Moog Music Forum

So I just got my replacement Muse, and while my hardware issues are now resolved (VCA bleed, USB midi not working, weird clicking and popping while swapping voices) the very annoying tuning issue still persists. Sometimes it will drift out of tune within minutes. Quick tune resolves the problem but if there is any kind of temperature change at all (ie, turn off the synth and turn it back on) it's out of tune again. I'm starting to think this is a software bug because it wasn't anywhere near this bad on 1.10. I updated to 1.20 and bam huge tuning problems.

Hi Moog and All, I have tuning issues. Read somewhere unconnecting everything during power on may help. It doe but only sometime. I warm up and quick tune too. Besides inconvenience sometime it simply does not work time after time. Is there a better remedy? Is this something that can be fixed at software level or I return Muse to store?

Guest wrote: Fri Nov 29, 2024 5:38 pm Hi Moog and All, I have tuning issues. Read somewhere unconnecting everything during power on may help. It doe but only sometime. I warm up and quick tune too. Besides inconvenience sometime it simply does not work time after time. Is there a better remedy? Is this something that can be fixed at software level or I return Muse to store?

Try doing a full tune from a cold start. Like leave it off overnight and then in the morning go straight to the tuning menu and do a regular tune (not quick tune)

And see if that helps. Also I've noticed the tuning gets more stable over time as the oscs break in. Maybe I'm imagining it but it seems like after some oscillator exercise it got more stable. Perhaps it needs to spend a certain amount of time at it's nominal temperature for values to stabilize on new components. Could be completely false but that's my theory.

Guest wrote: Sat Nov 30, 2024 1:23 pm Also I've noticed the tuning gets more stable over time as the oscs break in. Maybe I'm imagining it but it seems like after some oscillator exercise it got more stable. Perhaps it needs to spend a certain amount of time at it's nominal temperature for values to stabilize on new components. Could be completely false but that's my theory.

This is a guess but I believe each time you do a quick tune it saves the various offsets for whatever the current voice board temp is into a lookup table, which it then uses in real time to compensate for varying temperature. So, as you perform more quick tunes it saves more data points and so tracks better with temperature changes without user intervention.

steve_moog wrote: Sat Nov 30, 2024 9:37 pm

Guest wrote: Sat Nov 30, 2024 1:23 pm Also I've noticed the tuning gets more stable over time as the oscs break in. Maybe I'm imagining it but it seems like after some oscillator exercise it got more stable. Perhaps it needs to spend a certain amount of time at it's nominal temperature for values to stabilize on new components. Could be completely false but that's my theory.

This is a guess but I believe each time you do a quick tune it saves the various offsets for whatever the current voice board temp is into a lookup table, which it then uses in real time to compensate for varying temperature. So, as you perform more quick tunes it saves more data points and so tracks better with temperature changes without user intervention.

To clarify, what I did was run a midi file of toccata and fugue into the synth, ran it for a few hours, and this stabilized the tuning. This was after doing a full tune (not a quick tune) that morning from it being cold overnight. The reason for this was I was tweaking my patch to try and get as close to a pipe organ as possible and then record the results but what I noticed was the tuning got better over time, and it stayed better. Even after a cold start.

So my supposition is that thermal expansion occurs on the components which deviates the values, and at a certain point no more expansion occurs as the components are "broken in" and then the tuning becomes more stable. Some evidence I noticed of this was some voices that were not as accessed in the round robin when I was playing other things were wildly out of tune but the more common ones were not. This midi file worked EVERY voice so maybe this helped with stability and consistency of tuning between voices.

Or it could be as you say and the software is adapting. But being that it can't really even run the delay without glitching, and the cpu can't really handle a lot of mod destinations without crashing I doubt it.

Also I kinda thing Quick Tune is worthless because it tunes for like 30 minutes and then drifts again.

Kwamensah wrote: Sun Dec 01, 2024 10:06 pm
Also I kinda thing Quick Tune is worthless because it tunes for like 30 minutes and then drifts again.

Wait, your quick tune takes a half hour!? Either your unit is behaving strangely or mine is, I have never had a quick tune take more than a few moments. In fact I just did one, it took less than a second. How long are other people’s quick tunes taking?

steve_moog wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:14 pm

Kwamensah wrote: Sun Dec 01, 2024 10:06 pm
Also I kinda thing Quick Tune is worthless because it tunes for like 30 minutes and then drifts again.

Wait, your quick tune takes a half hour!? Either your unit is behaving strangely or mine is, I have never had a quick tune take more than a few moments. In fact I just did one, it took less than a second. How long are other people’s quick tunes taking?

No, I mean you do the quick tune and the effects of the quick tune only last 30ish minutes before it starts drifting. Only the full tuning has been useful in my experience.

Kwamensah wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:46 pm

steve_moog wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2024 5:14 pm

Kwamensah wrote: Sun Dec 01, 2024 10:06 pm
Also I kinda thing Quick Tune is worthless because it tunes for like 30 minutes and then drifts again.

Wait, your quick tune takes a half hour!? Either your unit is behaving strangely or mine is, I have never had a quick tune take more than a few moments. In fact I just did one, it took less than a second. How long are other people’s quick tunes taking?

No, I mean you do the quick tune and the effects of the quick tune only last 30ish minutes before it starts drifting. Only the full tuning has been useful in my experience.

Ah ok - that makes sense. it'll be interesting to see what you find if you end up doing the 1.1 v 1.2 tuning test.

New owner here chiming in. When I got it last week it was so badly out of tune that I was going to return and move on with a different synth in light of these concerns. I ran a full calibration and auto tune and it is night and day difference. As stable and in tune as my ObX8. I would recommend doing that ASAP. It was unusable before. Now it’s amazing. Every sound blows me away.

I am on fw 1.3, incidentally.

Zaccook81 wrote: Fri Jan 17, 2025 7:55 pm New owner here chiming in. When I got it last week it was so badly out of tune that I was going to return and move on with a different synth in light of these concerns. I ran a full calibration and auto tune and it is night and day difference. As stable and in tune as my ObX8. I would recommend doing that ASAP. It was unusable before. Now it’s amazing. Every sound blows me away.

I am on fw 1.3, incidentally.

1.2 firmware running those didn't necessarily fix the tuning issues. 1.3 is a lot better for tuning stability, though I just had to run them again recently (last time was when 1.3 first came out) as i was starting to get tuning drift when at temperature. Not all that surprising though as I live in the coldest major city in Canada and it's winter. After that tuning was perfect.

I just received my Muse... My first keyboard was a Moog, way back when... I am soo excited.. after investigating that supposedly all the issues have been resolved, especially the tuning issues with v1.3... Unfortunately, I am having tuning issues with mine... I do not know if my muse is an older Muse.. if that matters from a hardware perspective... i opened a ticket with moog.. let's see what happens....

but after spending so much money and getting it not working, is a big disappointment.. btw, the out of tune sounds I notice are on the first three banks 1-3.. I did not notice them out of the tune n the others... maybe are not as analog.. still need to investigate...

btw.. the quick tuning does not work for the sounds out of tune...

Is there any advice anyone can give me while I wait for tech support?

Thanks

Tech support still has not gotten back to me.. This is really bad that it has been ~3 business days since I contacted them with a keyboard being brand new... at least to me... I hope this is not a business practice where they refuse to have you return your high priced product. My second created ticket number is 578424 if someone from Moog reads this blog and cares about its customers.

takis wrote: Thu Feb 20, 2025 1:05 pm Tech support still has not gotten back to me.. This is really bad that it has been ~3 business days since I contacted them with a keyboard being brand new... at least to me... I hope this is not a business practice where they refuse to have you return your high priced product. My second created ticket number is 578424 if someone from Moog reads this blog and cares about its customers.

My ticket with Moog is 4 months long. I never got an actual human reply from Moog, only InMusic customer service...a month into my ticket. If reasonable timelines for customer service is your expectation, I recommend returning it and buying Sequential, Oberheim, Arturia or even Behringer instead. When i had an issue with my Deep Mind i had when they came out they replied within a day.

takis wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2025 4:18 pm I just received my Muse... My first keyboard was a Moog, way back when... I am soo excited.. after investigating that supposedly all the issues have been resolved, especially the tuning issues with v1.3... Unfortunately, I am having tuning issues with mine... I do not know if my muse is an older Muse.. if that matters from a hardware perspective... i opened a ticket with moog.. let's see what happens....

but after spending so much money and getting it not working, is a big disappointment.. btw, the out of tune sounds I notice are on the first three banks 1-3.. I did not notice them out of the tune n the others... maybe are not as analog.. still need to investigate...

btw.. the quick tuning does not work for the sounds out of tune...

Is there any advice anyone can give me while I wait for tech support?

Thanks

Do a full tune from cold. I recommend letting it cool overnight, then tuning and tune (not quick tune), then once that's done. Let it cool overnight and then run autocal from cold. At that point it should be in tune. Also my synth did have a break in period where the synth was out of tune for about 2 weeks of constant playing before it started to stabilize. Honestly they should be doing that in QA instead of putting it on the customer

Hi. I use the Muse in a live setup, and have this tuning issue at nearly every gig. we have just finished playing Arenas in the USA and they can be quite variable in temperature and we dont always have hours to let the Muse warm up. we have tried quick tunes just before show time and during the show and have performed a full Tune and Cal. both of which fixed the tuning issue for a while but it soon drifted out. the only way we found around it for live is to manually tune Ocsis 2 (as thats the one with the issue) just before we use it on each pre set . Some presets are better than others.but this is an issue that needs resolving. we switched to the Muse as we were using a Model D and didnt want the hit n miss of manually setting it during a show. ive logged a ticket with Moog but had no reply as yet.