Moog MG-1 Concertmate

C'mon now, it's a preset free analog synth. What could be more simple? It's only hard to use if you have no imagination.

For what it is (a late 70's, early 80's, budget monosynth), it's feature packed. Two main Osc's plus a third that gives a very wierd, cheezy quasi-polyorgan feature, ASR, LFO with truely random setting, AutoTrig (!!!)and those wonderful Moog filters.

If you want performance concert piano sounds from this synth, then yer a dumbass! For fat bass and truely bizarre wails, you can't beat it. It's the wolf in sheeps clothing; many folks don't realize it's a Moog and pass by.

The AutoTrig, combined with the kicking filter section and judicious use of the detune section is pure gold.

I must be very lucky, as this synth is rock solid; It stays in tune with no warm up. Balls on, every time.

It has needed a little TLC from time to time, but what can you expect from a 20+ year old, second or third hand keyboard? I'm handy with a soldering iron, so I've never had to send it out. My repairs have included:

*removing the old, rotted foam everyone has to.

*Hard soldering the voltage control wire from the main board to the keyboard section. This broke when I was servicing the synth; I nearly cried when my synth would only play 1 tone no matter what key I pressed. A quick look revealed a broken wire in the harness. It was easier to extend and solder it than to replace the whole damn 8 prong plug.

*The sliders. Ahh yes,those shitty sliders; a source of constant bitching among MG-1 owners. After some tinkering, I discovered however, that the sliders are in perfect working order. It seems that the particular pots on the MG-1 have mounting points that are active (as opposed to having seperate mounting tabs and electrical connections). I retouched all the connections with my iron (adding a bit more solder for extra beef) and lo 'n behold, every single slider is smooth and quiet now.

*The RCA connectors in the back are old, corroded and crackly; I'll replace them soon enough (maybe performing the audio input to filter mod at the same time)

If you call RadioShack's support and argue enough to actually convince their droid that they actually sold it, they'll find and sell you a Xeroxed copy of the manual for $25 bucks. What's the point?

There are plenty of info resources and repair services available on the net to keep your MG-1 humming along for years. A few kewl mods and midi upgrade are out there too; just Google.

If someone stole or broke my MG-1, I'd hunt them down and dig their eyes out with a rusty spoon.

Easier than a Korg MS-20 similar to a Arp 2600 series.

VCO 1

Frequency (-2,-1, 0 Octaves)
LFO FM amount (shared with VCO 2)
Sync switch
Saw/Square switch


VCO 2

Frequency (-1, 0, +1 Octaves)
Frequency Fine
Saw/Pulse switch)


VCF

Frequency
Resonance
A(S)R FM Amount
LFO FM amount
Keyboard CV FM Amount switch (Off/Half/Full)


Mixer

VCO 1 level
VCO 2 level
Noise level
Bell Tone (Ring Mod?) level
Polyphony level

VCA

AM Source switch (A(S)R/Keyboard Gate/Bypass)


A(S)R

Attack Time
Sustain Enable switch
Release Time
Trigger Mode switch (Keyboard/LFO Trigger)


LFO

Frequency
Triangle/Square/Random switch


Miscellaneous

Portamento amount
VCO 1+VCO 2 Tuning
Polyphony Tuning
Main Volume

Rear Panel

Main Output (2 Cinch jacks)
External Input (2 Cinch jacks, not through VCF)
CV Input
Gate Input (Moog type S-Trig)

Very full, but even better with a more monophonic synth.

Very sturdie,dropped once, long distance transport couple of times just with in a year.built like a tank (tank made of plastic)

Did talk to people at Radio Shack.They said that they send them out for serviceing and it's $80(cdn) just for there servicing tech to look at it.

Very good for the price you will probally pay.

i mastered this baby in one sitting. understanding the layout is the easy part, making it sound unique and expressive is the challenge. this synth could not be any simpler and still provide such great tone.

no impressive poly here, unless youre recreating nintendo theme songs. mods will make it expandable, but i would never want to do that. to me, playing an analog keyboard should be done with the fingers, in true analog fashion. i wouldnt want more features, based on the applications i use it for, except maybe a pitch wheel.

i play this synth in a rock band and i basically play the keys with one hand and the sliders with the other. i have found that by using the mod and 2nd vco creatively, a wide range of sounds is possible on the fly.

well, i bought it in very good condition and i havent had a problem yet. despite my active playing style, ive only broken cables and stands. the synth keeps coming back for more. tends to drift out of tune live, but a pedal tuner is an easy fix.

limited to specialty repair shops, although demand for analog synths makes knowledge easy to come by. support is out there if you know where to look for it.

i wanted a simple analog synth that i could rock out on, and this baby delivers. i dont need a minimoog, id probably break it. this board has nice moog tones, from gritty bass to clear leads. i may get a moog liberation soon, but i definately plan on keeping the mg-1 as a backup. and for my money, the mg-1 beats the rogue because of its sturdy power cable and unassuming "realistic" name. with the mg-1, a little modesty goes a long way.

This synth is really easy to use. The moment you switch it on,
the sound generated is based on the settings that are visible on the
panel. I rather like this; since there is no memory in the unit the sound
will not change drastically when you turn a knob or slider so that it
"resets". If you have basic knowledge of what each slider is supposed to do
you will have no trouble using this. The only odd thing is that Radio Shack /
Tandy probably asked Moog to change some of the names of the sliders to fit
their market (i.e. the "Bell Tone", which is actually more like cross-modulation).
But again - this adds some uniqueness to the synth.

Polyphony: well - yes. But in a very strange way. You can have it set to
Monophonic or Full.

Effects: Just your basic LFOs for the Oscillatrors and filters.
No sliders or Pitch ben either, but frankly, it's no big deal here.

Expansion: No expansion capibilities but lots of room for mods if you're into that sort of thing.

Midi: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Sequencer: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Sequencing.... Too funny.

By the way - I rate this an 8 because the features are really good
for what you get. However, dropped it down from a "9.5" because
some of the range in the LFOs and fileters could be a bit wider.

The expressiveness is suprisingly good. On the one hand, you're given
a very limited set of options to work with. But on the other hand,
this limited set lets you get away with quite a number of sounds.
I've been able to re-create theremin sounds right across the board to
speaker rumbling (sub) basses. Warm solo sounds can be accomplished very easily
and there is pleanty of room for nice Cutoff sweeps, etc.

Velocity/Aftertouch on these keys is too primal to really comment...

Yes - I guess on could depend on this synth.
Having said that, it doe not take much for this to have its glitches.
It's very sensitive to dust. Sliders tend to audibly sound gritty
and the portamento on my unit has this tendency to lock up on me once
in ahwhile. I have had this professionally serviced twice. However, I
sort of expect that from these types of units. This synth does require
quite a lot of maintenance overall but it sort of adds to the appeal
of this nutty little Moog.

I doubt any of the staff at Radio Shack would have any
idea what this is at this point. I only service it
with a few synth experts in town.

I got this as an exchange with a friend so in theory, I paid nothing.
It still serves me well and I would not sell it at any point.
If it were stolen, I can't say that I'd go out of my way to look for
another. I would probably look for a better quality Moog.
What I love about this is that I can switch it on and I'm off to
the races. I've had this over 5 years now and I find that I'm
always drawn back to its solo sounding features.

I wish it were a bit more stable and reliable since it has
needed more attention than any other synth I have. I like the
fact that is can be modified fairly easily. I have not done any mods
to my unit but I like knowing that these are all possibilites and are
not big or expensive tasks.

In the very near future, I'll be posting some specs and info on my gear.
Check it out here in the coming months:
http://floor115.com

You can't get more intuitive than a pure analog board. Being able to physically tweak dials and faders makes synthesis intuitive and tangable.

Compared to most Moogs, it may be seriously lacking, BUT for the price, it's amazing. I picked mine up for $75 in a pawn shop.

The 24dB filter is the #1 feature in my mind!

Having 2 detunable oscillators is great, but I wish the 2nd oscillator extended down an extra octave to match the first oscillator for better bass sounds.

The MG-1 is perfect for a raw, quirky sound all its own. It harkens back to a 70's retro sound, but works great for modern dance music:
-SWEEPERS ARE AWESOME!: With the 24dB Filter I can listen to them all day "BRRRRRRGHGHGH!!"
-I love playing leads on it. Intuitively, it's easy to switch octaves and change filter settings on the fly.
-Autotrigger- even if you can't have MIDI, flipping on Auto-trigger yields some fun grooves.
-If you don't use it for performance, it's a great sample source. I've sampled thick kick drums, basses, acid lines, blip-bloppy kraftwork sounds, and even thick pads and stabs to be played back polyphonically on my sampler. Remember, even when your MG-1 starts to age and become unreliable for performance, you can still sample it.

DOWNSIDES- The keyboard is stiff and sluggish.
-There is no pitch bend, BUT I'm comfy just using the tuning dial.
-I like using auto-trigger to create metronomic grooves, but the modulation rate control jumps too much, instead of being more incremental, so you can't really tempo match with it.

BAD POTS! It's a shame, because it's the only thing holding mine back. Of course the first one that went bad on mine was the Filter Cutoff slider, and now it's spread to 80 percent of them. Warning: Don't be a goober like me and spray the pots if they sound dirty! It will eat away at the felt lining quicker than you think.

TUNING AND MENTAL STATE: Mine held it's tuning OK for a number of years, now it's at the point where it starts to wig-out when I turn it on, and really just needs to warm up for a few minutes.

The result: I can't use it for live performance, but it still holds up as a studio board and a sample source.

I use a digital synth, a digital/analog hybrid, and a sampling workstation, so an all-analog board, with it's warm, robust, and wildly quirky sound is a perfect complement. When I first saw the MG-1 with it's Radio Shack connection, I thought it was a joke...than I played it...and snatched it up! For $75, it's incredible! I wish I had two...then I could sync them up and make a 4 oscillator synth to be reckoned with!

10...duh...this is easier to use than a casio sampling keyboard...this is like buttering bread for breakfast.

It's monophonic, with a polyphonic ovrlay that completely ruins the sound when used. Lots of sliders, lots of fun. CV pitch and trigger inputs...has an audio input which happens to Rock if you slap a capaciter between it's output and the filter input...moog filters sound good on ALL NOISES! Would like to add a midi upgrade...but i havent the 100 bucks to fork out for it.

Deep and rich...not expressive so much in play control...it plays itself. Just trigger one note repetitively, never sounded better. 2 oscillators...one able to go an octave lower than the other...saw and pulse shaped wavs for both...a nice lfo which even has a random option.

Horrible sliders...half mine crackle, wont stay in tune for more than 10 minutes...less if your REALLY playin it! Cheesy plastic Realistic casing of course. Not the usually nice moog wood grain.

Havent looked into it...

Great beginner's synth...a little misleading by the way the label things...I'm used to seeing Envelope Generator and resonance...not Contour and Peak Emphasis...but it dosnt matter...just turn knobs and have fun.

Knobs and sliders.

Read the others.

Not Bob's beefiest OSC's but worthy of the name based on the price.

Never a problem, even though I tried to make a MIDI interface for it and fused some hair DNA from my arm to the chasis when I touched the wrong wire.

I don't have Bob's number in the tropics.

Wish I had never sold it.

I'm experianced with synth gear. I've buzzed my self apart with great ease. It's nothing to fire that thing up on improv, walk up and down that thing all night, one hand on the sliders, the other on the keys, and vice versa.

The best feature is the CV and Trig. Nothing is better then an analogue synth that you can trigger with midi.

The Modulator is very smooth on my moog.. The contour is quick and evil. Nice range on the VCF.

Its a snake charmer, but that's it really. Fat bass, and really fast transitions.

The circuits and chassie are strong.
The Sliders (pots) are pure garbage.
I've dropped mine a few dozen times...

I am in the process of mounting the circuits in a new chassie, change all the sliders, and switches to high quality components. Also, I am replacing the power supply with a very low noise, highly stable setup. The keys will be remote and detachable. My Mods. should make this thing sounding perfect and much more stronger.

Basic Electronics 101 - At your local community college....

I have had more fun per square inch on this synth than any other synth I have had the pleasure of owning.

I love simple beautiful sound, and this little bad boy simply shoves it down your throught...Get one and sleep with it.

It doesn't get any easier than this: there's a switch or slider for every parameter. Analog baby.

It's monophonic, although it has an extra oscillator called "polyphony" which is fully polyphonic. Very strange. It sounds rather organ-ish. Of course, you've still only got a single filter and envelope, so it's not true polyphony.

Very simplistic architecure: 2 VCOs (syncable) plus noise source, the abovementioned polyphony, and an extra oscillator called "bell tone", AR envelope, LFO (tri/squ/random waveforms, routable to filter and pitch), osc mixer.

Bass is definitely its strong point. This thing can rattle the windows. Great for dub, funk, drum & bass, hip-hop. (Mine is mistuned 5 semitones below proper pitch. I thought about getting it calibrated, but I like having that extra bass range. I might even see if I can tune it an octave below :) It's useful for bleeps and acidish leads too, but overall its palette is pretty limited.

If you own one of these, READ THIS:

There's a foam dust screen just under the front panel which turns into a horrible, horrible black goo over the years. GET IT OUT OF THERE!! Pull off all of the knobs and slider caps, open the case, and remove the top circuitboard. You'll see the foam overlay. BE CAREFUL - it liquefies on contact, and it's very, very sticky. Rubber gloves are a good idea.

Mine has 6 broken keys, but then a cat pissed in it. I play it thru CV anyway.

Amazingly, I've never noticed any tuning drift. Whereas my Moog Source takes half an hour to warm up before it'll stay in tune, this thing is very stable.

I've heard that Radio Shack will still supply the schematics if you ask them.

I have a peculiar attachment to this thing. (Maybe not so peculiar, since it was my first analog.)

Though it's rather limited, it's a great choice for a beginning synthesist, or if you're looking for a set-and-forget bass box.

I really want to stuff mine into a rack unit. I don't know if I have the nerve to take a soldering iron to my precious little EmGee tho.

Nifty sliders for every function. How much easier does it get?
It's simple, it's easy.

has a ring modulator, and an "organ-ish" poly voice which I have never really used. Only two waveforms, triangle and square and an ASR envelope. Has trigger/gate in/out and has a line in that you can mix with the synth's sound with a little mixer in the corner. Unfortunately the line-in is not routed through the Moog's wonderful filters but there is a mod floating around on the internet that will let you do this. I've never had the time to actually perform this mod.
This beastie is pretty old, maybe 80 or 81 and it was a consumer end product, not pro-gear, sold exclusively through Radioshack (it was basically the Moog Rogue stripped down a little and repackaged).
I really wish it had the pitch-bend wheel on it, but you can use the master-tune knob in a pinch. This wee beastie has rock solid tuning an amazing feature for a cheap analogue synth of it's era.

Nice beefy bases, nice cutting leads. Great analogue synth sound. No velocity etc. The poly voice on it is not terribly usable but asa mono analogue synth you can do some really neat stuff with it.
The sound is also remarkably clean.

Well these things are prone to the problems that face all old analogue synths, the most obvious being dirty pots. Mine spent years being neglected in a garage before I rescued it from it's previous owner and tool a lot of TLC to get it functional again. But since then it has worked flawlessly although there are a few sliders I really should replace when I get the chance.

I hear you can still order photocopies of the manual from Radioshack but if you go into the store and ask about it they'll look at you like you're an alien that just asked if you could please anal probe them. Ask to see the special order catalogues and then look it up yourself. But really, this synth is so easy to use there's no need for a manual. Just sit and twiddle to your heart's content.

Well I traded a dead moped but this guy's dead synth and appearently both of us left the deal thinking the other was a sucker. With some TLC I got the MG-1 working again (don't know if the same happened to the moped) and all I can say is I'd take a working MG-1 over a working Moped any day of the week. It's a great beastie with a nice beefy sound and easy to use. I take it out to live shows and use it in the studio. They're not too hard to find since they were marketed by Radioshack and were sold as a consumer product and not a professional synth infact I would not be suprised if they were the most common Moog synth out there. This is good because apart from being easy to find this also means they're cheap. Although I got mine for no monitary value I have talked with very few MG-1 owners who have paid more than $75 for their machine and even at $100 I would consider it still an okay buy. Just be careful though, as with all old analgue stuff there are a lot of people that automatically think it's worth big bucks just because it's old. This is not always the case. The MG-1 is neither rare nor highly sought after which means it's a very cheap buy so don't let anyone bull-puckey you into thinking they're a rare, expensive collector's item because they arn't. But they are unbelievably cool and well worth $75-$100.