Review: Moog Music Moog Guitar Paul Vo Collector Edition

Jan 1, 2009 12:00 PM, By Mike Levine

           
 

A LEGENDARY SYNTH COMPANY'S TAKE ON THE GUITAR

BONUS MATERIAL
Download the Spec Sheet as a PDF

FIG. 2: The guitar’s knobs and switches allow most functions to be controlled from onboard.

The leftmost (from the player's perspective) of the control hardware is a Master Volume knob. Next to that is the Vo Power knob (see Fig. 2), which governs the strength of the sustain and mute features. The Harmonic Balance knob adjusts how much Vo Power goes to each pickup, making it kind of like a tone knob for the sustain and mute features. Turning this knob changes the harmonic content of the signal, resulting in higher or lower overtones being produced. You can turn it while the note sustains, changing its character as it goes along. You can also control this same parameter with the Control Pedal when the 3-way Filter Toggle switch is set to Tone.

The Filter Toggle is one of the key controls on the guitar. When it's set to Tone (position 1), the guitar responds to its own tone control knob (called the Tone/Filter knob), like a conventional instrument. Position 2 turns on the Articulated Filter, which gives you a more intense filter effect the harder you hit the note. When it's used with the Mute mode, you can get some really cool, sitarlike tones (see Web Clip 1). When the guitar is in either of the two filter modes, the Tone/Filter knob controls the filter's resonance.

Position 3 of the Filter Toggle is called the Moog Filter. When it's on, the filter responds to the pedal, creating wahlike effects when the pedal is moved around (see Web Clip 2), or exaggerated tonal effects when it's held stationary near one of its extremes.

The Mode Selector is a 3-way switch that toggles between the Mute mode and the two sustain modes: Controlled Sustain and Full Sustain. In Controlled Sustain, only one or two notes can sustain at a time; the sustain gets muted for the rest. As its name implies, this gives you more control, making it easier to play single lines more cleanly, without too many notes ringing over. Full Sustain, on the other hand, could be described as more of a “pedal-to-the-metal” effect. Every note sustains, which makes for a more intense result. Together with some distortion from your amp or modeler, the sustain modes make it easy to get cool feedback effects, too (see Web Clip 3).

The Mute mode is engaged by putting the Mode Selector into position 1. It essentially chokes the string output, giving you a staccato sound. As with the sustain, the degree of this effect is controlled by the Vo Power knob.

The other switch on the guitar is a 5-way pickup selector. You can set it to piezo only, bridge pickup, bridge and neck out of phase, bridge and neck in phase, and neck. With the pickup selector in any of the electric guitar positions, the Piezo Blend knob lets you dial in as much or as little of the piezo signal as you'd like. With the pickup in the piezo position, the Piezo Blend knob is inactive because the guitar is outputting only piezo signal.

The guitar also has a ¼-inch auxiliary output that carries only the piezo signal. It can be used either to feed a tuner or to send the piezo signal to a separate amp (like an acoustic guitar amp) or to a separate DAW track or P.A. input. The piezo signal is fully affected by the sustain and mute effects, but not the filter effects.

Getting Mooged

The variety of tones you can get from the Moog Guitar is impressive. Even more so is the range of playing techniques you can apply that would be impossible on a conventional guitar. For instance, when you're in one of the sustain modes, you can easily play melodies with your left hand only, by sliding your fingers around on the fretboard. Meanwhile, you can use your right hand to tap countermelodies, or, you can hit a chord and, as it sustains, play melodies with your right hand on top of it (see Web Clip 4). I was also able to get some really unusual, singsongy sounds using a slide and dialing in some distortion on my amp modeler. Once you start bringing the filter into it, the sonic variety is pretty extensive. (The filter can also be controlled by external CV control, by plugging a Moogerfooger or other CV-equipped device into the CV input on the Moog Guitar's Control Pedal.)

The only aspect of the Moog Guitar's sonic palette that I didn't find to be exceptional was how it sounded as a conventional guitar, with the effects bypassed. Both through an amp and direct into an amp modeler in my DAW, I found the pickup sound to be kind of midrangy. In addition, the notes tended to sound and feel a little plunky, without the normal sustain I would expect. (According to Daniello, the plunkiness was likely due to incorrect setup, not the nature of the guitar.) My issues with the conventional guitar tone are why I gave the instrument a 4 instead of a 5 for Audio Quality in the EM ratings. In defense of the guitar's tone, I recently heard Jake Cinninger of the band Umphrey's McGee playing the Moog Guitar at Moogfest 2008, and it sounded awesome through his rig, both as a conventional guitar and with the effects turned on.

On several occasions, I picked up RF interference when using the Moog Guitar. When I mentioned this to Daniello, he told me that Moog was aware of the issue and had solved it with an updated version of the Control Pedal that included a grounding switch. The company subsequently sent me the new pedal, which remedied the problem.