Moog Music Forum

I agree fully with museslave Re: Source. Moog is all about analog, and lots of knobs... I mean, Moog's created a MSRP thousand-dollar analog delay pedal in this age of cheap DSP which can offer near-infinite delaytimes!

The Souce was an attempt to offer some Moog sound in the age of ugly "Alpha Juno" type synths. The Source is kind of cool, but remains an odd attempt to put an 80s shine on 1970s technology, and removing most of the fun of the thing - knobs.

Though I think it will bee closer to the Prodigy... stripped down, post-Bob synth for those that don't have 3 thousand dollars for a single "really high quality note."

As for Virtual Analog, there are plenty of synths that have crossed that Analog uncanny valley, like the Alesis Ion - which bosts the best Moog filter ever conjured from digits. Does the Moog team really need to compete for the Fake Analog prize when it already makes the best analog circuits in the world?

I really hope this thing will be a Prodigy style synth, in that it will be a less feature-laden version of the Minimoog Voyager. It might even be 3-osc - I'm sure 1 less oscillator is not the cost-issue, it's the hand-construction, the complex guts, and the market-driven price markup for that Moog pedigree.

I would really love a nice, wooden, all-analog, knobby Moog monosynth without any touch-screen or LCD - basically a sub-$999 mini-minimoog with a fixed-tilt panel, all the usual LFOs, hard sync, ring mod, et cetera, the famous 24db filter, etc. Does not need a million modular patchpoints or a ribbon controller or anything...

The sources lack of one dial per function never bothered me. In fact i preferred it. You can carry on playing your rhodes or whatever, spin the dial and take your hands off whilst the lovely weighted wheel opens the filter for you. Its not very often that i use two hands on the voyager to change two parameters at once. The source interface never once become a hindrance to me in any situation. I would be happy if the new synth was an updated version of the source. I still feel the source sounds really close to the mini and apart from the limited modualtion options and the touch panel sometimes failing (you can buy new ones on ebay now) i love the source.

Now if moog took the one dial concept from the source and added the voyagers touchpad that would be something.

museslave wrote:I think it would be a terrible error for Moog to re-implement the largely-failed Source interface.

Dude, the source never failed. Did you even ever play one?

In fact, the interface is so good that Studio Electronics build the ATC-1 (the new classic if you ask me) after it.

The interface on the Source is waaaaaaaay better than anything with menus and +/- buttons and no knobs or incremental controller.

HI from Paris !!
With those clues I think that ,may be ,the new Moog might be a kind of
...
digitaly emulated Moog Modular engine
...
in a stand alone keyboard with infinite knobs :
You design your sounds on a remote screen with the help of a graphical moog software, then you assign each knob with what you want to modify live (filters ,lfo rate ...) ,and at the end you unplug everything in order to play live only with the keyboard ....

OK i'm going back to the lunatics home ...

When will we get the new clue?
Clue! Clue! Clue! Yay! Clue, go! Clue, go! Yaayy!

trip wrote: Dude, the source never failed. Did you even ever play one?

Dude, the Source did fail... at least inasmuch as it was intended as the successor to the Minimoog. You might take a look in yer Moog history book, if you weren't around then... the Source was intended as a :::ahem::: "modern" replacement for the Minimoog. It was a fad at that point to demonstrate the "futurism" of a synthesizer by removing all of those pesky knobs and giving the HIP NEW DIGITAL INTERFACE. Its sales didn't approach the Minimoog by ANY stretch of the imagination. Minimoog users were frustrated by the lack of control afforded by a single knob. I'm sure everyone felt like they were living in Star Wars with that nifty mylar interface, but those of you with Sources these days are not so happy with it, are you? ; )
That being said, I don't want to hurt anyones feelings with my Source bashing. I've have never played a Source myself, but I have had the single-knob analog experience. The Kawaii SX-210 had the same deal, and for a person who was used to having access to multiple :::ahem::: "parameters" at once, it was VERY cumbersome. Plus, we all know about the digitization that has to occur when there is only one knob to control many things... filters aren't as fun with incremental digitization. ALL of that being said, the Source sounds really great!

trip wrote:In fact, the interface is so good that Studio Electronics build the ATC-1 (the new classic if you ask me) after it.

If you're going to pursue the "In fact, the interface is so good," line of thinking, you might quote the 50 digital synths that came out with that interface 15 years before Studio Electronics released the ATC-1. ; )
That's a great interface if you only ever need or want access to one function... or if you're content with presets, or if you have a MIDI sequencer, etc. controlling everything you do.
If you look at the history of Moog, the Source was a departure. Even the subsequent more-digital-synth the SL-8 returned to knobs. The Moog tradition is one of real-time musicianship... allowing the user access to the various aspects of the sound for live performance... while simultaneously providing great analog sound.
The Voyager was great for the sequencing crowd AND the live performance crowd... but my suspicion is that Moog will never pursue the "Source paradigm" for fear of losing the part of its demographic that values realtime performance and control... which is what analog synthesis is all about.

Times have changed, museslave. I think these days people are eager enough for authentic, Moog analog sound that a spartan UI would be accepted by all but the most picky of potential buyers as long as it is well-implemented.

People hunt and peck around enough as it is with softsynths - I'm sure less people than most have a knob or slider laden control surface to work with, or one at all. Me, I have plenty of synths to set up as a control surface for softsynths but don't bother. People have accepted menu-diving these days as long as its not too deep and confusing (like the Korg Z1, Kawai K5000).

As long as it's relatively painless to create good sounding patches I don't think it matters so much anymore.

haffnafjordur wrote:HI from Paris !!
With those clues I think that ,may be ,the new Moog might be a kind of
...
digitaly emulated Moog Modular engine
...
in a stand alone keyboard with infinite knobs :
You design your sounds on a remote screen with the help of a graphical moog software, then you assign each knob with what you want to modify live (filters ,lfo rate ...) ,and at the end you unplug everything in order to play live only with the keyboard ....

OK i'm going back to the lunatics home ...

haffnafjordur,

I hope everything clears up in Paris. Best wishes!

Your idea sounds somewhat like the PPG Realizer which unfortunately never went into production. See:

http://www.antarcticamedia.com/ppg/realizer.htm

I had similar thoughts about your idea (seeing all of those side panels, if thats what they are) but I don't think Moog will do anything like this. Arturia has their cool software anyway.

museslave wrote:

trip wrote: Plus, we all know about the digitization that has to occur when there is only one knob to control many things... filters aren't as fun with incremental digitization. ALL of that being said, the Source sounds really great!

i thought any analog synth with memory had to have digital incrementation, unless the it's something like the yamaha CS 80, so the voyager would have incremental digitization too?
Does the number of increments vary from synth to synth, brand to brand?

Hello TheGlyph !

theglyph wrote: Your idea sounds somewhat like the PPG Realizer which unfortunately never went into production.

Yes yes but I was thinking more about a kind of Nord Modular G2X style ...

theglyph wrote: I had similar thoughts about your idea (seeing all of those side panels, if thats what they are) but I don't think Moog will do anything like this. Arturia has their cool software anyway.

Yes I agree with you but ,just think about a kind of new collaboration between Arturia and Moog ,but with a Moog's schedule of conditions . Arturia putting enhanced moog 's analog algorithms into very powerfull DSPs ,emulating all circuits and all Moog's electronic components ?

And all those side panels make me think about : polyphony !!

IMO that's exactly the reason why people get Voyagers today (besides the sound). Playing a VST will only be that much inspirering, ....playing a beautifully craftet analog synth with plenty of knobs and controls - now that's a completely different experience. I for one am tired of lackluster-sounding VSTs and mouse-clicking, give me a great-looking hardware solosynth instead!

I agree with Museslave here. The best thing would be a simplified voyager. The voyager has a whole bunch of non-essential functions that could be ditched, maybe giving us something that equals the original model D in features - preferable with a couple of extra addtions like an extra LFO and hard sync. I hope that Moog don't release something that's too basic in features and design, with mostly plastic buttons instead of real knobs - like some of the lesser known moog models mentioned here. If it looks and sound too ordinary, why not just get another VA instead..? The new Creamware synthmodules sound really good. (If they only were made with keyboards...) - And also the keyboard needs to have 3.5 octaves like the minimoog. Anything less would be a serious expressive limitiation IMO.

sizzlemeister wrote:Times have changed, museslave. I think these days people are eager enough for authentic, Moog analog sound that a spartan UI would be accepted by all but the most picky of potential buyers as long as it is well-implemented.

People hunt and peck around enough as it is with softsynths - I'm sure less people than most have a knob or slider laden control surface to work with, or one at all. Me, I have plenty of synths to set up as a control surface for softsynths but don't bother. People have accepted menu-diving these days as long as its not too deep and confusing (like the Korg Z1, Kawai K5000).

As long as it's relatively painless to create good sounding patches I don't think it matters so much anymore.

Exactly the glowing is not indicating a cheap synth, I would suggest !

How about a Memorymoog Voyager - that would be awsome !

Anyway.... GIVE US A THIRD CLUE please, please, please .....

godzilla wrote: i thought any analog synth with memory had to have digital incrementation, unless the it's something like the yamaha CS 80, so the voyager would have incremental digitization too?
Does the number of increments vary from synth to synth, brand to brand?

On the Voyager, when you sweep a knob it is continuous so there is no incrementation, but it SAVES in increments. So those values displayed are what it saves, however the oscillator is not digital so there is no "stepping" noise.

I wonder if IT (if it is the "small synthesizer" people are thinking about) will be "just" a stripped-down Voyager, or if it will have additional features (such as a sequencer, a ring modulator, a murf or a beer tap) to make it more desirable.

At this stage it still could be bookends or a novelty clown nose ... So please give us another clue!