Moog Music Forum

Hello everybody, I'm new here so please forgive me if this is something that has been common knowledge.

I'm about to buy an electric blue model for a good price and I was curious what noise levels are normal on the unit.

Here's one test case where I wasn't expecting much noise but it's there:
- turn off every sound source (noise, external, oscillators)
- crank up the headphone volume to max
- press keys
- you here an audible white noise that you can shape with the amplitude ADSR

Now, I was told this noise is normal, although I was not expecting it.
I tried different Moogs (Voyager XL, Little Phatty) and could reproduce the same noise thing.

So I'm interested in hearing your opinion, what else should I pay attention to when buying a secondhand unit (maybe depending of serial etc.)

This unit has the led noise too, that I'm aware of, but it's not a problem for me.

Thanks.

Hi -

It's really not normal to monitor the synth with the headphone volume all the way up - it's a POWERFUL headphone amplifier and if you turn up the level of the oscillators with the headphone level all the way up, you will blast your ears. When you crank up the headphone volume level, you also amplify the normal analog noise floor. The noise you hear is -80dBu or so relative to normal levels which is typical for this analog synth. In normal usage with proper levels, you won't notice this noise as the signals will be much greater strength.

Hope that helps,
SD

Thanks Steve,

Obviously this is not a typical use case, just my small experiment to see how much noise I will have there.
Like if I have a filtered down bass this noise could be audible even near the actual oscillator sounds.

This could be a problem if I have some processing after the unit, for example compressing together with drums etc.
I'm not too worried since a brand new XL, and Phatty at the local shop also had this "problem", so I guess this is how it is with analog synth.

Thanks for your reply.

Welcome rmri.

As SteveD said, if you crank up the headphone volume to maximum, you'll surely hear the noise floor since it will have amplified and raised it hundreds of times.

A better way to test of this would be:

- switch on all three oscillators on a Voyager
- adjust their levels to maximum in the mixer section,
- press a key
- listen to the sound output in the headphones
- adjust the headphone volume to normal (comfortable) level
- switch off all three oscillators.

The residual noise should be extremely faint.

If it's not, and the noise is clearly audible, then the VCA is probably defective on that unit. (it has happened in the past on some unit)

Al.