Mariana

Ill start by saying, this is a NICE sounding, playing synth and I am not the usual audience for Moog products, especially the new post-acquisition Moog. Im really not into "classic" or analog sounding emulations or new offerings from that space, and I see classic/analog as a small part of just one modern synth. I got this because of a steep discount and only wound up paying $40 for it.

That said, Im giving Mariana 3 out of 5 stars until CPU performance is improved a bit. This thing sounds huge, it has meat on its bones, and the various sub frequencies it pushes are super fun and propulsive in my music, but the CPU consumption of Mariana borders on broken on my modern studio workstation.

Using Cubase 14's enhanced realtime ASIO meter(it makes a graph), you can easily see Mariana causing huge (80%??) ASIO peaks without any other processing, any other instruments loaded into a project. I was so confused about what was doing this on my project that, before I looked at the meter, I was removing/powering off other instruments first, then realized it was Mariana.

Mariana has quite a bit more sound character than merely a "bass synth", which is another pleasant surprise. So far Ive found great ambient/drone sounds, huge bass of all flavors, and even many bass tones or presets which just sound like interesting leads or pads when played on the higher octaves. This is a great synth --- it just REALLY needs an optimization pass to reduce that CPU use.

edit: oh, also there is a fairly small number of stock presets, and... an there is a store to buy new preset packs from... which is another reason I took 2 stars away.

As always, Moog has created another really usable and great sounding synthesizer and I think it has great potential ... I think it is pairing very good with Animoog Z ... Totally recommended.

Fatter than Santa.

This virtual synth sounds like the rumblin' thunderin' bass from a Moog Modular on steroids. No need to say more...

... except that it can easily become dominant in the soundscape, so it is important that you know what you are doing.

In addition, the fat sound comes with a price - it draws significant resources from the CPU. Not extreme, I have other virtual instruments or effects that load the computer just as much, but you probably shouldn't run this if you don't have a powerful enough processor. The advice is -Try before buy! If the computer can handle it, Mariana is a fantastic plug.

Five stars but the last ones shine dimly because of this.

Needs serious work: it's a CPU hog and the sound quality just can't justify it--it's nothing extraordinary. It's good, but it definitely does not sound like a hardware Moog (which it was intended to replace on my end, a Minitaur specifically) and the filters really lack that special something I want to hear in analog bass synths. In any case, there's no way such a massive CPU hit on latest generation CPUs can be justified.

Secondly, putting so many basic controls on another page makes programming a real pain.

Thirdly, MIDI Learn is a PITA to use and is well-hidden.

I really wanted to like this synth, but even at $49 it's a purchase I regret. The UI really is terrible to use. We can handle all the basic synth functions on one page. That isn't "cluttered": it's normal for synth users in 2024.

Just please standardize around right-click MIDI Learn/Unlearn and be done with it. Stop trying to complicate things just because you can.

It bears repeating: even on an i9-13900K, the CPU hit is intolerable. There's just no excuse for this in 2024, not on a synth that sounds quite this underwhelming, anyway.

Many other devs are making far more analog-sounding, meatier bass synths (or synths that happen to be fantastic bass synths) that are quite well-optimized and well-behaved. Moog is seriously dropping the ball here.

v 2.0 better be a massive step up in terms of sound and usability or I can't honestly see myself pulling this one back up. Really disappointing.

It seems Moog - like Roland - will also be joining the ranks of legendary hardware creators that couldn't code their way out of a VB hello world calculator. The sound is brilliant, but the DSP load and UI is quite possibly the worst i've encountered.