Moog Music Forum

MBlom wrote:I would have hated having to turn all knobs just to know what value it really is set on.

It's actually not that bad.

MBlom wrote:...The extra money that will generate each month will go straight into my Voyager savings account, which means I could have the money for a used one in spring or a new one after the summer. Is there a fast forward button in life?

Yeah. It's called credit.

BTW, congrats on your promotion ! And if you'd rather wait until you have all the funds, I'm 100% sure it will have been well worth the wait !

Trying to avoid buying another instrument on credit. It has been ten years since I bought an instrument I had money saved for, and I really want to break the habit of using credit. And what could be more satisfying than purchasing a Moog Voyager with money you actually have?

thealien666 wrote: BTW, congrats on your promotion ! And if you'd rather wait until you have all the funds, I'm 100% sure it will have been well worth the wait !

Thanks!

MBlom wrote:I've started saving for what I hope to be a Voyager. And to keep me motivated and skip this and that and instead putting an extra coin or bill in the bottle, I would love to hear what you enjoy about your Voyagers and why I should get one instead of all those other analog monosynths that keep popping up.

Guess I'm a little late to the party here...

Well, for starters there's the excellent Voyager User Manual...

and also a wealth of tips, tricks, ideas & Voyager patches on KnobTweak... (shameless plug for KT)

plus all of the things you can do by expanding the Voyager with Moogerfoogers and other CV gear...

What more could you want?

Funny this thread's here because I've just decided to do the same thing... save up for a Voyager.

Gonna probably take me about a year, so plenty of time to wonder if it's exactly the right thing for me between now and then, but hey...

So I thought I'd thread-jack and pick some brains on whether I'm barking up the right tree.

I am not, primarily, a keyboard, player - I'm okay for what I want to do, but I'm reliant on editing after the fact to get my performances perfect. I see myself using a DAW to send midi to the Voyager and then recording final outputs with my hands flying from knob to knob. Knobs are very important to me after years of software synthesis. (fwiw - please don't recommend I consider the RME, for various reasons I've already decided against that)

So basically I'm more of a 'sound designer'. I'm interested in creating quite rhythmic, modulated, evolving sounds. The 'classic moog'/phat bass etc. isn't really a concern for me. I'm more interested in a range of sounds, harsh metallic noise, soft siney type eerie sounds, bell-like sounds, Radiophonic Workshop style bloops and bleeps. Basically I want versatility, and the chance to just muck about and be pleasantly surprised.

To get this I figure the expansion box is going to be a no-brainer, and there'll be plenty of scope to shell out on moogerfoogers and more over the years. So...

What I'm wondering is whether I might be better going for a pure modular system? Mix and match modules more? Is the Voyager too wedded to classic 'moogy' sounds? Or could you get sounds from it which don't have an obvious origin?

The sound samples I've heard hint at this - and the sounds in themselves are great. But the only truly convincing example of what exactly I'd be going for comes from the very short official moog video of someone testing out the Voyager XL patching.

Interested in any thoughts/ examples of people using Voyagers to do the sort of thing I'm after. Also any thoughts on how easy it would be to, for example, patch in a eurorack module to work with the Voyager?

Thanks!

Hello and welcome restlessboy !

From what wou've described, I would suggest saving for a modular system instead of a Voyager. For about the same price (including a separate MIDI keyboard controller), you can get a "starter kit" (à la Synthesizer.com's System 22). Or even start right away, building your modular system, one module at a time (my best friend is doing exactly that, he has so far bought a PSU unit and 2 MOTM Ultra VCO and built his own wood casing).

After that, you can add modules on a regular basis, like sequencers and such, to further explore sonic, cyclic timbres. The only drawbacks to modular systems is their size (unless you go the Eurorack way), overall price (you can NEVER get enough modules once you start... ), and no patch memory recall. But the immense, if not infinite, possibilities more than make up for those...

Of course you're free to do what you want, and you would not be disappointed with a Voyager at first (the XL has even more patching possibilities at an expense), but with it you will eventually reach its limits, however high they are. With a modular, when such limits are near you just add another module and raise the bar even higher.

I have a relatively small table-top modular (MFB Kraftzwerg), and it has all the basic modules (3 VCOs, 2 LFOs, a 24 dB/Oct lowpass filter, a white noise generator, a VCA, and 2 Envelopes). And already with just that "basic" modular, I can produce sounds unheard of on a Voyager. Especially when I connect the two LFOs to a destination, and have one influence the speed of the second. Hours of sonic exploration fun guaranteed.

TIFWIW.

P.S. There is nothing preventing you from getting a Voyager AND a modular, except the astronomical costs involved !

I've always been tempted to start building a .com modular. Having that mad scientist wall of modules would be quite something. But I need to pay almost as much as a Voyager just to get a three oscillator synth, although it'll have plenty of modulating capabilities. But since I already have four foogers it would just be too wonderful hooking those up with the Voyager not to go that way.

Fantastic machine. No problems. Moogerfoogers also fun. I've recently begin to build a modular eurorack, and hoping to complement each other.

MBlom wrote:And what could be more satisfying than purchasing a Moog Voyager with money you actually have?

Saving here as well and I absolutely agree!

thealien666 wrote:In reading my signature, you'll have no doubt noticed that I don't have a Voyager. I had an Old School at one point. But had to sell it in order to get my hands on a Mini D that was in need of some serious TLC (the expensive kind).(

You should add an alesis andromeda to that sig, that's my fav synth.

You'll love the voyager MBlom, what other synths do you have, Im trying to visualize your palette?

n2design wrote:...You should add an alesis andromeda to that sig, that's my fav synth.

I wish I could, but I've got the next best thing: its little cousin the Ion.

You are always going to be tempted to go modular if you are even considering that route. A Voyager won't satisfy this, but it is a step just below it due to the interface. It's halfway there.

For 1800 bucks you can get a 2 osc synth by purchasing the Mos-Lab rack 8 system.