Moog Music Forum

Before I got into synths, I played organ. Many of the home organs had a one-octave pedalboard. A few of the Allen church organs I played or saw had pedalboards that spanned at least two octaves.

I'd love to have a full AGO (American Guild of Organists) pedalboard with a MIDI interface and several kick-switches.

Someone should be able to build something like that. They just did it for Wendy Carlos.

Of course, I have a HAMMOND organ with an A. G. O. pedalboard, and I can tell you that it's highly unusual.

Quote by Peter Ripa
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i never understood why anyone would want to play with their feet, and yes i did try.
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To get a "full" sound. I took piano and then a few years of organ lessons. If you can play JS Bach with both hands on the organ, and both feet playing pedals, playing rock tunes is a piece of cake. The thing I found the most difficult to get down was singing LEAD vocals and playing organ and pedals at the same time. Years ago, I learned "A white shade of pale" on my Hammond, played pedals and used a Hammond Rythym machine for the drums. It sounded fine until I opened my mouth!

Mike

That's impressive, I wish I had learned to play pedals on a big console. The Gigue Fugue is one of my favorite Bach organ pieces - it's competition material and not many organists can play all the parts, and the ones that used to don't want to go through all that work again!

Limb independence on the organ is impressive, but Neil Peart's drum solo from Live in Rio has a part where he is keeping a pattern with his feet while playing another pattern with his hands in completely different meter and time. Not only that, the tempo on his feet are constant while he is varying the tempo with his hands!!! I'm a good drummer but nowhere near THAT good.

I worked on Fugue in Dmi for ages. It requires playing with both feet on the pedal board. Some sections of the piece, you're playing just on the pedals, nothing on the KB. Its a song that you can't "FAKE". I won't say I ever got it right, but I got it well enough to play for people that really didn't know the difference. That was YEARS ago. I played solo for years, and my setup was a Yamaha Electric Grand, Taurus 1 bass pedals, and OBXa on top of the Electric Grand, and used a Roland drum machine. Again, singing LEAD vocals while trying to handle everything else was the challenge. This was BEFORE Midi was really a viable option, so everything was LIVE. One time I was playing at a SKI resort and when I took a break, a guy that was listening to me for almost a whole set walked up to me and said "How long did it take you to learn how to do that?" I said "I'm still working on it". He kinda chuckled. I had years of piano lessons, then about 3 years of organ lessons on my Hammond. Then I worked on the solo thing with the previous setup I mentioned for about a year until I was able to put it together enough to sound decent. It takes a LOT of practice. Talent doesn't hurt, but I managed to get by with a minimal amount of that, and LOTS of practice. I'm still working on it.

Mike

Argh.....!!! This is why NEIL DESERVED A FREAKING GRAMMY! The Grammys are always rigged against Rush!

Anyway...

If there wasn't a huge market for bass pedal synths, than I'd have found one already, and it would have been reasonably priced! That's one of the most common lies I've heard told about such synths- the truth is, anyone who has ever idolized Rush, Genesis, Yes, the Police, or any of the great old Taurus using bands wants one very badly. I've been searching for a good set for three years, and I know people who've been searching for far longer.

But anyway... please! Reissue them! NOW! Many people will love you forever! Not that we don't anyway!

(And lastly... damn, I always thought that was a Taurus 1 on Exit Stage Left. It sounds so much fatter than the ...well... ...taurus does on such releases as Hemispheres, A Farewell, and of course the old live disc in the Different Stages set. But it all makes sense now... obviously Geddy had the taurus peds hooked to the Oberheim so he could play Tom Sawyer, etc. Rarrgh! Blast it.)

I get off topic a lot. Really, I don't know what I was saying here to begin with, but, oh, well, yes! I love the Taurus, unconditionally. I gigged with a set once or twice about three years ago. I thought I was in heaven.
No matter what form moog reissued the taurus in, it'd be splendid. Actually, a module that could be controlled via midi would be just as useful to me as the pedals themselves, as currently I use a Roland PK-5 to control my Alesis ION, which has a preset that is similar to the sound of a Taurus 1, in a rather vague way.

Yep... well... ...meds.

It's REALLY hard to find a good set of Taurus pedals - I got lucky with the ones I found last year, been looking for a set for a long time. Many of the ones that come up for sale have battle scars from gigging.

Recently I let a bass player buddy use them at a gig. The two guitar players in that band HATE keyboards. Well, their opinion changed when they heard the pedals - one of the guitar players even came over and played them himself. They thought the pedals were really cool, probably because they looked like one great big floor FX pedal. Pretty funny

I've been looking for a set too for years. I've seen them come and go on Ebay, but the prices were so high. I think the last one I saw was around $1800.

Well a few weeks ago a guy put a sweet set up with a Buy It Now for $1200. It hadn't even been up for 40 mintes and I pulled the trigger. They have a few scratches but it cleaned up awesome and is 100% functional and all that. I'm so happy now! and I got it for a great 2005 price.

These things are worth the demand, so that's it. Believe it or not, there a dealer in the UK that restored a set and they want $5,000 USD for them. Now that's a bit insane.

That's a great buy, I found mine for a little less than that.

I would not be surprised if someone bought that UK set for that price. I couldn't believe it when ebay prices were creeping towards $2000.

I got a page on my Taurus pedals here

http://www.retrosynth.com/~analoguedieh ... og_taurus/

The price on the Taurus One pedals is only going to go up. Moog looked into doing a reissue, and from what I understand, it wasn't going to work. Even if they reissued them, at today's prices, they would be a lot more expensive than the originals.

The most important thing when considering a set for sale is how much they were actually used. Someone that used them steady for say, 10 years, had them turned on a lot more than the ones I have. So how many "hours" are on them is something to be considered. No matter what anyone says, there is a "mean time between failure" rate for anything electronic. They weren't built to last forever, and they won't.

The prices I've seen them advertised for in Europe are INSANE. They're great pedals, no question. But I retired mine and use a workstation to produce my bass sounds. It's easier to implement into sequences and it gives me less to do when I play live gigs.

I think 2 grand for a set in great condition is the upper limit of what I would pay if I were in the market. If you get yours for less, consider yourself lucky.


Mike T.

There was actually a set of Taurus II's up on ebay just last week which were staying at 200$! They apparently had two faulty knobs, which I thought it would not be too much of an issue to repair... and then whoever was selling them realized that he was being ripped off, and closed the auction... ...maybe a good thing, definitely good for him, and if I had bought them and they ended up being a lost cause, I would have been seriously angry, because you never know with old moogs, and it's hard not to be suspicious when they've been stuck in an attic for eleven years...

So how many "hours" are on them is something to be considered. No matter what anyone says, there is a "mean time between failure" rate for anything electronic. They weren't built to last forever, and they won't.

Yes and no

I'd much rather have a pair of T1's that were played once a week for 30 years than ones that sat in the closet for the same amount of time.
From sliders to contacts to capacitors, using a synth is better than storage for the most part.

Also, some respect is in order if you do require service.
Here's how someone sent me a pair recently.
Diagonal in a large box with little packing.
Right side panel is broken, amongst other things

http://www.synthfool.com/md




.

Wow, I can't believe anyone would pack a set like that!!! I always double box everything and......I avoid UPS. They've broken just about every large item I've sent with them over the years. I tried them again recently...bought a used Alesis QS6.2 for my little niece for her birthday, it was double boxed and packed well, and sure enough a object pierced through the box damaging the synth. I guess they do olympic javalin throwing at break time. They are paying the claim which is good. But I won't even talk about the other horror stories I've had. I will never use that company again.

The one thing I do need to fix cosmetically on mine is to make some good repro rubber covers over the large volume and filter sliders. They came unglued and were lost. Is the upper trim also aluminum, or is that plastic painted silver?

After I've had fun playing with them a bit I think I'll let Kevin have them for a while in case they need any preventative maintenance, etc.

Kevin:

I know you're a great service tech and I most certainly agree that not using a synth and keeping it stashed away in a closet somewhere isn't a good idea. They were made to be played. Pots and sliders need to be "worked". Turning them on, warming them up, and doing normal usage things certainly isn't going to hurt them. Electronic gear tends to last longer if its kept at a constant temperature. Its really not good to keep turning things on and off all the time. If you're going to use it, let it on.

The other side of the story is, things do wear out. Synths that I own that were "on" a lot have had parts that needed to be replaced, and other KB's I have that don't have near as many "on" hours have not. Over a period of 20 years or so, it adds up. Capacitors typical last 17 to 20 years before you need to start getting concerned about them failing.

I'm not trying to tell you about your business, you know your stuff. So take my comments in the light they are intended.



Mike T.

I'm fine with your comments. No prob

My experiences are such that I've restored Minis and T1s and the owners got them back and stored them for 6 mos, then played them and they had contact problems. The contacts in these are silver and it tarnishes, however it takes a lot of playing to wear out a t1 contact. One has to consider that no one plays a T1 as fast as Minimoog usually. It just can't be done.

On the other hand, I've had several studio musicians who have received their Minis back, played them continuously since and never had any problems.
One comment, as unbelieveable to me as likely it is to you, is that one owner finds his Model D to stay in better tune than his Voyager.

Caps wear out faster when not charged also.

Another thing is that a slider, left on the resistive element for years, can cause problems later. If you're going to store a slider based instrument (polymoog, ody, 2600, etc), move all the sliders to the top or bottom completely, off the element itself.

I'm not sure about the philosophy of leaving instruments on all of the time.
There's reasons for it and against it.
While there's inrush current upon turning something on, the unit does expect this and deals with it fine if everything is good inside, especially the capacitors.
However, leaving a unit on that gets warm or hot, will likely fail sooner due to solder connections failing. I've seen this soooooo often, I can't tell you.

Personally, I think a person should play the living bleep out of their synths and service them when they go bad.