minimoog- which to get!?

[Compyfox]

Well then again there's only one rebuilt for Oddity and OSCar each, grymm. And the ARP Oddysey, the OSCar and the Minimoog are totally different monsters.

Personally I'd use what works best. Then again I don't see a reason to massively use the Moog in my productions, so I'd go with a freeware solution for "testing" it. The Voltkitchen stuff is powerful nonetheless, custom modules, etc.

Then again... who will be like "OMG that's the crappy Arturia/GForce simulation in your production" in the end? If it's in a straight mix, nobody cares. If you use the Moog a lot, you might consider one of the "big bad dudes", but if you only use it once in a while, then go with the Voltkitchen one.

It's always a matter of preferences and workflow, too. Not to mention if you want to save some money for something else.

[Dave Blakely]

gmedia retro pack is my next buy

minimoogluxus sounds much nicer than va and at only a small cpu hit. it's a good intermediary before shelling out the cash for the gmedia or arturia synths. you can learn the moog programming on the luxus and transfer your knowledge upstream with the commercial synths probably?

would you say that this is this true dave? certainly there are going to be differences but the basic capabilities of minimoogs by voltkitchen (both luxus and va) should be backwards compatible with the commercial synths?

oddity and imposcar are also bad mamojamas did you work on any presets for imposcar?

You can learn the basics of synth programming on the Luxus and a bit more, but dont expect to duplicate any of the intricate patches for the Minimonsta or the Minimoog V on it, better to see it as a nice synth with a minimoog frontend and play to its own strengths. I've done two patchbanks for Imposcar, both available through the Gmedia website and my own at http://www.virtualpatchbay.com

[ChipCurtis]

So from where i'm standing there's a world of difference between the commercial offerings and the freebies (which are just nice graphics hooked up to some bolt on off the shelf synthedit modules, though there's nothing wrong with that just be aware that that is what you are getting)

No, it is not what they're getting. MinimogueVA is not just standard Synthedit modules with a "Moog" GUI pasted onto it. The osc's and filter in MimimogueVA are completely custom modules coded in C++ and then imported into the Synthedit environment. Considerable time was spent on those custom modules to model them as close as possible to the Moog osc's and ladder filter.

Glen Stegner
Voltkitchen

[grymmjack]

minimoogluxus sounds wonderful. can i ask what the difference between it and va are? it sounds almost like the sampling rate is lower on the VA and higher on the luxus. i've thrown a copy of span behind them in cantabile to do some basic eyeballing, and it looks like the range of frequency for identical patches on luxus and va are a bit wider/deeper on luxus. it sounds wonderful, and the additional cpu is negligible in my testing. though i've only tested with the rhodes poly preset and nothing custom with longer tails. both are still 5 voice polyphonic yes?

thanks for building them.

[Dave Blakely]

So from where i'm standing there's a world of difference between the commercial offerings and the freebies (which are just nice graphics hooked up to some bolt on off the shelf synthedit modules, though there's nothing wrong with that just be aware that that is what you are getting)

No, it is not what they're getting. MinimogueVA is not just standard Synthedit modules with a "Moog" GUI pasted onto it. The osc's and filter in MimimogueVA are completely custom modules coded in C++ and then imported into the Synthedit environment. Considerable time was spent on those custom modules to model them as close as possible to the Moog osc's and ladder filter.

Glen Stegner
Voltkitchen

I stand corrected, what your getting is some custom synthedit modules and some off the shelf modules and a Moog GUI, how could i have been so daft....

[ChipCurtis]

minimoogluxus sounds wonderful. can i ask what the difference between it and va are? it sounds almost like the sampling rate is lower on the VA and higher on the luxus. i've thrown a copy of span behind them in cantabile to do some basic eyeballing, and it looks like the range of frequency for identical patches on luxus and va are a bit wider/deeper on luxus. it sounds wonderful, and the additional cpu is negligible in my testing. though i've only tested with the rhodes poly preset and nothing custom with longer tails. both are still 5 voice polyphonic yes?

thanks for building them.

Luxus is a spin-off project by Gunnar Ekornas who also did work on the VA. It was really meant to be a sort of "research & development" version rather than the regular "performance" version (VA) with all or most of the bugs taken out. He is the main guy responsible for the custom components, adding the polyphony and the delay, and a good number of the presets -- on both versions.

The story here is that there was really only supposed to be one version (VA), but Gunnar decided to continue expanding, expanding, and expanding the possibilities... I wanted it to remain simple, non-bloated CPU consumption, and a little closer to the simplicity of an original Minimoog. So we split off from each other when it came time for the Luxus. I didn't support the graphics work for Luxus, which is why some fonts, knob placements, etc. look a little off, or hastily done. Remember, Luxus is a "research" version that is meant to test out possible expansion for the VA. To me, it remains in a somewhat unfinished state. The VA is considered to be a "finsished" performance version. Careful attention was paid to removal of bugs, CC mapping, and graphics consistency.

To be honest, I have no idea if there are different custom modules in the Luxus than in VA. To my ears, VA sounds great. I never bothered to A/B them under such scrutinty... to me if it sounds good, it is good.

If there are any additional features in Luxus that makes it worth it for you (or if it's just the "sound"), let me know, and I'll see if I can't get myself and Gunnar back on the same page with regard to a new revision of MinimogueVA.

[dirty oscillators]

it comes down to whatever sounds good to YOUR ears. it doesn't matter to me how it was made; if it was made in synthedit and it sounds good then great, that's all that matters to me.

i know this is off topic, but i agree with an earlier post - the Oddity sounds great. it actually has "weight" to the sound which is something i find other vsti's lack.

[grymmjack]

minimoogluxus sounds wonderful. can i ask what the difference between it and va are? it sounds almost like the sampling rate is lower on the VA and higher on the luxus. i've thrown a copy of span behind them in cantabile to do some basic eyeballing, and it looks like the range of frequency for identical patches on luxus and va are a bit wider/deeper on luxus. it sounds wonderful, and the additional cpu is negligible in my testing. though i've only tested with the rhodes poly preset and nothing custom with longer tails. both are still 5 voice polyphonic yes?

thanks for building them.

Luxus is a spin-off project by Gunnar Ekornas who also did work on the VA. It was really meant to be a sort of "research & development" version rather than the regular "performance" version (VA) with all or most of the bugs taken out. He is the main guy responsible for the custom components, adding the polyphony and the delay, and a good number of the presets -- on both versions.

The story here is that there was really only supposed to be one version (VA), but Gunnar decided to continue expanding, expanding, and expanding the possibilities... I wanted it to remain simple, non-bloated CPU consumption, and a little closer to the simplicity of an original Minimoog. So we split off from each other when it came time for the Luxus. I didn't support the graphics work for Luxus, which is why some fonts, knob placements, etc. look a little off, or hastily done. Remember, Luxus is a "research" version that is meant to test out possible expansion for the VA. To me, it remains in a somewhat unfinished state. The VA is considered to be a "finsished" performance version. Careful attention was paid to removal of bugs, CC mapping, and graphics consistency.

To be honest, I have no idea if there are different custom modules in the Luxus than in VA. To my ears, VA sounds great. I never bothered to A/B them under such scrutinty... to me if it sounds good, it is good.

If there are any additional features in Luxus that makes it worth it for you (or if it's just the "sound"), let me know, and I'll see if I can't get myself and Gunnar back on the same page with regard to a new revision of MinimogueVA.

thanks for the reply.

basically the sound of luxus sounds a bit brighter/deeper/larger. it almost seems like the va version is running at a lower resolution than the luxus. not a studio guy no formal education so cant really explain it, but luxus sounds crisper/bassier/better.

i've recorded the output of both from a standard pad test MIDI file i've been using, and it appears that perhaps it's simply a volume thing? one being louder than the other? (the luxus louder).

here is a screenshot:

the red rules in the shot show the peaks of the first notes of the pad waveforms for va, luxus is different.

and here is the pad_test.mid file

load luxus and va and set them both to use the poly presets (rhodes and vibes) ... a|b them in your host and hear for yourself.

is it simply louder? there is no articulation or modwheel trickery or anything just plain old playing held midi notes from that .mid...

the luxus sounds better to my ears and i only compare with analysis to prove to myself.

[vista]

...THIS



http://www.geocities.jp/mu_station/vstlabo/nanoog.html

[Spaceman Sounds]

Davey... you're alive then .... spacey here how you doing?

[poonna]

Grymmjack,

No offense, but are you sure that the velocity tracking is not activated on LUXUS? IMO, it looks somehow like it is affected by velocity and it's not just the amplitude. Or, perhaps the internal gain factors are different on the two, so same patches will sound different?

And, psychoacoustically, louder often sounds better.

I've not tried them, though, just speculation, and could be seriously wrong.

[smart]

gmedia retro pack is my next buy

A smart purchase

[Uncle E]

definitely creamware minimax (but you need a creamware card) or minimax ASB
www.creamware.de

Agreed, the Minimax is more accurate than any of the native ones by a wide margin, it's even closer to a Minimoog than a real Moog Prodigy is. However, I still use Minimonsta for most of my synth programming because of its excellent interface & flexibility. The Minimonsta offers an incredible range of sounds thanks to every single parameter having a dedicated set of modulators, yet it's lain out so well that it never gets confusing to use. Forget this Moog vs. that Moog, or even hardware vs. software; Minimonsta is simply one of the best synths ever made PERIOD.

[Vonbrucken]

...THIS



http://www.geocities.jp/mu_station/vstlabo/nanoog.html

hehe looks good

[Compyfox]

If the creator wouldn't be japanese I would contact him at once about this little critter and ask him out what it is, how he built it, if it's a clone, etc.

And if nobody would have posted that yet-another-Nintendo-sounding-like synth a couple of hours ago, I guess nobody would know that "nanoog" actually exists.