KVR Audio

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 10:43 am

Dogboy73 wrote:
Mr Arkadin wrote:The Taurus 3 and Minitaur go quite low (the lowest notes frankly are unusable as you can't tell the pitch anymore it's so low).
Same thing on my Neptune 2 - if you go low enough you don't really hear pitch anymore. You start to loose that definition & you feel it more than hear it. So I'm wondering how 5 octaves below middle C actually sounds! Will those lower octaves just be a deep, wobbly, room shaking mess? Or how will 5 octaves below sound with the oscillators both turned down & the filter at self oscillation? Actually I should try this with the Neptune 2 to give me some idea.

I tried this with my Slim Phatty. If i switch the oscillator to 16' at the octave switch, transpose two octaves down (up/down switch on the Phatty) and then play C1 with my controller i basically am exactly 5 octaves below the "Middle C". Until that the Phatty seems to sound OK but the frequency is already quite low.

I had a look at the specs of the Neptune 2. Really nice. In OSC3 the octave selector goes down to 64'. In the Phatty this goes until 16' and you reach 64' when switching the octave down two times (with octave up/down switches). If you set the Neptune 2 to 64' and play the note C1 on your controller you should be 5 octaves below the "Middle C".
The Phatty seems to have a bigger range in higher frequencies, the highest ones i reached really did hurt my ears...

Ingo

Dogboy73 · Post by **Dogboy73** » Tue Jan 24, 2012 4:21 pm

Ingonator wrote:I had a look at the specs of the Neptune 2. Really nice. In OSC3 the octave selector goes down to 64'.

OSC3 is actually the LFO section that can double up as an additional oscillator. There are additional waveforms on this section that you don't get on oscillators 1 or 2. So it's nice for getting some different flavours from. Great little synth the Neptune 2, even though it's got a few vintage like quirks. The MIDI to CV converter doesn't work to well either. Good sound though but I think the Minitaur will eat it alive for really big bass & obviously you've got that Moog flavour going on. Nice

Another Minitaur vid on YouTube;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smFz8fauLxg

More of the same but it's all good

Dogboy73 · Post by **Dogboy73** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:35 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLBNz29CKu4

Dogboy73 · Post by **Dogboy73** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:40 pm

In this short vid the guy mentions it's a half rack unit. I also noticed the little screw holes in the side. So 2 of these will probably be rack mountable. Nice

One for left, one for right (slightly detuned) for a behomoth of bass tones!! MUUHHAAAAAA!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uW85iqib5w

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:27 pm

btw, Amos on Gearslutz says that the Minitaur goes an octave higher than the Taurus 3, note 72 - the Taurus 3 goes to note 60. So it looks like the range is C0 to C5 (with C4 as middle C). Also you can octave up the 2nd osc so that presumably gets you to C6 on one osc.

GameSmith · Post by **GameSmith** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:38 am

I love the look of the Minitaur, so much so I did a web based version if anyone is interested. It will probably sound nothing like the real thing but it was fun to do. Click the screenshot to have a play:

novaflash · Post by **novaflash** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 5:40 am

"web based" what do you mean ?
crash firefox here, i have tried another link from main page, crash again.

Gonga · Post by **Gonga** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 6:14 am

Dogboy73 wrote:Also re-iterates that every parameter is controllable via MIDI CC. Spot on

The digital circuitry for midi control was what introduced the zipper artifacts in Voyager's high-freq pitch bends. They never fixed it in the Voyager. Since this doesn't do high freqs it shouldn't be a problem, but I always wondered whether the Phatty has the same problem.

Dogboy73 · Post by **Dogboy73** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:43 pm

Gonga wrote:
Dogboy73 wrote:Also re-iterates that every parameter is controllable via MIDI CC. Spot on
The digital circuitry for midi control was what introduced the zipper artifacts in Voyager's high-freq pitch bends. They never fixed it in the Voyager. Since this doesn't do high freqs it shouldn't be a problem, but I always wondered whether the Phatty has the same problem.

That doesn't sound good! Does the Minitaur's 'pot scanning' (nothing to do with searching for weed!) work the same way as on the Voyager I wonder? How I imagined this working would be nice smooth control using the actual pots but with obvious stepping, on long sweeping changes, when controlled via MIDI. Obviously MIDI's limitation from the fact it hasn't been updated for over a quarter of a century don't help none in this respect!!

GameSmith · Post by **GameSmith** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 3:27 pm

novaflash wrote:"web based" what do you mean ?
crash firefox here, i have tried another link from main page, crash again.

It means a synth in a browser (uses Java). If your browser is crashing you probably need to update your java plugin (go to www.java.com)

novaflash · Post by **novaflash** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:49 pm

GameSmith wrote:
novaflash wrote:"web based" what do you mean ?
crash firefox here, i have tried another link from main page, crash again.
It means a synth in a browser (uses Java). If your browser is crashing you probably need to update your java plugin (go to www.java.com)

hmm, java up to date here, other java app. working.
it's not really important, just curious.

Mr Arkadin · Post by **Mr Arkadin** » Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:58 pm

Fine with Firefox here. Sounds quite like it in a basic way. I probably would have loved the sound of this when things like Model-E were coming out.

mikebenson · Post by **mikebenson** » Sat Feb 04, 2012 3:35 am

Why can't VST instruments sound as good as the Moog Minitaur? I guess we just need better analog circuit modeling...like urs heckman attempted with u-he DIVA. SPICE simulations like we did back in school.

Dogboy73 · Post by **Dogboy73** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:04 pm

mikebenson wrote:Why can't VST instruments sound as good as the Moog Minitaur? I guess we just need better analog circuit modeling...like urs heckman attempted with u-he DIVA. SPICE simulations like we did back in school.

I think it's because they are chalk & cheese. You're talking about totally different technologies. Some software instruments have come close & sound fantastic. But for the raw analogue sound, if you just listen to the oscillators & sweep the filter. When you listen to the basic sounds across the range you hear the differences.

Anyway, not much on the Minitaur since NAMM. Still really stoked about this thing. Really want to buy this one on what we've seen & heard so far. I'm hoping the manual will pop up on the Moog forum before the synth is released. Be interesting to check out the full feature set, particularly the MIDI stuff. I am officially excited

Uncle E · Post by **Uncle E** » Wed Feb 15, 2012 11:13 pm

Moog told me it'll begin shipping next month.