Moog Music Forum

Its odd that the Voyager has these engineering flaws and I can't help but feel these points are just laziness. Did anyone REALLY think "let's make sure the high frequencies aren't too prominent". Its subtractive synthesis, you can have as little harmonics as you like with the LPF.

thealien666 wrote:The Voyager is simply incapable of reaching the very high harmonic content of the waveforms of the Model D, because of the inherent design flaws of continually variable waveforms oscillator circuitry implemented in it. Add on top of that the cutoff miscalculation and you've got a recipe for a very good instrument that could have been so much more like a Model D, sound wise, but simply isn't.

You're wrong.

The Voyager CAN get high harmonic content, and it has NOTHING to do with the continuously variable waveform circuitry.

See this thread:

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9431

... and there I am a few posts down interested in your findings.

I think you are referring to the sizzle with high resonance and high cutoff, whereas I'm talking about the high harmonics of the raw waves. Different sizzles, the sound of a high freq emphasis in the filter vs. the filter wide open with no emphasis. Both great sounds.

Yes it's a quirk in the waveshaping design but it can be modded by Rudi at Lintronics in Germany. It's a fairly cheap mod-maybe Moog could offer it as a factory mod and through their international service partners/distributors.

fyvewytches wrote:

omvibes wrote:Come on Moog, this is 2011,

no, it's not

Oh yeah... Even more reason to be irritated with the lack of memories!

To all those saying its lazy to use memories...well, that may be okay if you use synths in a studio, or just have one synth live, but if you are using many synths live, with quick changes between songs etc on a darkened stage, and you need lots of different sounds in one set, then something like the Minitaur is simply not practical. I guess there's a reason why the Moogs you see used live by most pro bands these days are the Voyager, Phatty and T3... cue posts with photos of current bands using Minimoogs, T1s etc etc

EricK wrote:If you have ever watched Automatic Gainsay's minimoog video and heard that great trebly ripping bass sound that the D gets, the Taurus comes closer to that than the Micro, and the Micro comes closer to that than the Voyager.

Automatic Gainsay says that the Minitaur is the synth he would use for bass if he wasn't using a Minimoog.

I do hope that Moog notice the typo on the panel before these things start getting silk screened en masse: on the pics I've seen floating around, the legend for the very first control (top left) says VC0 2 (that's a "zero", not the letter "O")...

Good god, you have some excellent eyes for detail there!

So, could you use a minitaur for mids or highs? I just don't feel like spending 600 clams on bass.

Pre-ordered a Minitaur @ Nova Musik this morning. The pre-order price is $569 although it says $599 on the site. I dropped them an email. They told me to write "Pre-order price of $569 as per Chuck"
I did that and it works. Can't wait to get it!!!!!!

For anyone that is still wondering about the "warm up time" for the Minitaur, I finally got a callback from AJ at sweetwater. Daniel Fisher's answer was: If you are using if for recording, let it warm up for a while. If you are using it live, just a couple of minutes.

So, the VCO's will need that warm up time, but nowhere near as bad as the SP. Good to know.

The reason that most analog synths need a "warm-up" time is because the exponential converter circuit includes a temperature factor that affects tuning and thus the circuit needs to "warm-up" before the conversion is accurate.

Note I said "most"

Because the Minitaur uses linear VCOs that do NOT have the expo converter, no warm-up time is needed. I can turn on my Taurus pedals and they are in tune and ready to play.

May be a difference between T3 and Minitaur. Daniel spent a bit of time with the unit. I'd kinda trust his judgement. But, I won't really know until next month.

muksys wrote:Daniel Fisher's answer was: If you are using if for recording, let it
warm up for a while. If you are using it live, just a couple of minutes.

Hi muksys,

To be clear, when I was asked this on Tuesday by your sales engineer,
I said that I had very little time with the Minitaur prototype in Detroit,
and that I never had it playing along with any other instrument that
would have given me a pitch reference.

My response to the sales engineer was more generic about my analog
gear in general than the Minitaur. I felt safe in saying that I would
use it live after a few minutes because I *did* use it only a few minutes
after power up and had no problems.

If the folks who designed and tested the Minitaur extensively say it's
in tune from power up, then that's the answer I'd bet all my money on.

_DemonDan_ wrote: Hi muksys,

To be clear, when I was asked this on Tuesday by your sales engineer,
I said that I had very little time with the Minitaur prototype in Detroit,
and that I never had it playing along with any other instrument that
would have given me a pitch reference.

My response to the sales engineer was more generic about my analog
gear in general than the Minitaur. I felt safe in saying that I would
use it live after a few minutes because I *did* use it only a few minutes
after power up and had no problems.

If the folks who designed and tested the Minitaur extensively say it's
in tune from power up, then that's the answer I'd bet all my money on.

Hey Demon Dan,

Is there egg on my face? I was not aware that you were Daniel Fisher. Haha, good to know! Sorry, didn't want to misquote you. I agree, I will turn my analog synths on at least a good hour before I begin working with them (in a recording setting). But, considering I have not heard of any warm up issues with the T3, yeah, I'd say it's a safe bet that the Minitaur won't either.

But, thanks for the clarification!

Oh, and I am fairly new to this forum, so it's unclear to me who is actually affiliated with Moog and who isn't (mc?). So, my apologies for coming off a little untrusting to some of the responses to my original question.