Moog Music Forum

I loaded the new firmware and editor and it's working much more smoothly than the prior versions. No stuck notes, so far, the connection is more solid and it now works in Ableton.

Even better - after playing for a while, I started playing around with the editor and realized that there are some new under the hood features in the editor! There's now a hard sync in addition to the key sync. There's a LFO shape selector and a switch that appears to apply the modulation only to VCO2. Cool!

Nice!

kiki_90291 wrote:a switch that appears to apply the modulation only to VCO2. Cool!

... for using with the hard sync turned on

stiiiiiiive wrote:Nice!

kiki_90291 wrote:a switch that appears to apply the modulation only to VCO2. Cool!

... for using with the hard sync turned on

I'm not sure I understand what the hard sync does (I'm new to synthesizer - really a guitarist) - how is it different than keyboard sync?

The key sync and hard sync have their names only in common

Key sync is useful for bass to have more "oomph" when a note is triggered. It allows the wave form of both oscillators to syncronize on the max amplitude position of the cycle when a key is depressed. In other words, it ensures the two oscillators are in phase at the start of the note. Why is it useful for bass? Because low frequencies have more chances to fall in the phase cancellation case.

Hard sync is different. It actually forces the "slave" oscillator to restart it wave cycle each time the "master" oscillator" completes its cycle. This is a very characterisitic synth sound, you may have it heard several times. Try to enable the hardync, and move the osc2 pitch knob, you'll hear it and understand why having modulation on osc2 pitch only is useful for hard sync!
Not yet? Try (if possible, no Minitaur here) to modulate osc2 pitch with the filter envelope, shortest attack time, 1-2 seconds decay, sustain at 50% for example. Deeeeoooooowwww! That's hard sync

stiiiiiiive wrote:The key sync and hard sync have their names only in common

Key sync is useful for bass to have more "oomph" when a note is triggered. It allows the wave form of both oscillators to syncronize on the max amplitude position of the cycle when a key is depressed. In other words, it ensures the two oscillators are in phase at the start of the note. Why is it useful for bass? Because low frequencies have more chances to fall in the phase cancellation case.

Hard sync is different. It actually forces the "slave" oscillator to restart it wave cycle each time the "master" oscillator" completes its cycle. This is a very characterisitic synth sound, you may have it heard several times. Try to enable the hardync, and move the osc2 pitch knob, you'll hear it and understand why having modulation on osc2 pitch only is useful for hard sync!
Not yet? Try (if possible, no Minitaur here) to modulate osc2 pitch with the filter envelope, shortest attack time, 1-2 seconds decay, sustain at 50% for example. Deeeeoooooowwww! That's hard sync

Thanks! That's a very helpful explanation. I payed around with it a bit this afternoon and it adds quite a bit to the synth - really a whole new range of sounds. Very cool.

Glad you like it

New firmware is not on the moogmusic website...?

MC wrote:New firmware is not on the moogmusic website...?

See this post here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=15900#p163954

You need to e-mail Moog for the link. Not sure why they haven't posted it, but they sent me a link pretty quickly.

kiki_90291 wrote:

MC wrote:New firmware is not on the moogmusic website...?

See this post here: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=15900#p163954

You need to e-mail Moog for the link. Not sure why they haven't posted it, but they sent me a link pretty quickly.

It is not there yet, since the documentation is not finished

Where can I download the instructions to do the download?

Bertotti wrote:Where can I download the instructions to do the download?

No link yet - see the post I linked to - you need to e-mail Moog. They have e-mail addresses in the post I linked to.

kiki_90291 wrote:

stiiiiiiive wrote:The key sync and hard sync have their names only in common

Key sync is useful for bass to have more "oomph" when a note is triggered. It allows the wave form of both oscillators to syncronize on the max amplitude position of the cycle when a key is depressed. In other words, it ensures the two oscillators are in phase at the start of the note. Why is it useful for bass? Because low frequencies have more chances to fall in the phase cancellation case.

Hard sync is different. It actually forces the "slave" oscillator to restart it wave cycle each time the "master" oscillator" completes its cycle. This is a very characterisitic synth sound, you may have it heard several times. Try to enable the hardync, and move the osc2 pitch knob, you'll hear it and understand why having modulation on osc2 pitch only is useful for hard sync!
Not yet? Try (if possible, no Minitaur here) to modulate osc2 pitch with the filter envelope, shortest attack time, 1-2 seconds decay, sustain at 50% for example. Deeeeoooooowwww! That's hard sync

Key sync means every time you press a key, the waveform will start in the same point of it's cycle, giving a very consistent attack sound.

Soft! sync means multiple oscilllators will play with their waveform cycle syncronised, giving less phasing ( one waveform going up when the other one goes down, cancelling out certain harmonics) very handy when you want punchy bass.

Hard sync is indeed as mentioned above, sonically it changes the amount of harmonics without changing the pitch of the slave osc. The timbre will change, but not the fundamental/ key frequency.

Thanks for shedding some light on the differences between soft and hard sync, Matthias
If I get it right, soft sync is useful only when oscillators are perfectly matched in pitch, right?

stiiiiiiive wrote:Thanks for shedding some light on the differences between soft and hard sync, Matthias
If I get it right, soft sync is useful only when oscillators are perfectly matched in pitch, right?

Maybe, but one thing I have found is that it sounds better turned off to my ears when the oscillators have different waveforms

bichuelo wrote:

stiiiiiiive wrote:Thanks for shedding some light on the differences between soft and hard sync, Matthias
If I get it right, soft sync is useful only when oscillators are perfectly matched in pitch, right?

Maybe, but one thing I have found is that it sounds better turned off to my ears when the oscillators have different waveforms

True, the phasing of non synced oscs gives a lot more colour, liveliness and variaton, which is often prefereable and musical.

Not sure if they need to be pitched equally. the soft sync will make the sound more consistent from attack through release with every consecutive note, which can be usefull for rythmic/percussive & bass sounds. In general i just try both settings and go with what sounds best