A new possible 8 voice Moog in the works?

[HookedOnSonics]

I saw a You Tube clip today from a Synth enthusiasts today talking about a new possible 8 voice Moog One / Memory Moog combination without effects that might be in development. No pun intended, but that SOUNDS interesting.

[rtcstudio]

Link?

[HookedOnSonics]

https://youtu.be/dfiuwkiEMtM?si=7w9kZjt1LML40CbX

[MaxFerency]

That guy is interesting... especially his tangent on food he likes...

[Jaycee_NL]

That video is not online anymore. But regarding this topic: only few people will need 8 voices.

I still think a 3 voice polyphonic Moog synth will make a lot of people happy. It can be a desktop model, like a big Minitaur. Why 3 voices? You need that for basic chords. See also: viewtopic.php?t=35726

[VCO]

If you don’t mind it being paraphonic instead of polyphonic the Sequential PRO3 might work. It’s three voice paraphonic / monophonic.Three oscillators 2 VCOs and 1 wavetable oscillator. In addition has an advanced sequencer and Arp , stereo effects and stereo outs, three different filters plus and a sophisticated modulation matrix.

[VCO]

Just read the link. I guess you’re not interested in paraphony.

[Jaycee_NL]

Thnx, indeed I am really looking for “true” 3 voice polyphony. I have a Subsequent 25 that has 2 voice paraphony. I think it is nice and use it sometimes but it has its limitations.

Also from the business/financial perspective I think it would be good for Moog to develop a desktop 3 voice polyphonic synth: good soft synths come for free in daws. A 8 voice polyphonic Moog one is way above budget for most people, including me. So if you want to have the great Moog sound for basic chords, there is nothing in between. At least not from Moog.


(I also have a polyphonic Sequential Prophet rev 2, but I don’t really like it).

And I wonder how many people would really need 8 voices today: I think the vast majority of users really don’t need that.

[analogmonster]

The most sound influencing hardware of Moog is the 24db ladder filter (rather hard to believe that the final filter sound was basically a computation error). The filter architecture is determining the sound, like the SEM filter topology of Oberheim, Prophet etc. It is always the filter, like the butler in crime stories. Of course there are more sound influencing components, but their impact on the sound is not that much like the filter has.
Another cool idea of Moog was the Moog Saw of the Mini. The Mini sounds gorgeous because it contains the ladder filter *AND* the Moog Saw.
Even the Memorymoog knew whats good for it and kept the ladder filter for its voice cards, although the main architecture is based on SEM ICs like a lot of other synths of that time. So the Memorymoog just sounds better.

The Moog Saw as one sound determining component can be obtained by mixing a saw and a triangle. And an instrument which contains the Moog ladder or a cloned Moog ladder module could be the poor man's solution for obtaining Moog sound. There are several clones on the market which use the same components like the original, including my own ladder filter clone (904A).

I don't believe that the new Moog owners continue building expensive hardware filters in form of real transistor ladders. That would be cool of course, but I don't think so.
So my solution would be to take a standard full polyphonic synth, mix a Moog Saw and process it with a Moog ladder (clone).

[Jaycee_NL]

Indeed there are ways to get similar sounds. However (and I did not mention it in my previous post): I like to turn the knobs of an analog Moog synth too. And if that (3 voice polyphonic) Moog synth simply does not exist, it is a bit frustrating.

When Moog released the Minimoog Model D, I was like "WTF Moog?!". Yet another monophonic while I and others are screaming for a bit more polyphony. I wonder if Moog ever does market research, or that Moog does just does what they like themselves...

[analogmonster]

I wonder if Moog ever does market research, or that Moog does just does what they like themselves...

They never did in the past, and they won't do in the future. There was / is definitely a market for small or medium analogue synths, and 3 voice polyphony is really easy to obtain.

The same with modulars. So many peaple would like to buy seriously priced Moog modulars in different sizes or enlarge / enhance their Moog modular with add on cabinets and additional modules. Nothing. No chance.

So there is a market for Moog, and they throw it away.

[Jaycee_NL]

There was / is definitely a market for small or medium analogue synths, and 3 voice polyphony is really easy to obtain.

I have no clue how difficult it is to make a 3 voice synth. But if it is easy, my advice is to make a 3 voice Subsequent 25. The keyboard isn't even needed.

Does anyone know what makes a synth polyphonic? My first guess would be more oscillators, each for one voice. But that seems not to be the case: I have synths with 16 voices and just 3 oscillators, Can one oscillators make more voices at the same moment?

Or does it just make one voice that is split and pitch-shifted or so?

[analogmonster]

Does anyone know what makes a synth polyphonic? My first guess would be more oscillators, each for one voice. But that seems not to be the case: I have synths with 16 voices and just 3 oscillators, Can one oscillators make more voices at the same moment?

Or does it just make one voice that is split and pitch-shifted or so?

No, polyphonic on a synthesizer just means that you can play a chord and oscillators are dynamically assigned to the keys you play. There are a lot of solutions for that. Some people differ between duophonic and polyphonic. Duophonic just means that you can play 2 note "chords". Moog offered a duophonic keyboard for modulars with a weird circuitry. Full polyphonic means that each key has one or more oscillators assigned. A piano is full polyphonic obviously. An organ as well. For synthesizers this is a very expensive way. The Korg 3100 had one oscillator per key, afaik, the 3200 two oscillators and the 3300 three of them. But most synthesizers do a dynamic oscillator assignment to keys being pressed. A three voice synth needs three oscillators minimum, as they have to produce key dependent frequencies each dynamically. More oscillators per voice are possible (Memorymoog has 6 voices with 3 oscillators each, afaik), but this does not increase the number of voices.
A synthesizer needs a key assignment logic (like the Oberheim 8-voice) or a polyphonic MIDI_CV_GATE interface, what is the same at the end. The point is, that you need one CV and one GATE per voice to launch monophonic synth voices per key ==> n x monophonic = polyphony.

I implemented 8-voice polyphony for my Formant Modular, which is basically a monophonic concept like the Moog System 55, but I can play my Formant Modular and my Moog System 55 polyphonically that way. The magic is done by my 8-voice UCVM module I developed for that purpose. It understands chords of 8 notes being played on a keyboard simultanously and creates 8 control voltages and 8 gates for 8 monophonic synthesizer stages. The notes are assigned dynamically for each chord being played on the keyboard.

See here: UCVM details

So what I did can be done from Moog as well in my opinion. Why they don't do it, I don't know. With a simple microcontroller based key scan and assignment circuitry a polyphonic Mini for instance would be easily possible.