Moog Minitaur

[Dogboy73]

Help I'm crazy insane for a Minitaur!! I want it like yesterday?! It's not helping when I'm reading forum posts on the Moog Music forum from people saying, 'My Minitaur is in the post from xxxxx'! It seems these are now getting out there in limited numbers from certain retailers. But like as not it will be a fair while before they make their way to UK shores in any number (or enough to fill pre-orders). So, is pre-ordering the way forward after all?! I think that would be even more frustrating because you still don't know when the thing will turn up, even though you've paid a deposit on it This is GAS in action & I admit I've got a problem.

"My name is Dogboy73 And I am a GASaholic"


http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopi ... =1&t=13017

[Dogboy73]

The manual is now available for download
(fuelling my GAS just that bit further )

http://www.moogmusic.com/products/tauru ... nloads-tab

[Mr Arkadin]

Take my advice, do something else to distract you for a few weeks (go on hols or something), forget about it for a while. Then look again and it'll be at Digital Village and you'll be able to buy it straight away. Pre-order and you might find it appearing all over before the pre-order stock is dealt with. Remember my Taurus 3 experience? I should have just waited and I'd have got it sooner.

[Dogboy73]

Sage advice, mr akadin

[Dogboy73]

.... been reading through the manual. As well as the Note sync function, accessible via MIDI CC, there are plenty of other features that are accessed in the same way. You can change the glide type, keyboard tracking for example & whole bunch of other stuff. Very useful. But, and I acknowledge that I have sucked down quite a few beers so far on this Friday night in, I'm a bit confused by this bit in the manual, relating to the audio input on the Minitaur;

• The Minitaur's audio input is not limited to processing
monophonic signals - it can work well for processing
polyphonic signals, too. For example, connect the MIDI
Output of a MIDI-equipped polyphonic keyboard to the
Minitaur's AUDIO IN jack, and turn the MIX level of VCO 1
and VCO 2 all the way down on the Minitaur. Now you
have a polyphonic source af fected by the Minitaur 's
Filter and Envelope circuits - a great way to warm up a
sterile digital signal!

Eh?! Does that make sense to anyone!? Or is it just me?! MIDI-output of a polyphonic keyboard to the Minitaur's audio input?! It's not the beer is it? That's bollocks!!

[Bronto Scorpio]

• The Minitaur's audio input is not limited to processing
monophonic signals - it can work well for processing
polyphonic signals, too. For example, connect the MIDI
Output of a MIDI-equipped polyphonic keyboard to the
Minitaur's AUDIO IN jack, and turn the MIX level of VCO 1
and VCO 2 all the way down on the Minitaur. Now you
have a polyphonic source af fected by the Minitaur 's
Filter and Envelope circuits - a great way to warm up a
sterile digital signal!

Eh?! Does that make sense to anyone!? Or is it just me?! MIDI-output of a polyphonic keyboard to the Minitaur's audio input?! It's not the beer is it? That's bollocks!!

That really doesn't make any sense at all

Cheers
Dennis

[Uncle E]

I'm a bit confused by this bit in the manual, relating to the audio input on the Minitaur;

• The Minitaur's audio input is not limited to processing
monophonic signals - it can work well for processing
polyphonic signals, too. For example, connect the MIDI
Output of a MIDI-equipped polyphonic keyboard to the
Minitaur's AUDIO IN jack, and turn the MIX level of VCO 1
and VCO 2 all the way down on the Minitaur. Now you
have a polyphonic source af fected by the Minitaur 's
Filter and Envelope circuits - a great way to warm up a
sterile digital signal!

It's got to be a typo. I'm sure they mean to plug the midi out of the keyboard to the Minitaur's midi in and the audio out of the keyboard to the Minitaur's audio in.

[justin3am]

• The Minitaur's audio input is not limited to processing
monophonic signals - it can work well for processing
polyphonic signals, too. For example, connect the MIDI
Output of a MIDI-equipped polyphonic keyboard to the
Minitaur's AUDIO IN jack, and turn the MIX level of VCO 1
and VCO 2 all the way down on the Minitaur. Now you
have a polyphonic source af fected by the Minitaur 's
Filter and Envelope circuits - a great way to warm up a
sterile digital signal!

Eh?! Does that make sense to anyone!? Or is it just me?! MIDI-output of a polyphonic keyboard to the Minitaur's audio input?! It's not the beer is it? That's bollocks!!

That really doesn't make any sense at all

Cheers
Dennis

It makes sense but it's worded very poorly. I think they are describing what was once called a paraphonic voice structure (multiple voices through a single filter and VCA). So, if you route the audio output of your poly-synth into Minitaur's audio input and route the MIDI out of your poly-synth to Minitaur's MIDI input, the envelopes will trigger when you play the poly-synth, thus opening the Minitaur's filter an VCA.

Hope that makes sense. It was a bit of a noggin scratcher for me too.

[Bronto Scorpio]

• The Minitaur's audio input is not limited to processing
monophonic signals - it can work well for processing
polyphonic signals, too. For example, connect the MIDI
Output of a MIDI-equipped polyphonic keyboard to the
Minitaur's AUDIO IN jack, and turn the MIX level of VCO 1
and VCO 2 all the way down on the Minitaur. Now you
have a polyphonic source af fected by the Minitaur 's
Filter and Envelope circuits - a great way to warm up a
sterile digital signal!

Eh?! Does that make sense to anyone!? Or is it just me?! MIDI-output of a polyphonic keyboard to the Minitaur's audio input?! It's not the beer is it? That's bollocks!!

That really doesn't make any sense at all

Cheers
Dennis

It makes sense but it's worded very poorly. I think they are describing what was once called a paraphonic voice structure (multiple voices through a single filter and VCA). So, if you route the audio output of your poly-synth into Minitaur's audio input and route the MIDI out of your poly-synth to Minitaur's MIDI input, the envelopes will trigger when you play the poly-synth, thus opening the Minitaur's filter an VCA.

Hope that makes sense. It was a bit of a noggin scratcher for me too.

Ahh OK! That makes sense! They really should think about this sentence again though: "For example, connect the MIDI
Output of a MIDI-equipped polyphonic keyboard to the
Minitaur's AUDIO IN jack"

Cheers
Dennis

[justin3am]

Offtopic:
Speaking of polyphonic input processing. One of my favorite FX boxes is my V-Synth. Not only can you process external signals with the filters and such, you can also FM incoming signals with an oscillator, sample or a second incoming signal.

Say what?!

It's true, I don't know how it works (though I suppose it must be introducing a small delay so that the pitch of the buffered signal can be modulated) but the result is amazing! It can do this trick polyphoically too. So if I run a monophonic tone into my V-synth, set the first Osc to Input, the second osc to a sine tone then use Osc2 to FM the input... when I hold down three keys, I get three pitches independently modulating the frequency of the input signal. This might sound like it would get kind of messy but it's one of my favorite features of any synth evar! It just sounds beautiful.

[Dogboy73]

They really should think about this sentence again though: "For example, connect the MIDI Output of a MIDI-equipped polyphonic keyboard to the Minitaur's AUDIO IN jack"

Yep, makes no sense at all whatever it is they are trying to explain! It's not just the beer!

[Etchogon]

Very curious as to how the filter sounds processing audio when the external input gain is increased...

[Dogboy73]

Very curious as to how the filter sounds processing audio when the external input gain is increased...

Yes. Read in the manual that the gain goes up to 200%! Interesting.

[gunnare]

I tried to order from JR shop. The 100$ cupon worked well, and it was just 499 dollar + 78 dollar shipping to Norway. However when I clicked to pay with paypal they suddenly wanted 678 dollar. So I cancelled the transaction.

I got mail from JR shop where they say that it will be in stock in May. Oh, that is a long time to wait. I want to check this crazy idea: To send my synts output to left out, and the filter modulation to right output, and use one of this small analogs to do real analog filters for my softsynths. I will then have to make a special "filter bypass" mode. In poly mode this will work like the polymoog and MG1 realistic poly mode. (Only one filter envelope for all voices.)

I have some toughts about controller templates for Minitaur. In controller keyboards like roland A300, Pcr300, AKAI MKP49, M-audio AXIOM it is easy to make the controller template. But it is very difficult to use CCs for hidden parameters, because there is no monitoring of what you are doing. Like the hidden parameters for volume-in, filter tracking, osc2 fine tune. The controller will only display the cc number, and you will have to learn what it is doing in your head. It is especially a shame for the MPK49 controller that has a very large and high-quality LCD screen, but it will not display any useful information. The Novations will display the text of the function name set in the editor, and will have an advantage over the other controller keyboards. You can just move a slider (or touch it) and it will display its function.

These things are easier with soft synths, because you can see the knobs move on the GUI, and on my synths you can in addition see the value readouts on the GUI LCD screen, but when you are using the MPK 49 with the Minitaur the only visual feedback is the CC number and the CC value, so what about a MPK 49 firmware upgrade?

All the best
gunnare

[damoog]

i wanted a minitaur but impatience took hold and i purchased a moog phatty second hand off ebay!,i can honestly say im not bothered as the LP is just amazing,minitaur sounds great though,i plan to buy one next year if the reviews stand up