Moog Music Forum

Hello,
I'm producing track on 160 bpm with minimoog on arp bass (synthwave style). I'm using two osc and 2nd oscillator is slightly detuned. When bass is playing there is some phase issue which sounds like "pulsing", like he's choking himself, waveform doesn't look right too.Since minimoog doesn't have a hard sync (note sync), should I use another synth for this kind of bass/bpm? It seems like moog is the synth for legato/funk or just a way slow bass, am I right?

Hi!
Welcome to the forum

Using oscillator sync would ruin the detuning effect, however I am not sure whether you are using a second oscillator for detuning purpose or just for waveform comping purpose.

If you do want to achieve the detuning effect, I know two alternatives.
The first one is to use different waveforms and/or different octaves settings on the two oscillators, hence limiting the cancellation of their signals. Again, not sure about what your exact setting is though.
Another way to avoid this is to be able to reset the oscillator cycle at each gate start; the Minitaur does offer this possibility but I'm not sure many others analogue synths do. Most of them -I think- have free running oscillators.

Hope this helps!

Take a look at Anthony Marinelli's video with bass sound tips. Tip #2 deals with specifically this issue, but the whole video is worth checking out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nELAOF1iI7Y

It seems that the slight detuning is creating a pulsing phase cancellation of the output. The simplest way to reduce this is to set one oscillator at a lower level than the other. On a side note, although a stock Minimoog does not have hard sync capability, amplitude modulation by setting the 3rd oscillator as a modulator in the audio range and routing it to modulate the filter could in some cases be used instead. Of course audio range frequency modulation could also be used for interesting effects as well.