Moog Music Forum

Introducing the Voyager Polyrack
8 Voyager analog boards in a rack with no knobs - the original Moog Voyager can be used to control it via the accessory port (faster than midi!! and a good selling point to buy the original Voyager as a controller)
( plus USB and Midi on the Voyager Polyrack so you can control it via the editor of your choice if you have not got an Voyager Origional )
This may be doable at a RRP USD$2995---Moog could built this product in a short development lifecycle --they have the analog boards already--can they build the analog boards for $100-$150 each ?

what do you guys think ? How would you design the poly at the right price point RRP $2995 to match the Prophet 12
I always thought the accessory port would be the way to go to connect to a moog polyrack--much faster than midi--the challenge in making this product
is re-engineering the accessory port and making a digital board to control the 8 analog boards
Synth lovers will "most likely " go for VCOs in a modern poly over DCO's etc

I'm surprised that I'm the first to reply; 15 people read this thread already and nobody has anything to say? hahahahaha

(likely by the time I post this, there will be another reply or two)

This is a tough one. If President Kennedy proclaimed "we choose to do this not because it is easy but because it is difficult" "by the end of this decade we will produce an 8 voice Voyager and do the other things" ... but didn't mention anything about what it will cost or having any worries about market adoption, I'm sure Moog could do it.

So I'll put those things aside and just concentrate on a handful of the logistics and challenges to engineer/produce and missing bits (from what the Voyager has today; extra bits that won't fit quite as desired)

- Autotune; none. You'll need a way to sense the frequency of the main oscillator per board and a way to have uniform offset for OSC 2. The first Oberheim poly keyboard (not talking about SEM) did this by 'sampling' the frequency and adjusting, via input to each of the voice boards, corrective fractions of a volt.

- System wide LFO. You'll need one, two or more and this does not exist. In addition to the main LFO on the Voyager analog board, many use the 3rd OSC as an additional LFO. Having 8 of these is added expense, no way to synchronize so problematic. This could be done in firmware/code on whatever microcontroller ran the beat but it would require coding and development and therefore cost. The Voyager OS runs on an antiquated platform (the best they could economically obtain at the time) that is sufficient for running a single Voyager, but no more!

- Uniform voicing. Need a way to have panel settings applied to all of the voice boards. This will require a series of buffers behind each pot such that a setting on the attack for filter envelope precisely set each of the voiceboards as required. This holds true for every pot that you see on the Voyager. Likewise, all of the input CV jacks would need to be buffered. If wired in parallel, the application of 3V from an expression pedal for Cutoff would surely result in consistent results across all of the filters.

- System wide amplitude and ideally, panning for true Stereo (aka audio mixing). The L/R field attached to the Filter section at present is very different from the panning circuit that will require (ideally) different panning settings per voice. Many vintage poly synths did this with a 'hard' setting which could be varied via trim pot or in some cases, modded controls added to a side panel. Certainly the Voyager has a system-wide volume control and headphone preamp but in this case, a circuit that allows this x8 would be required so additional circuitry.

- Key assigner; Need an algorithm to distribute/dispatch notes to voice cards. Yesterday and today, this is best done in code but ideally, one would require/desire, ways to split the keyboard 2/6 or 1/7 or 4/4 and forget about multi timbre capabilities, people will think it's crap if it they spent $5k on it and this was not supported.

I could go on, but these are the main challenges. It's not a BAD idea, just one that will require too many concessions and hold too much unnecessary circuitry hostage (features on the current analog board that do not fit in a poly paradigm).

Remember, Bob says that the analog board has over 1000 components and 20-something trim pots. Imagine having to tune/calibrate 160 trimpots !!

Having said all of this, a GREAT great project is underway right now which re-creates the voiceboards of the Oberheim OBX and includes a system for uniform patch programming (via hardwired panel). Cost will be approximately $1,300-$1,400 when it's all said and done but this is for FOUR voices and is based on an estimate of what the boards will cost plus what the parts might cost. Oh, you'll need to do all of your own parts sourcing, soldering, assembly, etc. power supply, panel, case not included. If I could throw up a number that a small outfit would place on production of something like this in quantity of 100) that includes a case and had only a single CV pitch input and gate input with a few modular-ey friendly inputs/outputs, I'd say you were looking at about $2999 But it is more of a science project than a 'modern' synth. Many concessions, not quite a 'whole' synth but when you lay a heavy hand on a fat chord, the house will come down.

Moog's polychaining as included in the Voyager was always interesting but not terribly scalable. LIttle Phatty Poly was brilliant in it's simplicity of design (without much additional effort in code since it piggy backs Midi) and as one of the chaps here recently wrote, takes care of just about everything.

Here is the crOwBX thread: http://www.muffwiggler.com/forum/viewto ... torder=asc One of the regulars here (I'm sure he will show up with some additional color and possibly some corrections ) provided the inspiration and a fair amount of sweat in correcting some of the inherent problems in the original Oberheim voice boards; all of the rest of the Engineering including replacing the NLA CEM3310 custom envelope ICs with an envelope design based on J.H. (RIP) design was done by Scott Rider; after you scan the thread, read here: http://www.cs80.com/crowbx/

If Moog did a poly, I would imagine the SubPhatty board would be the best affordable route. From the photos I have seen posted, the analog board was surface mount electronics and not very big. Wouldn't take more than four of those anolog boards and a digital board to control them, for a small four voice.

The Voyager excells at being a Monophonic voice. Four or more of those voices might be overkill, but a nice "Two Voice" like Oberheim did might be just the ticket.


I am trying the idea of a Voyager Two voice with a pair of RME's. It really opens up the sound stacking two Voyagers to make one sound. I think it has more of a vintage sound too, much thicker than just one Voyager. Setting one for high note priority and one for low note gets similar results to the Arp Odyssey or Moog Sonic Six duo voice keyboards. And those configurations are saveable per patch. Much more complex mono synth sounds can be made using two seperate voices too, just like the CS-80 did per voice.
The Two Voice Voyager is a really interesting combo. It won't break the bank, and it sounds bad ass!

EMwhite wrote:One of the regulars here (I'm sure he will show up with some additional color and possibly some corrections ) provided the inspiration and a fair amount of sweat in correcting some of the inherent problems in the original Oberheim voice boards

"Correcting"? "Inherent problems"? Some, yes. Others - like unequal filter CV scaling, unequal glide rates between voicecards, and that lovely dirty-sounding OTA-based VCA - are more like "inherent features" and don't need correcting

Otherwise, not much to add here - good post.

I think the SubPhatty boards might be a better starting point for a reasonable priced polyphonic Moog.
Just have a look at the Voyager huge and dense through hole analog board.
You need SMD for such a project today.