Old School Moog - the mini is back!

[danbroad]

Can't believe no posts yet about this... or maybe I just haven't looked hard enough...

www.moogmusic.com

the new Voyager, priced below the Prophet, Virus and above the Little Phatty.. I know it's monophonic, but this surely has to hit the secondhand price craziness of the mini - doesn't it?

You could pay £1700 for a decent minimoog, or you could pick up a brand new Voyager Oldschool [which looks perrrtty alright, surely close enough to the old mini] for about a monkey less [note: for our US friends, a monkey is about $1000]!

Am I the only one who'd do without 7 extra notes of polyphony [prophet08] and pay a couple hundred more than a Phatty for one of these???

Dan

[aallvor]

Am I the only one who'd do without 7 extra notes of polyphony [prophet08] and pay a couple hundred more than a Phatty for one of these???

Dan

NO, you're not

One would need pretty nice converters to catch all that analog goodness, though...



*starts rummaging around in drawers for unused credit cards*

[Shy]

$2595 for a monophonic synth that doesn't really sound that "old school" to me, more like a tamer cleaner "modern" version. Simply amazing. For that kind of money I could get something SO much better it's not even funny. For less than a monkey more, I could get a brand new Cwejman S1 Mk2, damn it.

[z15]

$2595 for a monophonic synth that doesn't really sound that "old school" to me, more like a tamer cleaner "modern" version. Simply amazing. For that kind of money I could get something SO much better it's not even funny. For less than a monkey more, I could get a brand new Cwejman S1 Mk2, damn it.

It's not too tempting for me either. I've also very much preferred the slightly "crappier" / more vibey sound of two old Minis (one of them in pretty much perfect serviced condition) I've played to the new Voyager + LP. And on the other hand, I'd very much prefer a modern semi-modular instead of a modern Moog or Prophet. And I'd still prefer an Odyssey to a vintage Mini though, so I guess I'm not really a member of the target audience after all.

Of course, that isn't to say I didn't like how Little Phatty / Voyager sounds and they are good instruments and kick ass compared to lots of more mediocre stuff. It's just that I'm not TOO enamoured and I wouldn't really pay the asking price for them myself.

[Shy]

What's kind of sad is that they seem to realize people want the old school sound, but they make no effort whatsoever to faithfully reproduce it. And they -could- reproduce it if they really wanted. But I guess they think that people nowadays won't want to deal with issues that "lower quality" components which are responsible for the cool sound of the older synths have, like maybe tuning.
It certainly is a fine synth, but it's nowhere as good as the truly old school one when it comes to sound, which is kind of ridiculous, because nowadays the main reason someone would get an analog synth is because of the sound.

[z15]

What's kind of sad is that they seem to realize people want the old school sound, but they make no effort whatsoever to faithfully reproduce it. And they -could- reproduce it if they really wanted. But I guess they think that people nowadays won't want to deal with issues that "lower quality" components which are responsible for the cool sound of the older synths have, like maybe tuning.
It certainly is a fine synth, but it's nowhere as good as the truly old school one when it comes to sound, which is kind of ridiculous, because nowadays the main reason someone would get an analog synth is because of the sound.

Well yeah, I'd say that "nowhere as good" is very much a matter of taste - I guess some people would find that remark flame-worthy or offensive since some people most probably prefer the new ones and there's nothing wrong or odd with that. But my taste agrees with yours. And you're probably right that the reason why people seem to be attracted to vintage analog synths (besides the fact that the Analog Warmth, Tube Distortion and all those things get spread around and around in the net) is indeed all the imperfections and awesome crappiness -tm- that comes with lower quality components.

I haven't been particularily enamoured with Prophet 08 (at least the things I've heard, still haven't tried it myself), neither LP or Voyager - even though I would be very happy to use any of them in my songs, I'm not really lusting for them. They didn't give the "oh, hell, I want this"-feeling so I'm happy to use mostly kickass softsynths and some crappy and cheap but lovely pieces of vintage gear to make my sucky music instead.

[rosllow]

the general consensus on the interwebtubes seems to be that if you're paying that much for a moog you'd do better to pay a bit more for the midi, display and memories and get a normal voyager.

i guess it depends on the price in the shops.

rosllow.

[fac]

I'd rather buy a Little Phatty myself. I have a small dotcom modular (being expanded this year) which sounds very moog and can emulate this voyager old school. But a basic 2-osc analog synth with preset memory would be nice to have. The LP interface doesn't seem too convoluted and the price isn't stratospheric.

On the other hand, the similar-priced Mono Evolver Keyboard would be a more interesting purchase.

I'm more interested in the LinnDrum II analog thing. I hope it's available for Xmas 2008.

[JimmiG]

It's strange that while the other companies like DS and Alesis can produce extremely advanced analog synths, the Moog company have to stick with the same 70's design, now even dropping patch storage and midi. You'd think technology has evolved (no pun intended) to the point that an affordable, polyphonic Minimoog would be possible. Indded, for "oldskool" fans, it's probably a wet dream come true, but I prefer forward thinking instruments.