Arturia Moog Modular V VST 2 PC

I own a Minimoog Voyager and will make comparisons to that where it makes sense. I use version 1.1 and 2.0 independantly, they both are great synths with slightly different characteristics. I primarily use Moog Modular V with Ableton Live 4.0.3 to record midi/audio. I have been using Moog Modular V mostly on a 1.5Ghz Centrino with 512MB of memory and it runs rock solid here.

If you have worked with other Control Voltage gear then this will make plenty of sense to you. My first real introduction into synthesis and programming was with a Triton Studio. I didn't really understand some of the concepts there, and didn't properly get them until I had the guts in front of me and was able to build a synth the way I thought made sense. However I didn't get the deep knowledge that I have now until I got a Minimoog Voyager. I hate to say this, but it is much easier to learn this stuff when it is more hands on. Having to click the mouse to move the knobs is not ideal and you should at least make an investment into getting an off board controller so you can midi learn the knobs.

I find the copy protection a lot better from 1.0 where you randomly had to put the cd in. Now it only asks you to have the CD available when you are upgrading or importing new patches. While not ideal, I can at least live with this as I no longer have to carry the cd around with me for that odd time it asks for the disc.

This instrument is fully automatable. I haven't gotten too carried away and only tend to automate a couple parameters, but you could automate like crazy and have that super custom sound.

The presets are great for getting a starting sound, and then you can just tweak settings to get the sound you want. I wish that they had added a morphing oscillator like you get from the minimoog for some very far out sounds, but with FM and PWM you can certainly freak out the oscillator. I would say that building up a synth out of moog modular without any experience patch cabling might be a bit tough to get a sound out (though could have interesting results).

The manual for the most part is great. I learned a lot about modular synthesis and synthesis in general. At the end of the technical information they have a few tutorials that take you through building your own synth and give you enough information to make exactly what they are intending you to make, or to go on and experiment yourself. I thought this was great, and only wish that they had made more tutorials as what they provided is rather short and most of the examples build on the previous example instead of pushing you into a different direction.

Moog Modular V sounds pretty close to the minimoog voyager. It doesn't hold up in pure 'warmth' so much, and some of the sounds seem a little too 'clean'. A trick that I use to beef up the sounds is to run it through Antares tube (good or bad filter) to give it a little more edge. Any tube sim should be able to do good work here.

I personally enjoy taking a preset and setting it nicely in the mix, and then worrying about tweaking it afterwards to make it my own. So I guess about 50-60% of the time I am tweaking, but only so it doesn't sound like everybody else.

The signal path is mono, this is the type of synth it is. However you could create two independant signal paths (since you have plenty of osc) and make a stereo signal. The trick that is generally used to make the moog 'stereo' though is to use two Low Pass filters and set either the cutoff of resonance a little different between the two to create your stereo field. This works well and should be more than sufficient for most 'stock' Moog sounds you try and create.

If you want to stay 'classic' then you'll only be running this in mono which for many patches will be plenty as a moog is thick enough already. If you need it though you can switch to polyphonic mode, which is great for pads.

It is definitely worth the price tag considering the 2.0 version had such a huge feature update and it was for free! I would suggest keeping 1.1 and 2.0 installed as they are different and sound a little different.

I chose this over the minimoog v because it wasn't out at the time. I actually bought it because I had been considering buying a minimoog and wanted to get a clearer idea of how it would sound. If I had to do it again for that reason I would go for the minimoog v. However I am glad that I now have two related synths that do sound a bit different.

It hasn't crashed on me, but I have had issues running it as a plugin for Fruity Loops, the display is all messed up. Watch out for this as I've heard neither Arturia or Fruity Loops has fixed this yet.

Running this on a fast P4 Win XP box with no problems. Seems very stable in Cubase SX 2. I use this for pop and new age music.

Very easy to use -- you just have to understand modular synths. The manual is awesome. Best manual in the biz if you ask me. Out of the box, very easy to get a good sound out of it...

Holy cow -- this is the best virtual synth I have *ever* used, and I've used (and own) many, many of them, hard and soft. I literally got rid of my Nord because of this. It is that good. It exceeds any hardware VA synth I have ever touched. Now don't confuse this with a Virus C... that's a different type of beast... this is a modular emulation. And in the software VA world (specifically modular or modularesque), it is supreme in my book. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the NI stuff and own most of it, and Reaktor is a brilliant product and is my second favorite right now -- but it is very different than this. On a pure virtual modular/analog level, I feel this instrument is at the very top right now. It is for synthesists, though... not hobbyists or techno-kiddies. It's a serious tool for what it is designed to do. The sound quality is, for what it does, superb. The filters are awesome and the oscillators are smooth. This sounds like virtual done right. It is not "digital" sounding.

Awesome synth. My favorite right now. Some of the patches and configurations can hog even a fast 3.2 GHz P4 CPU. But the sound is well worth it if you are looking for this type of sound. Well worth what I paid, and then some. The just release version 2.0 of the software with some fantastic new modules, and gave the release away for free to registered users. Arturia as a company so far has been awesome as well!

I've been involved with synthesisers for over 32 years (yes I'm a gray-beard!). I had a chance to play a moog series IIIp modular for a brief afternoon way back in 1974. It was at a recording studio in Las Vegas where a friend was taping his demo. I never the forgot the sound of that unit. This software is A M A Z I N G!! Arturia have PERFECTLY captured the elusive 'Moog sound'. Forget the Minimoog. A modular from that era had a much warmer sound. Moog had to use inferior components to get the price of the mini down to a point where real world musicians could afford it. Therefore, this plugin's sound is not akin to the minimoog (GOOD!).

This software is not easy to use because a real modular moog was not easy to use. Also, Moog's way of patching things was different than everybody else and so might be a little foreign to people used to say, the ARP 2600 way. The best way to qualify the sound of this plug is to listen to old Wendy Carlos records or ELP. I have found that some of the old patch charts that are still available here and there in collectors hands for the Moog modulars translate pretty well to the software version. Arturia has made it much easier for you by combining certain modules and functions and streamlining the interface a bit. The only advantage the real thing has now is that you can stand in front of it and see the whole panel! It is bit tiresome to page back and forth on plugin. This is a reality of using software synths with the small computer monitors we have today. I also found using midi controllers not quite as well implemented as on some software synths. If you are in a hurry the mere smattering of presets they give you are a nice start. I do wish they had a lot more. If all you want is a basic minimoog sound you can get it pretty easily, but with a richer more hi-fi sound than the mini. The minimoog DID have the most stable ocsillators at that time though. Arturia's team has perfectly captured the nice instability of the modular's early moog VCOs without going too far out of tune!

I remember the engineer at the studio I mentioned re-tuning the oscillators with an oscilloscope before we patched up the thing (ah..the days!). Such b.s. is no longer a reality for us fortunate people of the 21st century. If you want this instrument and especially if like me you could NEVER have afforded one then, this plug is a no-brainer as they say now-a-days. I have compared this software sim to the many classic (most out-of-print) recordings I have, and I will say again that Arturia have really made something of a breakthrough with this softsynth. Make no mistake; This is what you want for antique moog sounds. No wonder Bob Moog endorsed it!

I'll give this a 10 because of the sound. The cpu hit your computer will take will force you to do alot of rendering of your tracks. The denormalization problem of the P4s and XP will proably be fixed soon. I am using a fast P3 and so it is much less of a problem on that platform. It is great to hear 'polyphonic' modular tracks that you can make with this. The way we used to do it when I satrted with this stuff was to build up our chords on the multi-track. That way of doing it then was almost torture! If you flubbed a note your 'chord' was wrong and you had to do so much punching in. I mention all this because you young guys need to appreciate what a tremendous advance this piece of software is. There is so much good about this software that I can't really say anything bad...want my advice? Just BUY IT!!

My first self-owned synth : a Yamaha DX 7 ! (I mean, I was one of the first to get one when they came out ...)
I use it stand-alone and as a Nuendo plug-in.
Primary OS : OS X 10.2.x

The manual is excellent : it's rare these days to find a real manual with the software - and this one really provides usefull information.
Installing is a breeze.

To get familiar with the interface you need to read a few pages in the manual (such as setting the modulation direction and depth for a plugged-in cable).

In general the interface is really great, except for the fact you cannot get a full view of the instrument (even when the monitor(s) would allow this, and there's no quick key command to switch between the different views.

On the sound :
The filters are absolutely beautifull ! I would say : they're playing in a different league then the other software synths.
The oscillators offer some unique facilities such as having all wave forms available at the same time, and applying PWM to these different wave forms as well. However, I don't think they measure up to the real moog oscillators.
That aside, I think the sound is really, really good - and you can expect to (re)create all those wonderfull analog sounds with great result.


On the presets :
There are some very good preset banks in there - it's a pity they didn't take the opportunity to have the creator explain some of the "reasoning" behind.
(e.g. take a look at the programming manual that comes with Access Virus)
Unfortunately, there are some preset banks that contain sounds with only very small differences between them !

There's one big problem : it seems to suffer badly from CPU / FPU use (and probably a bad case of "denormal" FPU use !!!).
I actually managed - I admit, this was on a single processor 1GHZ powerbook - to have the CPU go to 100% (and that means a lot of crackle in the sound) by having a very low freq on a LP filter - and that with playing 1 (yes : ONE) note.
This is a typical symptop of the "denormal" FPU use.
I really hope they will solve this problem soon - it would be a shame if due to this reason this instrument wouldn't get the succes it deserves !

4 years of experience with MIDI software synths, mainly Native Instruments products with Cubase under WinXP on a P-IV-2.4GHz machine with an Maudio Delta Audiophile sound card. Moog Modular Version 1.0 doesn't work on most machines, Version 1.1 has main bugs fixed.

One gets very easily self made simple sounds to run, but the presets and a good quickstart manual help getting an overview. More complex designs need a study of manuals, on the other hand, the fun playing around with synths comes from experimenting. Automation is limited, cubase does not record movements on most knobs, but you can use the built-in sequenzer to produce a kind of semi-automation. And this really needs some thinking! - Take time to plug and switch, save often, the app may crash even cubase, it's not hasslefreee.

Arturia has done a great job, it produces a fantastic crunchy moog sound and a lot more, your imagination is the limit! In termes of sound quality and possibilities its a moog modular at its best. - It may well be your favorite analogue emulation of your PC or Mac. But there is a but. You'll have to plug, switch, change views, keep an eye on the CPU load to create presets. The built-in presets are a mix of silly sounds to hillarious designs: Use them to hear and learn what's in the instrument.

Comparing Arturias moog modular with Native Instruments emulations, it's competitiv and worth the price. For those who always wanted to own a moog but didn't have the cash, here you get a lot of horny moog for little cash. - In termes of sound, the instrument is fully matured, thus outstanding, yet it it is a little buggy, needs time to adjust certain changes, such as fm or filter banks, presets etc. Generally the more circuits you plug on, the heavier the CPU load. This instrument is nothing for slow machines if you like experiments. For most users and unnecessary circuits removed, it may consume between 10 and 30% of a 2.4Ghz machine, but you can easily overload, 20 to 30 MB of RAM. - Remember: This is the first professional instrument of Arturias, thus draw your hat.

I play synthesizer for 10 years, and compose with Cubase. My computer is a Pentium4 2.4 Ghz, with terratec sound card.

Very intuitive interface, no install problem.
Very goog manual, lot of information about sound design.
Easy to get sound with good preset. Easy to change this preset.

maybe some difficulties for reading value and knob positions

It is the best VSTi I have tried. It sound as my analog synth, fat and clear, lot of live. Very very expressive.

The presets are a good point to begin and make own sound.

You have a lot for the price, and the sound is so good, so live, so expressive, that you can accept some hog CPU ( only with FM sound and polyphonic)

The interface is very intuitive, and without a lot of modular experience, you can make a patch very easy.