Mellotronists

> That explains a lot - so it's [the Taurus] not a cut-down Mini at
> all?

No, definitely not. They share the same basic ladder filter circuit, 
but otherwise they are quite different. Apart from the oscillators, 
the Mini is basically an all-transistor design, whereas the Taurus 
uses 3080 ICs in the filter and VCA, for example. What this means is 
that the two instruments probably have different distortion 
characteristics -- i.e. subtle differences in tone colour even with 
similar parameter settings.

Looking at various schematics, the Micro- and Multimoog use a lot of 
the same components as the Taurus (which isn't surprising as they're 
all mid-'70s designs), but to me it seems that the Micro and Multi 
are more sophisticated and "hi-fi", so to speak, whereas the Taurus 
really is kind of stripped-down and raw. Which is probably why it 
sounds so great.

-joachim  (who'll try to be more on-topic in the future...)