Moog Music Forum

Hello all, I got a new voyager old school a while back and have immensely enjoyed exploring with it. Here's my question:

Is there any kind of time limit to how long I should have it on? I would like to try setting it to a nice droning sound and possibly leave it going through the night but don't want to risk burning anything out. It's already been back to Moog once for service.

Thanks and sorry for the long post.

Just think of this: demo units in music stores are often left on for weeks at a time.

The Voyager is like any other electronic device, be it a TV, a cell phone, or any other. The longer you have it turned on, the higher the risk of some internal electronic part failing. This is called MTBF (Mean Time Between Failures) and is calculated based on circuit design, and parts tolerances.

Usually, this MTBF is rather high. Often calculated in thousands of hours. But there are occasions where unforseen defects either in the design or the poor quality of parts used that can dramatically shorten the MTBF.

If this happens under warranty, it isn't too much of a big deal. But more often than not, it will happen outside the warranty, and that can be a pain.

BTW, the synth doesn't "work harder" when it's producing a sound. It is always working, even when no sound is produced. So no difference if it is making a drone sound for hours.

If your Old School is doomed to fail again, it could very well do so only 30 seconds after powering it up, or many hours/days/years later. With over 800 parts working inside, it's rather unpredictable to tell which one could fail at any given moment.

That being said, this is first and foremost a musical instrument that is meant to be played, so go ahead and play it as much and as long as you want. It doesn't make a big difference in the "life" of the device. If it's doomed to fail again, because of some internal weak part, it will.

To reassure you, I've got a 37 years old Minimoog D that is still going strong after all these years. How many hours do you estimate that it was turned on continuously playing music during all those years ?

Welcome Droner! I hope we'll hear some Moog drone soon

Alain, your knowledge always amazes me. Seriously!

Thanks, Stiiiiiiive. But compared to a real electronics engineer, my knowledge is rather limited. I'm just an old hobbyist that has learned most of what he knows from experience and reading.
I did have some basic electronic principles education during my training as a millwright. And I'm lucky that this wasn't too long ago, when vacuum tubes hadn't been replaced by transistors yet !

As for Droner, I forgot to write in my previous message that dumb questions do not exist. It's always, always better to ask than to stay ignorant. Even if the answer might seem obvious to others or even yourself, in that case it'll just confirm your thoughts.

Oh and yes, welcome to the Moog forum, too !

thealien666 wrote:Thanks, Stiiiiiiive. But compared to a real electronics engineer, my knowledge is rather limited. I'm just an old hobbyist that has learned most of what he knows from experience and reading.

Precisely: you are not an engineer

thealien666 wrote:As for Droner, I forgot to write in my previous message that dumb questions do not exist. It's always, always better to ask than to stay ignorant. Even if the answer might seem obvious to others or even yourself, in that case it'll just confirm your thoughts.

Yes, I wnated to say so: no dumb questions, only kept silent ones.

Thanks for the replies! I'm just really learning about analog synthesis on a hands on level, so I'll be picking brains on here more I'm sure...

Droner, if you don't mind me asking, what had you sent yours back for? I have an OS as well, purchased new, and it was way out of tune/kb tracking when I got it. I fixed it pretty easily with some instruction from Amos.

I was "playing" it and the sound seemed to fade away slowly into clicks. It turned out it had gone subsonic due to a problem with the pitch control section which they took care of and sent right back.

I asked as well about the tuning, it seemed osc 2 was just slightly off from 1 and 3. They assured me this was due to the nature of analog synths and they tuned it up anyway.

FWIW when I had my Old School, it had to go back for repair under warranty too because the random sample/hold waveform of the LFO wasn't working anymore. It was producing a constant, fixed value. It was fixed by a local Moog Music authorized repair facility (I'm in Canada). It took two weeks to fix it, because they had to replace the whole analog board and had to order one from Moog Music in NC.

After that it was perfect again. I sold it about six months later only to raise the money in order to buy/repair a Minimoog D.