Muse tuning in the Summer: External case fans *may* improve tuning stabiltity
Posted: Sun Apr 06, 2025 11:08 pm
I write this post knowing that most Moog Muse users have never experienced this synth in a summer heat, but I have here in Australia. My tuning instability hasn't been consistent enough to say it's entirely down to higher temps or rising temps, but I did find that it was hard to have stable for long over summer.
I have two experiences I want to share that may help others.
Be careful doing a full tune on hot days.
At one point I decided to do a full tune and it was worth trying as my machine was becoming unplayable. My heart dropped when I found myself unable to complete the tunes do to the ambient temperature - it took me a few days to find a very cool morning on which to get things going and complete.
Putting some fans on the case seem to help my stability.
I seem to find certain specific temps just never tune, and they always seem to be showing when I find (43.1 celsius is one off the top of my head!)
I tried putting some AC Infinity multifan 5's on the grill, with neo magnets spaced out, and configured as an intake and outlet, powered by the on board USB A. When running at high speed they tend to reduce the stability (or maybe prevent reaching working temp at all?) but running them low has really improved my tuning over the hot days and into the cooler autumn. I expect that I might remove them once the cold really hits, but my in-floor heating might still keep things stable - we will see.
At this point my only tuning issues seem to be the random "it's been on too long and decided it's time for you to turn it off" type issue where the tuning goes absolutely atonal, rather than just a bit out of tune.
I have two experiences I want to share that may help others.
Be careful doing a full tune on hot days.
At one point I decided to do a full tune and it was worth trying as my machine was becoming unplayable. My heart dropped when I found myself unable to complete the tunes do to the ambient temperature - it took me a few days to find a very cool morning on which to get things going and complete.
Putting some fans on the case seem to help my stability.
I seem to find certain specific temps just never tune, and they always seem to be showing when I find (43.1 celsius is one off the top of my head!)
I tried putting some AC Infinity multifan 5's on the grill, with neo magnets spaced out, and configured as an intake and outlet, powered by the on board USB A. When running at high speed they tend to reduce the stability (or maybe prevent reaching working temp at all?) but running them low has really improved my tuning over the hot days and into the cooler autumn. I expect that I might remove them once the cold really hits, but my in-floor heating might still keep things stable - we will see.
At this point my only tuning issues seem to be the random "it's been on too long and decided it's time for you to turn it off" type issue where the tuning goes absolutely atonal, rather than just a bit out of tune.
