Moog Music Forum

JazzMasta wrote:My top priorities
1. There should be some way to select ’exact’ waveforms. Maybe if you hold some button while turning the shape knobs, it snaps to fixed values (triangle, saw, square, pulse).

Hi JazzMasta,

I've seen this request a few times now and I'm curious to learn the application that pushes it to #1 of your top priorities.

Can you elaborate on a hypothetical situation where your ears are not a better judge of where that knob needs to be?

{I'm not being snarky; I really want to learn more about this request.}

_DemonDan_ wrote: I've seen this request a few times now and I'm curious to learn the application that pushes it to #1 of your top priorities.
Can you elaborate on a hypothetical situation where your ears are not a better judge of where that knob needs to be?
{I'm not being snarky; I really want to learn more about this request.}

Having used other synths I guess I'm used to the sound of a 'clean' square or saw wave.
If there's a certain sound I'm after, I know what waveshape it should have but I find that it takes
too much time to gradually find it on the sub37, like tuning in a radio station.
Sometimes you just know you want a clean square wave, and I have hard time finding it on the Sub 37.
All settings sound like "almost square", "almost saw" or "mix of saw and square".
Maybe it's because I'm more used to Rolands and Korgs, or maybe I just need to get used to it more, but it seems
like a simple enough feature, if the VCO are digitally controlled, by holding down a button you could just quantize the value from the knob to a couple of fixed shapes.
I guess also I fear that it's not possible at all to get a 50% pulse or clean saw with the kind of VCOs in the Sub37, and I really like those clean wave shapes

JazzMasta wrote:

_DemonDan_ wrote: I've seen this request a few times now and I'm curious to learn the application that pushes it to #1 of your top priorities.
Can you elaborate on a hypothetical situation where your ears are not a better judge of where that knob needs to be?
{I'm not being snarky; I really want to learn more about this request.}

Having used other synths I guess I'm used to the sound of a 'clean' square or saw wave.
If there's a certain sound I'm after, I know what waveshape it should have but I find that it takes
too much time to gradually find it on the sub37, like tuning in a radio station.
Sometimes you just know you want a clean square wave, and I have hard time finding it on the Sub 37.
All settings sound like "almost square", "almost saw" or "mix of saw and square".
Maybe it's because I'm more used to Rolands and Korgs, or maybe I just need to get used to it more, but it seems
like a simple enough feature, if the VCO are digitally controlled, by holding down a button you could just quantize the value from the knob to a couple of fixed shapes.
I guess also I fear that it's not possible at all to get a 50% pulse or clean saw with the kind of VCOs in the Sub37, and I really like those clean wave shapes

May I chime in ... ?

You say it yourself - you are used to it. So do I - with other synths. For me the Moog allows me to sweep from triangle over saw to pulse and exploiting this I have found so many sweet spots, which would be impossible to get with my other synths. But as often, it's about what sound you are after

Lately, some of my favorite sounds make use of changing waveforms. I've created "filter-sweep" type changes in the overtones by altering the waveform with an EG, leaving the actual filter and res free for other effects.

This is a feature not a fail IMHO, and something that sets the Sub37 apart, even makes it greater than the Model D in many ways.

Ducking!!!!

it could be just me, but it feels like my sub37 has a little area when the wave shape knob is pointing right at the symbol where nothing happens. ie. there is a little area which is easy to hit where you are getting the pure wave. try pointing to square then wiggling the knob a tiny bit - the sound doesn't change. then put the knob in between two symbols and wiggle it the same amount - the sound does change. that makes me think there is a clean wave available as long as you are close to the right point... give it a try! si

Just seen this from Amos. Kind of backs up my guess a little...
http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.ph ... c2#p139201

Not sure if the Voyager Variable Wave Oscillator is 1:1 with the one in the Sub 37 but this is a wildly informative video on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbTjhESHVk4

I would love it if the random mode in the arpeggiator had the option to never repeat the same note twice in a row....I know that would actually make it less random, but it would sound more random (I hope that makes sense).

(I had to build a web page once where different user quotes would appear at 'random' positions on the screen every few seconds. When I first implemented it, sometimes the a quote would appear very close to where the previous one was, which detracted from the effect. By requiring that each subsequent quote appeared at least a certain distance from the previous one, the overall feel of randomness was improved.)

JonLukas wrote:I would love it if the random mode in the arpeggiator had the option to never repeat the same note twice in a row....I know that would actually make it less random, but it would sound more random.

That's kind of like a tone row in twelve-tone serialism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-tone_technique

JonLukas wrote:I would love it if the random mode in the arpeggiator had the option to never repeat the same note twice in a row.

I totally agree!! It always bugged me, and sometime it even repeat a note three time in a row (same note, same octave)... That's too much really. I never heard that in other random arpeggiators before.

bujo wrote:It always bugged me, and sometimes it even repeats a note three times in a row (same note, same octave)... That's too much really.

Truly random events are often clumpy.

In fact, it's our human tendency to avoid repeats that makes it hard for us to fake randomness.

You're right, I must admit that repeating twice a note in random is inevitable, specially if the arpeggiation is on one octave and made of few notes. But on several octaves with a lot of notes I still heard regularly the sub37 play three times in a row the same note (on random arp) and it really was the first time I noticed that on a synth. It is just an observation and I personally find it unwantable

This reminds me of the time Apple changed their shuffle feature. Instead of choosing a random song for every play they started to randomize the full list of tracks when you enable shuffle to ensure that you'd never hear the same track twice (also skipping back en forward through the shuffled list works). Yes, that actually reduced randomness, although I admit that shuffle indeed sounds more like 'put all tracks in random order and play them' than 'whenever a song ends pick a random song from the list to play next'. When I select 'random' I also expect 'random'. Subtle, but important difference.

I don't see this suggested so far - apologies if I overlooked it...

I was wondering whether it's possible via firmware to add a control to the 37's LCD backlight brighness...? That thing is retina-searing!!!

joe_moog wrote:I don't see this suggested so far - apologies if I overlooked it...

I was wondering whether it's possible via firmware to add a control to the 37's LCD backlight brighness...? That thing is retina-searing!!!

Hi Joe

Not sure if you saw this thread … but these are the steps some of us have taken


http://forum.moogmusic.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=22417


R.