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Moog brings back its legendary Model 10 'compact' modular synth
Moog regularly releases new and exciting instruments like the Matriarch and Sirin. But it also has a rich history of iconic instruments that it's not afraid to tap into. For example, the Minimoog Model D. But its latest adventure into its archives is a bit of a different beast. Rather than bring back an iconic keyboard found on countless pop records, it's reviving the Model 10 -- a "compact" modular synth built around the 900-Series Oscillator that was the foundation of Wendy Carlos' immortal Switched-On Bach. ([engadget] Editor's Note: Why is this not on any streaming services!?)
[...] Inside its black tolex-covered wood cabinet are 11 different modules that can be connected in various ways create a whole world of rich synth tones. There are three 900-Series oscillators, as well as the legendary 907 Fixed Filter Bank, which is a large part of what gives vintage Moog synths their iconic sound.
All of these components are assembled and soldered by hand down in Asheville, NC. But the bad news: The Model 10 will only be available for a limited time and is being made to order. Those three things mean it does not come cheap. It's available through select Moog dealers starting at $9,950. So yeah, it's a hardcore enthusiasts only kind of purchase. But, that's probably a bargain compared to a vintage Model 10... if you can track one down that is.
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday September 20 2019, @02:31PM (4 children)
Miscellaneous Comments, hence top post.
I have developed a vintage-style poly-analog synthesizer myself. If you're curious, core voice signal path and analog power supply are precisely "J8" topology, remainder is all by myself. All with off-the-shelf parts, through hole components (a bitch these days) and an 8-bit CPU to keep the 80's-spirit trve. The design is done and I'm the process of ramping up a small scale production (to the extent well paying customers leave me time for that). While I did that and watched the scene, I gained quite a few insights.
Economically, we're strictly in the "long tail" here. I'll have component costs a bit short of three grand and project a sales price just short of ten. That's roughly in the ballpark of a certain french boutique poly maker, he's a bit cheaper, because he switched to SMD for the voices, or the Moog thingies (The "One" poly, or the the one from the article, they can sell a few more and charge a bit extra for their name.). I always get asked who would buy my device, I answer "dentists and lawyers". They wanted to make music with their schoolmates and couldn't afford the big flagships. Now they can. I read of a Porsche salesman, who said the easiest and quickest sales of 911s are when those folks stroll in, lacking some orientation, early on christmas eve. The vast majority of people who make music for money don't have the time to deal with these classic widgets - their job gets clicked together as fast as possible, and then it's on the next. And the vast majority of (young) people wo make music out of passion don't have the money.
Vintage gear is not needed to express oneself creatively. If you've got what it takes, you can express everything with GarageBand (maybe with that outboard MIDI plugin) or some free alternative. If you really want analog, the low-cost offerings from Korg and Behringer will completly sort you. If that passion really needs to get out, letting a Monotron rip wildly will be totally more convincing than when the well-off gentlemen carefully wiggle their Moog setup that cost a thousand times as much.
There are a few soft-synths which get rather close, but software emulation is not entirely there yet. The magic happens not so much in the waveforms, but in the filters. When the VCF is low down (e.g. max OTA Iabc of 100uA at 20kHz gets 100nA at 20Hz), parasitic effects become interesting. Also, the resonant feedback in a discrete system has not been satisfactorily modeled yet (because the feedback at time t will see the last output from t-1). There are approaches with extrapolation or correction tables, but none have been really spot on. It's good enough for anything that sits in a mix, and might even make a few blind A/B tests in poly use cases, but in the fringe cases, they fall apart. Interestingly, the early E-Mu digital ("Z-plane") filters are higher regarded than all the analog emulation stuff.
The one thing that analogs, and more so vintage analogs, offer is how rewarding they are. I cannot explain that, but if I hit the keys of my prototype, there is that rewarding feedback. It isn't there when I play a fully equivalent soft synth through exactly the same keys. But even a much less versatile vintage Alpha Juno has some of the vibe. Similar thing in the guitar world: what's the difference between a Squier and a Fender Custom Shop strat these days? Industrial production of the former have reached great quality, but the latter still get sold.
Finally, to get a feeling where Moog's thoughts come from (and therefore the roots of the instrument in TFA are), I recommend the "Leon Theremin: An electronic odyssey" documentary. Bob Moog himself is interviewed, and gives his impressions. Much of his thinking goes back to the LC resonant circuits and voice-shaping filters of the early tube era (also cf the Polymoog resonators).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 20 2019, @03:20PM (3 children)
You'll never take my tubes!!! Russian made, individually selected and tuned for that perfect soft/warm feel, and the emotional feedback of the visual glow and even physical warmth when you put your hands over them, ever so slightly distorting their gains...
It's emotional, it's irrational, it's art.
(disclaimer: last tube I actually touched came out of grandma's old TV in the 1970s, but I know more than a few "tube heads" and they are _just_ like that...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday September 20 2019, @04:54PM (2 children)
Mind you, Russian tubes were frowned upon not long ago. It had to be genuine RCA, GE, or whatever first world odd-brand just was en vogue. Only now, that the main alternative is Changsha or Shuguan from China, the eastern-bloc stuff from New Sensor and JJ has become fashionable. While conjuring images of T-34s and AK-47s next to 12AX7s or EL34s, for extra credibility.
An interesting development is Korg's abuse of a Noritake VFD sold as "NuTube". It doesn't have much amplification, but the saturation curve seems to be similar to "hotter" tubes. I am impressed by those. Good enough (but then, for my likes, so is the Line 6 Pod HD500 all-DSP board). Bolt on a Class D backend on a switched power supply and you get "real" tube sound while saving 20kg to lug around at a gig. (I'd keep the backend analog though and am not so sure about SMPS there...).
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 20 2019, @05:12PM (1 child)
A doctor friend gave me a Perreaux Class A amplifier from his old HiFi - I think it was 100W/channel output, 2 channels, 19" rack mount about 6" tall, deep aluminum heat sinks down both sides, weighs 40+ pounds - those beefy handles are important. Solid state, no tubes, but quite the piece of gear.
As for tubes, I sincerely believe that someone dedicated enough could emulate whatever tube transfer function they wanted in software - I don't follow the field closely enough to know how good the models are/aren't these days, but with ultra-high oversampling rates, stupid overkill (say: 32 bit) resolution/dynamic range, there's no reason that a pentode or whatever else can't be modeled and executed by a general purpose 2GHz processor, or better still in an ASIC.
Affordable computing power is roughly at 100,000x what it was when I was cobbling together 44.1KHz 16 bit MIDI controlled software synthesizers in 1988... Microsoft may still be bogging it down as fast as it grows, but the physics of audio simulation hasn't changed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Rich on Friday September 20 2019, @05:31PM
Im my opinion, DSPs have nailed the tube sound. Mind you, it's not only tubes, the interactions of the output transformers also play a significant role, but I guess that's been done as well. I have mentioned Pod HD pedal and its JCM800 emulation was entirely convincing to me. It had exactly the sound that I remembered from the first full Marshall stack I ever encountered - over some piddly old HiFi amp/speakers of mine. Pro guitarists flock to the Kemper amps, at least for live use, and with those the response profiles of emulated gear can even be replicated in an automated way. So, that area is well past "good enough".
Still, I'd like to know how RV12P2000 tubes would sound like in a modern setting. If I ever have too much time on my hands... Oh, and with that much time, I also have some ideas on how to get the synthesizer filters right in a DSP :)