Moog Minimoog

Well I decided I would test a minimoog vs arturia software, and was impressed that the arturia could sound every bit the same as the minimoog. The trick was running the output of my computer through the same tube amp I use for the Moog, and now in a blind test you can't tell which is which. So all you need is a good amp or a good speaker system, I suggest the tube amp because that is how you get the classic minimoog sound.

The minimoog is a monophonic synth, the arturia plugin can run polyphonic if you have the CPU power, plus a modulation matrix, so the minimoog is essentially just a collector piece, you can duplicate the sound exactly with digital and do much more than the original could ever do. There is no real difference.

It is not worth the price they fetch if you play because I have done extensive testing and you can make digital sound exactly the same as analog. It is only of interest to collectors now for historical reasons.

Retarded easy.

Bare bones... but the tone is unreal.

Relatively speaking Im gonna have to give it the lowest possible rating cause sorry- its true!

Where is the 1,000,000 ??? I only see 1-10... I own 9 synths and its by far the BEST of all of them.

note- I do NOT own any modular systems.

Ill go middle ground- unstable ocsillators EVEN when serviced unless you maybe get the buffer board models.

Sadly, they sound WORSE... Not always but QUITE OFTEN!

Must tune it constantly to be perfect BUT its that imperfection that makes MAGIC HAPPEN!

Huh?

I write this to help clear up 1 thing- The Voyager is NO MINIMOOG. The Voyager is INCREDIBLE but it does NOT nail the bottom of the original. Nor does it match the edgy instability of the top end. And I BOUGHT it for the BASS!

If you have many synths- get an original and deal with all the BS for that incredible TONE! If you only have 1 or 2 synths GET THE VOYAGER- way more bang for the buck.

Its sad the way Moog insists on saying the Voyager can be a mini cause its just not true. I paid too much and its worth EVERY PENNY!!!

it's a simple analog synth engine, really easy to use. the only thing obscure is how the release works. so it may take up to 30 seconds to figure out.

it's power is it's deep sound and filter characteristics, it's programming power is its three oscillator design. it gets more animated if you sacrifice the 3rd oscillator for a second LFO. i use all of my monosynths with a Pro-2000, so it integrates into my sequencing environment without modification. be aware that it uses S-trig for gating, and the CV control for S-trig is different than standard gate, so you need either a MIDI/CV box with S-trig output or an S-trig cable with a built-in gate-to-S-trig circuit.

it's THE classic sound, heavy bass, everything 1970s and world-class theremin-esque sound. not a powerful synth engine (like an Xpander), not a bread-and-butter synth, but wonderful sound.

it's old, you will spend some money having a well-qualified tech bringing it up to speed and replacing old parts. as solid as anything once you do.

customer support is user groups (esp Lords of the Mini) and synth techs.

i own a host of synthesizers: stuff like a Prophet VS, MaxMSP, Xpander, Jupiter-6, Poly Evolver, Radias, FS1R, SY99, Mono/Poly, Pro One etc. the Mini is huge in my studio, i was so impressed with the quality of it's sound that i bought a second one- now i have a '74 and a '79. if i couldn't afford one, i would buy a Mono/Poly. the Mini is really worth its weight in gold if you can afford it but don't sacrifice critical gear to finance it- its better to be able to produce music than have a great sounding monosynth.

So super easy it's superbad! All synthes sould be this good! Seth and Evan would aprove!

The best feature is it's sound.Just don't listen to ELP or Wakeman examples.You will puke.It's got the golden Jewish tone.In other words, it's the chosen one!

This is one superbad analog synthe! The best action after bushings replaced.The best filter bar none.

forget what that one lame poster said about tuning it with the stump of your arm.My mini is rock solid.All mini need an overhaul dumbass.

It sucks to have to send it off to a slow tech.If a tech is reading this, wake up man and give us better service.Get off your ass and do some work!

Don't listen to any lame Wakeman stuff...Oh how I want to puke when I hear that crap!I hope those guys didn't get laid back in the day because it sucks to think anyone would fall for the BS.

Simple, but refreshing. The sound is alive and changing so I don't see it has having a static set of sounds. Slight movements change its character. It sparkles. So, yeah, its not a modular, but its features are its organic sound.

Its 3 wonderful sounding oscillators, a wonderful sounding filter, and wonderful sounding VCA. Its up to you what you do with it. You scare me man. The Minimoog has a rich, warm thick sound. Many possibilities if you are capable of thinking outside of the box.

Ive had trouble here and there, but I am told they should last with regular check ups.

Lots of techs out there. Its easy to fix most times

If it were stolen, I'd buy it again. After yelling "why me" to the heavens. Nothing compares. Ive heard lots of synths and this one is unrivaled in Rich. Colored. Warm. Fat (yes, plump) quality sound. It might be a curse cause it might make all your current synths sound like crap.

I'd give the mini a 10 for ease of use if it stayed in tune, scaled properly, fit in a mix,and didn't have it's keyboard mounted to 20 lbs worth of pressboard, all of these "features" make it prohibitive to play, record, or gig with. The 5 is for having those huge 70's guitar amp style knobs that you can turn with your stump or your chin while you try to reach around the back to recalibrate the tuning mid song.

Well, it get's a 2 because it IS a synthesizer and at the very least not an organ or a kazoo.
This "amazing" synth doesn't have PWM, OSC SYNC, or an LFO that will go any slower than what sounds like forced vibrato, i.e no slow sweeping changes, or PWM chorusing effects, or even the hardsync sound the "lesser" Prodigy makes. It will sound FAT though, mostly because of the fact that it's 3 Oscillators aren't stable, can't be synced, and are clipping that lowpass filter we all love. In the 8 years I owned my mini, and it never made it onto a single recording.

Think "progressive" rock. It's the most DATED monosynth i've ever played. It sounds like the audio equivalent of a pair of bell-bottoms, flashy, but FOREVER out of style.

NO. TEMPERATURE DEPENDENT TUNING PROBLEMS.

I sold my mini in 1999 for $1500. It is worth the $100 I paid for it in a Pawn Shop in 1991 when the same burn-out boomers that claim to love it were playing Korg M-1 digital organs. I've been actively making electronic music for 18 years. I'm using a Doepfer a-100 modular system, a Roland System 100 semimodular system, a SCI PRO-1, a Prophet 600, a Soundart Chameleon, and an OSX equiped Motorola based notebook computer.

The finest monosynth ever. Finer than my Signature Voyager, dare I say.

Monophonic. The action is excellent now that I've replaced the bushings in the keyboard.

Gritty, warm pure analog tone. It's like any good musical instrument in that it makes you want to play.

I would depend on it. I may gig with it. After all, they were built to be played and enjoyed. If you do get one, finding a good tech will be costly. Be willing to spend some serious money if you are not technically inclined.

I'd buy another. I love how inspiring it is and that it doesn't sound the same from day to day. I love it!

I am 49. I've been into electronic music since the middle 60's.
Analogue synthesis is therefore as easy as ABC on the mini.
After all it was, and 40 years later, still IS the analogue synth.

It's monophonic of course.However it's processing features for a particular sound are limitless.
One has to remember that it is a 70's machine.
For it's time it was well advanced

A very playable real-time expressiveness, once you've learnt all the
functions of the controllers.

Mine is serial no 12676 and dated 27/02/80
It's now therefore over 25 years old and as far as I am concerned, is going to outlast some of the more modern stuff I have bought.

A legendary synthesiser and responsible for the creation and evolution of a 20th century musical era.
The dream of a genius was made into a real musical instrument
It was the best in the 70's and as far as I can see, is today still vastly superior to anything on the market!
All the software comes and disappears virtually overnight.
Even modern hardware synths have struggled to establish any status against this brilliant machine.
After all, what hardware or software synth ever made, doesn't try to emulate the minimoog?

Editing is full-frontal... everything, even the sound is straight in your face. No hidden menues or abstract editing crap like that. It is the prototype of a synthesizer. If you own the original patch-sheets, filling them out or re-programming sounds on the moog can be big fun. look every parementer in order, there you go. fast! no need for storing patches when every knob you set is on the parementer you see. 'so the unit is more physical. more instrument than any other synth i know. i looked into the manual, but... well... mine written in 1978... its really old and too theoretic about simulating trumpets and stuff. who cares now.

no polyphony. but polly rides the pony. it is living. keyboard action is great. get internal midi upgrades. it gives you even a seperate LFO. if you know other analogues, the minimoog's keyboard latency is VERY little. you even can get your fingers floating around and becoming your own sequencer... you can drift away by this.
no hangs or glitches. i never had an instrument, that is so quiet if a note is of, and so wild if a note is on.

it makes every note sound like music. headphones are... well ok, but they dont fit the sound for real. you have to try it over the monitors or the pa. even the highest osc. ranges sound organic, living, real. try a nord lead or so, you will lough about the plastic crap of VAs (but only if you did not spend thousands of bucks for the VA). The only VA i really like is the virus, but.. it fails in high regions too, as it does in deep low notes. the minimoog is no simulation, it is real. and even so real is the keyboard. i love the keys and the interface, pitch bender and routable modulation wheel. and with the FMs of the vca or fitler, you can create the strangest sounds... who says you only can do ELP or wakreman sounds with the minimoog? ha!

oh sure you can. but i never will take it out for gigging. if there is only a scratch! it is a beautiful "mobelstuck", it fits so perfectly in my working room. satin-black with silver knobs and orange/blue switches. like a grand piano, not toy-like. robust. you can rely on. that's why musicians toured with mini-moogs back in the 70s.

bob moog is dead. but electronic music services know how to revitalize or repair your moog, maybe if the thing got involved in a car crash or you threw it for uknown psychical reasons on the floor. anyway, this is built like a church. for eternity. but check for the unbelievable lintronics midi upgrade or get one with stabilized osc. boards. you will never stand in front of closed doors with your moog!!!!

If it were lost or stolen, I would probably get lost too... or so ;)
I love its musical behaviour, the top sound processing... absolutely NO background noises or vca gating noises after a longer release... it fads in and out. ultra fast or endlessly slow. I did compare it to my sh2, some say "rolands attempt to a mini moog"... but dudes... the sh2 feels much more like an old, swampy sawtooth-filter machine with a much cheaper interface. or compared to the ms20... it is missing the stomache of a sh2 or minimoog, and the filters are not that round and tasty. or the doepfer a100... if the a100 is a maerklin home train, the mini is solid LGB. nothing comes close. and it is even not MINI or weightless. it is only mini in terms of size to a modular synthesizer! Well, basically I was only fun bidding on Ebay... but I finally got the Moog! And I thought, ha... sure I will sell it... no money for an old box like this, but I'll give it a try...BUT THEN I REALIZED: NOO I will NOT trade it for a voyager, andromeda or what else too. listen to gezebo's "love in your eyes" the mini moog lead is cryin with joy (and even he sings about the minimoog in this song)!!!

The UI is simple hands on.

Everything you could ever want except for sync and distortion- some have Riviera music system mods that do this though. Cool!

The Voyager is no replacement for the original Minimoog- I am not a dinosaur stuck in the past but a young budding true player. I am 26 and have been playing since I was 4. I listen to classic stuff like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Jan Hammer, Jean Luc Ponty, Manfred Manns Earth Band, UK, Allan Holdsworth, Jeff Beck, Happy the Man etc... and there are a couple things that namely make the Minimoogs sound. Everyone always thinks its just the filter but it's much more than that. #1 the filter, #2 the overdriven VCA design, #3 the 3 stage envelopes, #4 the resonance- portamento thing how the resonance gets lower as you play lower on the keyboard, and most importantly, the Minimoog has no dead spot on the pitch wheel the way every single modern day Midi keyboard does on the pitch wheel. The only keyboard made these days with no dead spot or should we say the only keyboard made these days you can use to achieve natural sounding vibrato through the pitch wheel other than the original Minimoog is the Nord Lead with the pitch stick. That is never talked about and it really needs to be brought to attention. Also everyone always talks about a fat 3 oscilator sound, well all the old fusion records you love so much use only 2 oscillators and the 3rd is used for an LFO for the mod wheel. So if you have a 2 osc synth with an LFO, it has the same architecture as the Mini did on most records you love so well. Everyone alwasy goes ooohhh 3 oscialators, yeah but the 3rd you are likely to use as an LFO for the mod wheel.

If you love it, it loves you back.

The folks at Moog music would rather try to sell you the vastly flawed Voyager than try to deal with this thing.

Overall, this thing, the original Moog Taurus Pedals and the Yamaha CS80 are the old analog boards with the most musical personality. It's a classic. The ultimate synth would be to buy a Studio Electronics MidiMini and control it with a Nord Lead as a controller then you would have the ultimate in expressiveness, reliability and sound.