Moog Music Forum

I'm aware that analogue synths' tuning is affected by temperature, but how far out of tune is normally expected?

My SP is super out of tune when used straight after turning it on - it's flat by a minor 3rd (3 semitones)... is it normal for the synth to be this so far out of tune when it's cold? When I first got it I let it warm up for 45 minutes (as per the manual) and then performed note, PW and OSC2 calibrations... at which point it was perfectly in tune & all was well...

Is it normal/usual/acceptable for it to be that far out of tune when it's cold? How far out of tune is yours when you just turn it on?

That's pretty far out, but if it's really cold...

How's the tune at 15min and 30min after power up?

15min warm up is always recommended for stable tuning, 30 min may be needed if it is being played in an unusually cold environment

I'm not in an especially cold climate at all actually - I'm in Australia, so it's summer, although it's not super hot at the moment... so that certainly doesn't qualify as an unusually cold environment...

After leaving it on for 15 minutes it's still not in tune - still flat by a semitone at least...

mustgroove wrote:I'm not in an especially cold climate at all actually - I'm in Australia, so it's summer, although it's not super hot at the moment... so that certainly doesn't qualify as an unusually cold environment...

After leaving it on for 15 minutes it's still not in tune - still flat by a semitone at least...

I'm in Australia in one of the colder bits and my LP comes good after about 5 minutes. It probably helps to have it set to auto tune as well.......

emac.

I'm in central vic in australia, today was the first really hot day we've had. I've regularly had my SP out by at least 2 semitones sometimes 3 when first powering on. Auto-tune takes care of that as emac says within about 5 mins.

What auto-tune doesn't take care of is the 2nd oscillator which can be quite radically de-tuned until fully warmed up. When I get up in the morning the first thing I do is power up the SP, by the time I'm ready to play it is too

Interestingly the 2nd osc varies day by day - tuning it in by the precision setting shows that even when warmed up the setting needed can vary by 40 or more, perhaps it depends on the room temperature too.

None of this surprises me. I'm used to having to manually tune my dotcom oscillators before and during each session. Auto-tune is a luxury.

I am in Greece and we have a not so cold winter...
I have my sp for 10 days. The first week i set it to autotune, i check it with a tuner after some minutes, was ok, and i continue to record...
Today i set it to autotune, i check it and was ok, i was recorder some tracks. After a half an hour i check it again and it was out of tune,not much but out...
It's my first moog i am confused.
Is it a sp issue or it's overall moogs behaviour ?

The problem with the Slim Phatty is the case is to small and there is a overheating issue --I think this may have something to do with the tuning problems. The Slim Phatty runs so hot that I think there will be reliability problems after a few years
The Little Phatty Stage 2 is always cool never hot in comparison

Really?

Too hot should make the OSC sharp not flat.

My SCI Drumtraks gets insanely hot. You could definately cook an egg with the case. That was built around 1985 and still going strong.

The SP I currently have is a bit flat when first turned on but it seems to get stable after about an hour. I did run a full calibration soon after receiving it and I think that helped. Unfortunately this unit has a bit of a faulty encoder on the value knob. So, Sweetwater will be shipping me another one once they get more in. As far as heat goes, it doesn't seem all that warm to me.

Hi everyone, I am Sue , I am new here at www.moogmusic.com
I am from Canada, where are you guys from?

theshaggyfreak wrote:Unfortunately this unit has a bit of a faulty encoder on the value knob.

Shaggy, I'm curious - what was the fault with the encoder?

HowardJones wrote:

theshaggyfreak wrote:Unfortunately this unit has a bit of a faulty encoder on the value knob.

Shaggy, I'm curious - what was the fault with the encoder?

The encoder was kind of flaky but mostly in the counterclockwise direction. Sometimes it wouldn't register a click at all and sometimes one click would register twice. It's just kind of annoying when dialing in a patch or going through the menus. While I know that the knobs on the SP have a little play in them, this encoder just 'felt' wrong. You can feel in certain positions that the click is almost non-existant. Moog Support told me that it was just easier for me to get a new one from Sweetwater. Right now I'm being told to hold on to this one until I get the new one shipped to me which is rather nice.