AW: Mini-Moog clone sound

[Haible_Juergen#Tel2743]

> Hey JH,
> I just read an article in Electronic Musician reviewing the Studio
> Electronics MiniMoog clone and was just about to pose this question
> when I saw your post.....
> The article infers that the VCO plays a big part in the sound of the
> Minimoog.  Your clone should either verify this or put it to rest.  How
> does it sound compared to the real thing?
> klein_b at a1.wdc.com

Well, I cannot complain! (;->)
I know that there really are differences in the sound of different VCOs.
You might have seen my recent mail about slightly different waveforms
due to different VCO topologies. And the recent discussion about
"coupled pendulums" (i.e. slight soft-sync over VCC etc.) gave me new
insight in possible reasons why some couples of VCOs sound thin (MS-20,
Roland  100M).
But I think the SSM2033 comes pretty close to the original mini sound.
Closer than the CEM3340 at least, due to sawtooth generation vs. triangle
generation. Too bad that it isn't in production anymore!
I have to admit, when I built the clone nearly 2 years ago, I didn't know
much about different sounding VCOs. I thougt a saw was a saw, back then ...
So it might be mere luck that the VCOs I chose sound good.
After all, the different Minimoog revisions have quite different VCO 
circuits
themselves. Many people claimed to hear differences, but Moog himself
said that this was nonsense (which might have been said on marketing
purposes only, of course).
I haven't done benchmarks and A/B-tests with my clone, 'cause it is just
for me and not commercial, but I found that I can get *very* slow beating
intervalls like a minute or so, which should be a sign of good decoupling,
at least.

BTW: I heard very bad things about the SE-1 from different sides, but
nothing concrete. What is its problem? What VCO's does it use?
Does it have harware or software envelopes? How good is the resolution?

JH.