Moog Music Forum

Well to start with the positive: I now fully understand how MOD1 and MOD2 works with the mod bus. The slightly funny/scary thing is the reason that I have been mystified by MOD1 and MOD2 is *tada*: Mistake on the Voyager frontpanel labeling.

Ok: In the manual in the VX-351 section (page 65) you find that "The MOD2 Input is a CV input on the Voyager that is an external modulation source for the Mod Busses." Note the plural in the last word "Busses". When I read this the first time I thought that it was a typo in the manual because the frontpanel states that ext. modulation on the MOD.WHEEL Bus comes from MOD1 and ext. modulation on the PEDAL/ON bus comes from MOD2. But no, the manual has got it exactly right. The frontpanel is wrong, and I am sorry, but this is no april fool.
Here is my claim: On the frontpanel, MOD.WHEEL, SOURCE: Here you can select the source labeled ON/MOD1. This should have been labeled ON/MOD2.
In fact in reality there is no connection whatever to be made between MOD1 and the MOD.WHEEL Bus!

How to test my claim:
This is easiest if you have an external LFO or other kind of voltage source.
I will you an LFO in my example:
Chose a plain sound so it is easy to hear what is going on.
Plug the ext. LFO into the MOD1 input.
Set the MOD.WHEEL Source to ON/MOD1.
Set the MOD.WHEEL Destination to Pitch.
Set the MOD.WHEEL Shaping to ON/PGM
Turn up the MOD.WHEEL Amount knob.
Now play as you turn up the mod wheel. What we should be hearing is our ext. LFO modulating pitch as we open the modulation wheel. But what we DO hear is the pitch being controlled by the mod wheel. No modulation from our ext. LFO is heard.
Now plug the ext. LFO into the MOD2 input and voila: The patch now works. When we raise the mod wheel, the ext. LFO modulates the pitch.
This should clearly demonstrate that MOD2 is in fact the external modulation source for the MOD.WHEEL BUS as well as for the PEDAL/ON Bus.

What does MOD1 then do? Well, again the manual is spot on: "The MOD1 Input is a CV input on the Voyager that determines how much of the PEDAL/ON Mod Bus Source goes to hte PEDAL/ON Mod Bus Destination."
Actually you can regard MOD1 a shaper of the PEDAL/ON shaping.
And note that MOD1 does not do anything to the MOD.WHEEL bus at all (unless you go into EDIT: PGM Shaping 1 SRC, and select MOD1 as shaping source.)

So dear Moog guys: Feel free to send me new gear for beta testing, haha.

(And should anybody prove me wrong, I will of course eat 5 patch cables and a pair of headphones.)

I think this is a known issue - it's been discussed before if I recall...

zbq wrote:I think this is a known issue - it's been discussed before if I recall...

Ok. I did search the forum for some time though, without finding anything on that particular subject. But if it is a known issue, I think it should be a sticky on this forum. I am sure that quite a few man-hours have gone into trying to figure out the (missing) logic with the MOD1/MOD2.

Aha! I just found this thread:

http://moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.ph ... +mod1+mod2

So of course I am not the first to wonder, but the above thread may never have reached the Moog people. I mean, wouldn´t it be nice if future Voyagers did not have typos on the front panel?

[quote]So of course I am not the first to wonder, but the above thread may never have reached the Moog people. I mean, wouldn´t it be nice if future Voyagers did not have typos on the front panel?[quote]

Hi LDT,

I'm sorry to hear all that-what a pain in the butt. There must have been a production run that had the front panel incorrectly labeled. FYI-I have a SE (#412) from '03 that IS labeled correctly. Just curious, do you have an AE? (like Mark M described in his earlier post), as well? I'm surprised more people haven't yelled about this.

regards,

dizz

Hi Dizz
Wow, you have a ´03 Voyager with ON/MOD2 labeling on both mod busses? So a typo sneaked in along the way then.
Mine is quite new btw. A select series from autumn ´07.

I'm surprised more people haven't yelled about this.

Well, personally I have been going on for some time now, just feeling that there was something that I did not quite grasp about the MOD1/MOD2 inputs.
It was only when I got the VX-351 and I needed to find out which of the Voyager inputs I wanted to put in my patchbay, that I was analytical enough about it to figure it out 100%.

So there must be pictures somewhere of a correct labeling somewhere I thought. And yes: (cropped by me for convenience)

The right labeling: (on an RME though)


And the current wrong labeling:


EDIT:
I just found this Voyagerwith correct labeling.
This sort of points me to the theory (gee whiz, Sherlock!) that is is only the Select Series that has this peculiarity. Ups, no there was a guy with an Anniversary Edition that also had it. So maybe just those two.

Hmm, I am not sure what to make of this. I must admit that I had expected some kind of response from Moog. Perhaps they are mad at me, because they now have to make changes that cost money, I have no idea, and I am sorry to be the "cause" of problems for Moog, but as they say "don´t kill the messenger".

The Signature editions (at least #144) has this too.
There's a few things internally I know that Moog does ever so tiny slightly different now standard that Moog will mod for you if you're still under warrenty.

I belive Moog said that the re-tooling would be too costly and that the goof wasn't noticed until the Voyager was well into production. I propose someone (Moog) designs a thin magnet with the right font and type size to match that can be placed over the error. Or, we can just live with it.

Or, we can just live with it.

Sure, no problem living with it.
I just think people deserve to know. I myself had to spend some "quality time" with the MOD1 and MOD2 inputs in order to figure it out. Some people would just file the issue under "Mysterious Things" and never be 100% sure of how it works.

Everybody makes mistakes, - it is human. Although I am very reluctant to say this here, I do believe that it is in benefit of a person/company/government/dog´s image to admit ones mistakes. Even small and insignificant ones like this one. I mean, nobody got killed

I tell my boss almost daily now that his superiors can kill him, but they can't eat him.

Seems to calm him some.

I'm bumping this old thread in case anyone else has been perplexed by the labeling. Like the original poster, the "ON/MOD1" position for Mod Wheel buss source had caused me a good deal confusion before coming to the same conclusion that it is mislabeled. Yes, it should read "ON/MOD2". Now the user manual's instructions are clearer and there's no confusion when adding an expression pedal.

This gives me some kind of comfort after having been quite confused about what input for exp pedalto use. And still am!