Arturia Moog Modular V 2 VST PC

I've been playing for 40 years, piano and synthesiser.
I'm using V2 of the MM.
I'm using this in stand-alone mode, not as a plug in.
My music could be described as "Ambient" but it isn't.
My computer is a Pentium 3 1 gig, with 512 RAM and 40 gig hard drive, and a Sound Blaster Live card, and it all works fine, just fine, despite the fact that people told me it wouldn't.

Very easy to use, if your familiar with modular synthesisers, some quirks regarding some un-original internal "pre-wiring" but once youve got the big picture in your head your OK. But this makes the MM2 not "truly modular"
As I said, I'm not using this as a plug in. Plug-in's have always been a nightmare in my experience, your better off using one computer for synths and another for recording/sequencing, that way you won't end up taking Prozac.
The manual is fine, very comprehensive.

It is very "Moogy" and lush, it's a very big sound. I can be inspired by the simplest of patches that need very little if any effects adding to them, and in true modular style the number of parameters you can alter in real-time gives endless variation.
With my computer I can go up to about five or six note polyphony before the processor starts complaining, but thats not a problem for me, after all, the original was monophonic so anything on top of that is a bonus.
Latency is around 40 ms, but seeing as I use mostly abstract slow moving textures it isn't a problem.

Fantastic, bottomless programming, great big "smooooooth" sound, addictive, you can get lost in the Moog Modular 2 and never be seen again. Don't start comparing this with the real thing, its not fair, but Arturia have done a great job in coming as close as possible to the original sound. I love it, and seeing as I'm never going to be able to afford an original, this is Gods gift.

I've been performing live ambient music for 2 years and have been recording in the studio for 3 years. The Moog Modular V 2 is one of the best vst synths I have found It ties in well with Sonar 3 and Chainer. It's excellent in stand alone mode as well. It works well with my Pentium 4 2.0 gig PC. I get very little latency with my Delta 66 sound card. However, some involved patches with several voices can eat up your CPU quickly with the MMV2.

If you understand the basics of subtractive synths, then you can get up and running with the MMV2. It's like a flight simulator and makes a great learning tool for synths. Installation was easy and all it asks for is the serial number. You will need the installation disk for importing new presets into the MMV2. There are quite a few available on Arturia's website. It comes with some very nice presets that are all very tweakable. The manual is about 130 pages, and does a fair job. The MMV easily responds to my external midi control, and if you have a controller with lots of control pots and sliders, the MMV2 can talk with them and learn. An interesting trait of the GUI is the patching cables. They are very similar to the patching cables found in Reason. One complaint with the GUI is that the calibration numbers on the panels are hard to read. Fortunately when the mouse goes over a control there is a popup that tells the calibraation. Another complaint is when the MMV2 is in VST mode, the control pots are too sensitive and will jump suddenly when activated. That's not an issue in stand alone. The GUI mimics an original Moog Modular, and it is quite large. The user must scroll up and down the interface when patching.

The MMV2 sounds great. It's Moogish sounding, but does not sound as good as the real analog synth. It has it's own sound, and that's alright by me. It also can by polyphonic which is handy for making some great pads. You can add as many voices as your CPU can handle. It also features a unison mode. The 3 x 8 step sequencer is one of the great features of the MMV2. This is a very expressive instrument and with the two pannable output amps,the Delay, Phaser and Chorus; you can get some fine stereo sounds. There are quite a few presets available, and they are excellent. A whole new sound emerges as soon as you turn the cutoff of the filters. The presets that come with the MMV 2 are really great for learning from. They give you some valuable hints on how to wire this synth up.

The interface might slow some people down, but for those who tweak their own sounds, this is truly one of the best out there. My favorite feature is the step sequencer. Also I like the fact that all the routings are right in front of you. The mod matrix isn't buried by a bunch of different menus or pages. I have had some crashes with the multimode filter. Other than that it has been quite stable. The best filter is the Low Pass filter, and I have never had any trouble with that. The reason I purchased the MMV2 is the sound. It is very distinctive. My only complaint is that it is a bit of a CPU hog. With The Moog Modular V 2 and Reaktor one would have most any sound covered.