Soon-to-be Voyager owner

[Kenneth]

Congrats! You'll be in Moog heaven pretty soon.

Thanks, right now I'm in Moog Purgatory though- I sold my Little Phatty this morning, so until my Voyager arrives I remain Moogless

[thealien666]

I feel for you. I did the same thing with my Voyager Old School long (too long) before I could finally find a Minimoog D.

In the mean time, I could fall back on something not bad at all: a Korg Mono/Poly that I had bought before the OS.

Hang in there...

Oh, and don't forget to post your serial number, once it arrives, in this thread:
http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopi ... &start=180

[filtered]

What exactly does this trick do to the tone?

to my ears, it rounds it out and gives it more meat- doing it this way vs just running an out from its right channel back into the ext in, the result is much more noticable- I played a show a couple months ago and in my hurry to set up, forgot to do this, and had a harder time standing out in the mix without being too high endy- I popped it in between sets; problem solved! don't get me wrong, I think it sounds wonderful without this, but adding the oomph makes it sound closer to my old Moogs that made me fall in love with this brand-
Moogless eh? that's rough! I was there last Fall when I sold the LP and Rogue to get this- I had to play a month's worth of shows with a KorgMS2000 with 2 broken keys and a dead screen! one night during my Moog purgatory, a drunk guy came up and said my synth sounded awesome- I blurted out, "are you crazy? this sounds terrible!"

[Logodave]

Kenneth,

Excellent news for you and a great deal at the same time. Enjoy, the Old School is the best purchase I
have made in the last 10 years. When it's on and I'm tweaking I lose time. Sometimes sleep comes
second to Moog time. Congrats on your pruchase and please post seriel number when you know.

Dave

[Kenneth]

Thanks, everyone, for the warm welcome into the Voyager club. I absolutely can't wait any longer, I have never been anywhere near this excited about a purchase in my life.

I'll be sure to post the serial number as soon as it comes out of the box! Okay, maybe not right away... How does 227 hours after it comes out of the box sound? I'm going to need SOME time alone with it...

Question: How many Old Schools were made? Someone said 500 units, but then I noticed in the "post your serial number" thread that there were serial #s into the 600's. Does anyone know the answer to this? Not really important, just a bit of trivia I am interested in.

[EricK]

THey had a limited run, sent a certificate to a guy that it was the official last OS made, and a picture of the factory staff with it. Then they made another limited run lolololol.

Eric

[Logodave]

The excitement level has risen. Hope to speak to you someday. You made the awesome choice to buy the bomb. New with no issues about re-capping. I have had 3 model -d's and as nice as they are, the new boy can be processed, compressed and what else you want to do. It sounds so much better, it's dependable 24/7. This machine will outlast your lifetime. It's 2012 and this is this is the Moog Spring.!!!

I use this monster for Sonovox driver sounds and it's complete magic,

Just sold my Donimoog cuz it not have the buzz I needed. My Model D just got sick, gonna cost me a fin or two to fix. The Voyager OS is the hands down my go to synth forever.

All I need is a sequencer and it's all good.

[Kenneth]

So I'm obviously tracking my package like someone with obsessive compulsive disorder, and when I checked the status of it this morning, I learned that my Voyager had arrived in Minneapolis! That's just two hours away from where I live! I can't contain my excitement. I am off the walls at work, I don't know how I'm going to stay focused. What am I to do?

[thealien666]

Slowly inhale....then exhale.... Repeat slowly for a few minutes. Then go off the walls again !

[thealien666]

... I have had 3 model -d's and as nice as they are, the new boy (Voyager Old School) can be processed, compressed and what else you want to do. It sounds so much better, it's dependable 24/7. This machine will outlast your lifetime...

That's pretty much debatable. And I'm not at all convinced of that. Don't get me wrong, the Old School is a fantastic instrument. But as far as lasting 40+ years ? Not really sure. There are over 800 parts on the analog sound producing board alone, way more than inside a Mini D. The probability of one of them going bad is rather high, 40 years from now.

Just the fact that the internal PSU is a switching type is enough to believe it will fail way before that. I'm talking from experience in fixing electronic devices. Designing such a PSU requires high grade components, and precise tolerances. And when they do fail, they pretty much can't be fixed without spending more than their value in repair time and expense. Also, before going completely bad they can cause all sorts of problems, noise on power rails, auto-shut down and power-up cycles. And finally, they're much more "noiser" than linear PSU because they operate at very high frequencies, requiring complex and efficient filtering.

That's why I'd rather have a good old linear PSU consisting of a transformer, a rectifier bridge, some big electrolytic caps, and a regulator. Simple design, easy to fix, easy to maintain (simply replace caps every 10-15 years as preventive measure). Less noisy, but also less efficient and bulkier, I'll give you that. But much more durable.

As for Alpha potentiometers used in the Voyagers, I'm not sure they will last 40+ years as the heavy duty Allen Bradley Type J in a Mini D either. And what about those 20+ trimpots inside ?? One, or more of them will surely fail before a lifetime.

As for keyboard bushing, they will last about the same. But the electrically conductive rubberized contact will surely wear out much sooner than gold-plated coil springs and buss bars in a Mini D. Just see what happens with TV remote controls ? After a few years, you have press so hard on buttons for them to work. If you're lucky, you can open them without breaking the casing and clean the contacts with isopropyl alcohol. But each time you do, it last less and less...

In all my years at fixing synths, the only keyboard I saw that was truly designed to last a lifetime was from Ensoniq on their SQ-80 and EPS models. Where there was no mechanical contacts at all, but rather an ingenious inductive system, where a metal plate underneath each note would move closer to an inductor coil for each note (metal detector circuit) and be scanned sequentially by a microcontroller and an A/D converter. As a bonus, velocity values as well as polyphonic aftertouch could be easy to calculate. (by pressing on a note to compress a little rubber pad further and moving the metal plate even closer to the coil)

In conclusion, sure some Mini D today are in bad shape, but I'm convinced that they're still more easily fixable than the Old School (or Voyager) will ever be, 40 years from now.

Sound is a non-issue.

EDIT: I was very unlucky that in the short time I had My Old School (about a year and a half), it broke down. The random sample-and-hold circuit of the LFO failed. Had to be sent twice to authorized repair shop, because the first time it wasn't fixed completely because they attempted to replace only some parts. The second time, they had replaced the whole board, and it was fixed. As I said, I was very unlucky...or was I ?

[filtered]

you know your stuff alien, but dont let this forum get to you! quite a bit of TMI just because someone said a model D is perhaps a bit of work to maintain- we all know you chose to go that route and think that the D is the end all be all, as it IS the quentissential non-modular Moog- but don't waste music-making time on such drawn out soliloquies... because music making IS what it's all about, right? just the fact that you're scanning/posting on a Voyager-specific subforum and you don't have a Voyager says you should probably take it easy on the old posting habits- not being patronizing, but close the laptop and go make some music!

[thealien666]

You're absolutely right. I won't do it again.

[Kenneth]

just the fact that you're scanning/posting on a Voyager-specific subforum and you don't have a Voyager says you should probably take it easy on the old posting habits- not being patronizing, but close the laptop and go make some music!

Hey, are you telling Alien to stop posting here? I personally find his knowledge very helpful. Sharing knowledge is what these forums are all about. 75% of everything I know about synthesis I either learned here or learned as a consequence to something I read here. It was these forums that convinced me I needed a Moog. If every member on this forum suddenly ceased posting in threads that didn't apply directly to them, we would have a smaller community and a sadder forum experience. My thoughts.

[filtered]

Hey, are you telling Alien to stop posting here?

are you kidding? of course not!
this post was about YOUR new Voyager about to arrive, not about how a Model D will outlast it- just calling attention to that fact- alien's tops, duh!

[Kenneth]

Hey, are you telling Alien to stop posting here?

are you kidding? of course not!
this post was about YOUR new Voyager about to arrive, not about how a Model D will outlast it- just calling attention to that fact- alien's tops, duh!

Alright, you have a point. And I only have to wait one more day!