every musical context.
"Throw money at it to make it cumbersomely workable." Yeah. How about giving us a real solution?
-Hoax
KarnEvil formerly known as Tritonus. (lost my password etc..)
Thanks Greg for the Michel Camilo tip! I'm very much into classical music, but my collection is centered around the more wellknown piano composers like Bartok, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov etc. I do think the Emerson concerto is excellent, and have been wishing there were more concertos in the same style. I'll definately check this out!
However, have you heard about Martha Argerich? There may be more technically accomplished piano players out there, but I sure haven't heard one yet. Listening to her play Rach's third (eps. the third movement), and the Lizst B-sonata is just amazing. She plays Rach3 way, way faster and with more passion than on any other recording I've heard, and it sounds just right to me. Definately worth cheking out. Her early solo piano recordings are also very much worth having.
I don't have the option of uploading any files to an internet server, but it would be cool to record a couple of pieces like Karn Evil and the Concerto and make them available. Though I would have to this via a friend. I'll see if I'll make the effort, but no promises. I can be a bit lazy sometimes.
I've made a different arrangement to the concerto, combining the orchestra and piano scores which sounds cool I think, espescially in the third movement. We'll see..
Cruel Hoax, I do agree with you. This is a big oversight, and it does seem like they did it conciously. The CP-251 doesn't really work for what I want to do, since it only controls the filter. Having to constantly adjust the vger's pitch portamento and then the filter-speed on CP-251 is very unpractical even in a studio, and in a live environment...forget it. I wrote moogmusic about this, and was promised that they would "look into it". I don't know if one email would help though, maybe if more wrote. The key is to be polite about it.
I'm pretty sure it takes more than an OS-upgrade to fix it, but if MoogMusic fixed this in the production from now on, and also offered a "filter-upgrade" when you sent them your voyager for a tuning, that would be excellent. (They do other hardware upgrades for the earlier voyager models they receive for factory tunings.) ...maybe I'm overly optimistic here, but I don't think it's impossible...
If MoogMusic knew how many that was frustrated about this, I think it's very probable that they would react. So let them hear about it I say...
Thanks Greg for the Michel Camilo tip! I'm very much into classical music, but my collection is centered around the more wellknown piano composers like Bartok, Prokofiev, Rachmaninov etc. I do think the Emerson concerto is excellent, and have been wishing there were more concertos in the same style. I'll definately check this out!
However, have you heard about Martha Argerich? There may be more technically accomplished piano players out there, but I sure haven't heard one yet. Listening to her play Rach's third (eps. the third movement), and the Lizst B-sonata is just amazing. She plays Rach3 way, way faster and with more passion than on any other recording I've heard, and it sounds just right to me.
Definately worth cheking out. Her early solo piano recordings are also very much worth having.I don't have the option of uploading any files to an internet server, but it would be cool to record a couple of pieces like Karn Evil and the Concerto and make them available. Though I would have to this via a friend. I'll see if I'll make the effort, but no promises. I can be a bit lazy sometimes.
I've made a different arrangement to the concerto, combining the orchestra and piano scores which sounds cool I think, espescially in the third movement. We'll see..
Cruel Hoax, I do agree with you. This is a big oversight, and it does seem like they did it conciously. The CP-251 doesn't really work for what I want to do, since it only controls the filter. Having to constantly adjust the vger's pitch portamento and then the filter-speed on CP-251 is very unpractical even in a studio, and in a live environment...forget it. I wrote moogmusic about this, and was promised that they would "look into it". I don't know if one email would help though, maybe if more wrote. The key is to be polite about it.
I'm pretty sure it takes more than an OS-upgrade to fix it, but if MoogMusic fixed this in the production from now on, and also offered a "filter-upgrade" when you sent them your voyager for a tuning, that would be excellent. (They do other hardware upgrades for the earlier voyager models they receive for factory tunings.) ...maybe I'm overly optimistic here, but I don't think it's impossible...
If MoogMusic knew how many that was frustrated about this, I think it's very probable that they would react. So let them hear about it I say...