Hi List,
After I spilt the beans about my b-day gift I got an email:
>>How about a capsule review of your new Minimoog?
Ow ow twist my arm! First day back at work, things pretty slow out there
(yeah I work in tech support), here goes.... this is a copy of an email that
I sent to a friend when I first got it, before I upgraded the software:
<start of old email>
Even though my b-day is today my wife gave this to me on Friday so I could
have the weekend to play with it.
First impressions...
It sounds very much like a Minimoog although I have yet to set them
side-by-side. This is something that I'd like to do and I can probably do it
over the upcoming 4-day weekend. As it happens I have one of each of the
Minimoogs - an old Musonics clear wheel with metal panel (all transistor VCO
card), the mid-serial-number one I just bought (smooth white wheels, plastic
front, 3046-based VCO card), the one that I bought long ago that had been
removed from its case and I stuck into another enclosure (726-based VCO
card), and the Voyager.
The first thing I will have to get over is how spotlessly brand-new this
thing is. I am so totally not used to this! Weird. The controls are very
solid: smooth yet easy pots, precise yet easy rotary switches, no slop, very
professional.
Next, it seems very stable, almost surgically precise. This is strange in a
Minimoog, at least to me. I ∗know∗ that it's analog in there, somewhere, but
it simply will not behave erratically or drift at all.
The filter has two peaks, separated by the SPACING control. There is one
setting where the two peaks are lined up, and it sounds like a Minimoog (at
least for now, A/B test forthcoming). Any other spacing setting sounds
different than a Minimoog. The two peaks rising or falling together
complicates the sound in a way that is totally unlike the clean crisp
single-peak Minimoog sproingey filter. And there is a highpass mode! What a
concept - highpass on a Moog, other than a 904B!
Separate LFO - yay, no more worrying about the fight between having vibrato
and having 3 VCO's together...
Big knobs where big knobs count. LFO Rate, VCO tune, VCF cutoff, Volume. On
the original Mini only the VCO tune knobs were larger than the rest.
Pitch bend is spring-loaded, but the range is pretty wide and not settable.
Takes about 5 minutes of bad-sounding solos to get this under control. Oh
well, if you want a good sound you need to practice, just like anything
else.
Waveforms are continuous from triangle to saw to square to pulse. You can
control OSC 1 from OSC 3 and slow OSC 3 down to hear the shape of the wave
while you sweep through the shape knob and hear what's going on. It is
fascinating to imagine what the circuitry can be behind this.
Octave switches have 32', 16', 8', 4', 2', and 1' ranges. That's one more.
Like going to eleven. OSC 3 has a LO switch if you really need the audio
pops of a ~5 hertz oscillator.
There are extra things that are not on a Minimoog. OSC 3 mods OSC 1 switch,
OSC 2 sync to OSC 1 switch, VCF highpass mode, and two modulation sources.
One mod source is tied in to the mod wheel, and the other is tied into a
pedal input. If there is no pedal then mod 2 is defaulted to ON. Both mod
sources can be scaled by Velocity or Aftertouch, and also scaled by their
own AMOUNT knobs. Funny thing is that you can't have aftertouch-controlled
vibrato without having a tiny amount of vibrato in the first place. It would
be nice if you could have no vibrato with no pressure and some vibrato with
max pressure.
Also the aftertouch seems like it's either nothing (light touch) or full on
(any pressure). Not 16 bits, not 14, not 7, but 1 bit. On/Off.
The mod sources give you many more options than the original OSC 3 or Noise
mix. There's a Sample & Hold in there too. However there is no way that I
have found yet to control the pitch of the VCO's with one of the envelope
generators.
There are 64 presets. They are a good assortment of different sounds. One
thing that I miss is a live edit feature - once you call up a preset, you
cannot for example reach out and add a little more decay on the filter. The
knob change is ignored. There are some things that are live in a preset -
all the rocker switches, and the 3 VCO range switches all can be altered.
There may be more things that can be changed but I'll have to experiment
more. Please note - I do not read manuals. Maybe the live edit feature is
coming in a later software release?
I've not used MIDI yet, or any of the external input jacks. There are a
whole bunch of jacks in the back, so I guess I should try them out.
There is this 3-D touch pad in the middle of the panel. Now this is new -
sure it works, but it is unexplored territory. I'm used to knowing in
advance what some control is going to do before I move it. With this thing I
have no idea what's going to happen next. Needs more experimentation. One
thing I know - my kids love that part. Maybe I should be more kid-like :)
<then on Thanksgiving Day I downloaded the new software and SysEx'ed it in>
The new software allows live editing of the knobs to tweak a preset while
playing. Much better. The modulation source and destination "PGM" options
have been turned on, so on the LCD you can call up VCO mod by EG and stuff
like that. The pitch bend wheel range is now settable.
I still have not done the A/B test with the original, but I will, I
promise!! One thing I did do is a side-by-side with my Yamaha FS1R. The FS1R
is a pretty interesting box with some extremely killer analog simulations in
it. There's a patch called "Earth Lead" that sounds very minimoogish, so I
dialed that up and set up the Voyager to match. THERE WAS NO DIFFERENCE. I
do not know if this is a tribute to the FS1R that it sounds so analogue-ish,
or a tribute to the Voyager that it can sound digitally perfect, or a knock
on the Voyager that it can sound so digitally perfect. I'm so confused.
I have yet to pull the back off of the Voyager, but I am going to. I want to
see what is in there. I do believe that it is really analog, part of it
anyway, since it is out of tune when you first turn it on. What do I expect
to see? A bunch of LM13600's? CA3080's? FPGA's? I will report back when I
have done this...
Best Regards,
- Gene