Review: Moog Music Minimoog Voyager Old School

Oct 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Jason Scott Alexander

           
 

RE-EDUCATE YOURSELF WITH THIS PERFORMANCE MONO SYNTH

BONUS MATERIAL
Using Modulation Buses

Download the Spec Sheet as a PDF

Fig. 1: Although the Old School strips away the previous Voyager’s patch memory and digital connectivity, it delivers hands-on programmability and control far beyond the original Minimoog’s.

It's been six years since Moog Music revitalized the most successful analog synthesizer in history. The Minimoog Voyager updated the classic Minimoog Model D by adding a software-based operating system, MIDI control, preset memory, an LCD, a three-dimensional touch pad controller, and many other improvements (see the October 2003 review at emusician.com).

Whereas the Voyager provided distinct advantages of digital technology, the Old School (OS) takes them all away. The OS's aesthetic, therefore, more closely resembles the Model D's, but the underlying analog sound engine remains strictly Voyager. The OS furnishes a patching and modulation schema that prog rockers could only have wished for in their heyday.

Playing Inside the Box

Weighing a hefty 40 pounds, the OS features a solid hardwood cabinet with a beautiful furniture-grade finish and a 44-note (F to C) Velocity- and Aftertouch-sensitive keyboard (see Fig. 1). Glide and Release switches are located above the pitch and modulation wheels — just as on the original — and the multiposition hinged design of the synthesizer module allows it to be adjusted to a number of angles.

The pitch-bend range is fixed at ±5 semitones, but Moog Music's Web site outlines a procedure to reconfigure an internal jumper to widen or narrow this range. Although the fixed range is a price you must pay for all-analog construction, at least Moog offers a means to change the default. The keyboard priority is last note and the trigger mode is legato, but you can configure the OS for multitrigger mode (in which each note played on the keyboard retriggers the gate) by holding down the keyboard's top two keys as you power up the synth. It will revert to single-trigger mode the next time you power up.

The rear panel is chock-full of connections, with a pair of audio outputs, an analog audio input, an effects insert, and an assortment of control voltage (CV) and gate inputs that allow the OS to act as a semimodular synth (see Fig. 2). But the big news is that it has keyboard CV and gate outputs, which were not present on the original Voyager — very handy. You can access many more control outputs using the optional VX-351 CV Expander ($295), which connects to the synthesizer's DB-25 multipin accessory port.

Class Is In

The Minimoog has always been a textbook lesson in subtractive synthesis. Its front-panel layout couldn't be more straightforward, and for the most part, things are just where you'd expect them on the OS, too.

Beginning at far left are the familiar Fine Tune and Glide Rate controls. Adjacent are the dedicated LFO and dual Modulation Bus modules, none of which were available on the original Minimoog. The LFO produces triangle and square waves as well as stepped and smoothed sample-and-hold (S&H) patterns. Though typically you'd use the LFO's square wave as the S&H trigger and the noise generator as the sample source, you can override them by patching external signals into the S&H inputs, making all sorts of cool user patterns possible. The Mod 1 and Mod 2 buses are identical, each capable of selecting from six sources, six destinations (including waveshape), and six controllers with adjustable amounts (I explore these modules in the online bonus material at emusician.com).

Three analog VCOs (voltage-controlled oscillators) follow, each with a range marked in standard organ-stop measurements of 32 feet (lowest setting) to 1 foot — a full octave higher than the original Minimoog. Waveforms are continuously variable from triangle through sawtooth to square and pulse. You adjust Oscillator 1 using the global Fine Tune control, which is necessary because the OS doesn't have an autotune function. Oscillators 2 and 3 have separate Frequency controls, each capable of fine-tuning seven semitones up or down relative to Oscillator 1. Two switches allow for syncing Oscillators 1 and 2 and for the linear frequency modulation of Oscillator 1 by Oscillator 3.

Within the Mixer section are five rotary knobs and five rocker switches for blending and toggling the three oscillators, external audio input, and internal noise generator on or off. Whereas the original Minimoog gave you a choice between pink and white noise, here you're provided with a single hybrid mix of the two noise colors.

The Old School's Filters module comprises two classic Moog 4-pole (24 dB-per-octave) self-oscillating multimode filters instead of the original Minimoog's single lowpass. By flicking a toggle switch, you can configure them as parallel lowpass filters routed to the left and right outputs, respectively, or as a serial highpass-lowpass combination resulting in bandpass across both outputs equally. A single set of Cutoff, Resonance, and keyboard-tracking knobs acts on both filters simultaneously, while the Spacing control shifts or spreads the cutoff frequencies, depending on which filter mode the synth is in.