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posted by janrinok on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the soycow-says-"moog" dept.

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:55PM (19 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:55PM (#896273) Journal

    I cannot get to the engadget site because it jumps through:

    https://guce.advertising.com/collectIdentifiers [advertising.com]

    Is it polyphonic? (The synth, not the site)

    Does it support MIDI?

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:57PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @09:57PM (#896275)

      Yes, for i = 3

    • (Score: 4, Touché) by RamiK on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:05PM (15 children)

      by RamiK (1813) on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:05PM (#896278)

      Why? Are you in the market for $10k replica of a 70s synthesizer you could out-perform with a free open source software synth on a 5 years old $300 laptop?

      --
      compiling...
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:29PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:29PM (#896282)

        The vintage 70s synths still work 40+ years later... but this Model 10 will fail within ten years due to lead-free solder.

        • (Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday September 20 2019, @01:14AM

          by RS3 (6367) on Friday September 20 2019, @01:14AM (#896331)

          You're probably right, but are you sure it's made using lead-free solder?

        • (Score: 2) by Spamalope on Friday September 20 2019, @03:17AM

          by Spamalope (5233) on Friday September 20 2019, @03:17AM (#896366) Homepage

          As long as you're not getting the pins so hot the solder melts it'll be fine if it's fine on day one. (That's the pain though - the temp range to avoid cold joints is so much smaller) Lead+silver solder has problems too. The 1980s pinballs I restored had solder cracks around the power connectors frequently. Early electronic pinballs were specced with connectors based on manufacturer ratings, which turned out to be... at best only accurate for short duty in air conditioned splendor vs hot and heavy vibration pinball cabinets.
          The problem today is getting long life electrolytic caps.
          40s Caps didn't last long, and neither do most since the 80s. Bulky package lower capacitance caps from a good brand have ok odds though. Trying to get tiny or save parts count with single high value caps instead of a bank of them is deadly to lifespan though.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 20 2019, @02:01PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 20 2019, @02:01PM (#896492) Journal

          Maybe the 70's model would experience a problem known as 'tin whiskers'?

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:40PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:40PM (#896284)

        You can still find the SN76488N synthesizer chip on Ebay that Radio Shack used to stock. I built one using about 30 switches, pots, and variable caps back in the late 70's. You can now use other ICs to control it.

      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 20 2019, @12:11AM (7 children)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 20 2019, @12:11AM (#896299)

        This is my ponder...

        you could out-perform with a free open source software synth

        Just like most 1980s era computers can be completely software emulated, the 1970s era synthesizers could be 100% software simulated connected to a standard MIDI source.

        For cost considerations you might prefer to implement the Moog classic interfaces on a touch-panel, and that wouldn't have the same performance feel as the old pot knobs and sliders, but, neither would the touch panel controls get dirty and need periodic replacement.

        I suppose if you put the name "Moog" on it, or copied their layouts too closely you would get into IP issues, but it would be trivial to ramp up the software implementation from 3 oscillators to N, add enough filters and other options that it becomes a hard argument that the emulator - capable of 100% emulating a Moog 10 and a Model D and a million other configurations - was really "based on" the Moog, when all it's really doing is implementing standard oscillators and filters found in any number of 1960s textbooks.

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Friday September 20 2019, @12:19AM (6 children)

          by ilPapa (2366) on Friday September 20 2019, @12:19AM (#896300) Journal

          I still have my original Model 10 that I bought back in the late 1970s at a tiny fraction of what they want for this new model.

          And yes, you can emulate modular synths in software, but if you dream of wires like I do, you can also purchase very reasonably-priced Eurorack synth modules that are terrific for a very reasonable price. There are a ton of boutique manufacturers of those things.

          --
          You are still welcome on my lawn.
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday September 20 2019, @12:29AM (4 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 20 2019, @12:29AM (#896307)

            I bought a MiniMoog back in 1985, and its components were... not very durable. It was fun while it lasted, made all kinds of cool sounds, but the repeatability was not great - lots of "fiddle time" to get back to something you liked the first time, and some things like the random source (think: the Baba O'Riley ending solo) really do never come out the same twice, by design.

            All in all, if I were to get back into it, I'd rather invest my time in a software based system that I could feed in a repeatable random seed - so if I got something I really liked, I could get it again. Not to mention the fact that a software system could synthesize the analog waveforms at 192KHz 32 bits, as fully polyphonic as you want, 100% clean every time: no grit in the slide-pots, unless that's your jam and then they can emulate that too.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ilPapa on Friday September 20 2019, @02:28AM (3 children)

              by ilPapa (2366) on Friday September 20 2019, @02:28AM (#896352) Journal

              All in all, if I were to get back into it, I'd rather invest my time in a software based system that I could feed in a repeatable random seed

              Don't get me wrong, Joe. I love soft-synths of all sorts. I still keep my hand in with doing music for artsy-type films and I use them all the time. They speed up the workflow and are very satisfying with good controllers (keyboard, matrix, etc).

              I just have accumulated so much physical gear over the years, from Serge suitcase systems to a Mellotron that I have become attached to it from a sentimental standpoint. Plus, it makes a hell of a racket. I've got a couple of Steinberg filters that will rip your head off with resonance. You can never predict what they're going to do, which just adds to their charm IMO.

              Someday, let me tell you the story of when I worked support for a crazy project John Eaton and Bob Moog were working on. I was just a kid, but they treated me like I was somebody, which is nice.

              --
              You are still welcome on my lawn.
              • (Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Friday September 20 2019, @07:48PM (2 children)

                by mechanicjay (7) <reversethis-{gro ... a} {yajcinahcem}> on Friday September 20 2019, @07:48PM (#896630) Homepage Journal

                Someday, let me tell you the story of when I worked support for a crazy project John Eaton and Bob Moog were working on. I was just a kid, but they treated me like I was somebody, which is nice.

                I certainly hope that someday is very close to this day, as I would very much like to hear this story!

                --
                My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
                • (Score: 3, Interesting) by ilPapa on Saturday September 21 2019, @03:46AM (1 child)

                  by ilPapa (2366) on Saturday September 21 2019, @03:46AM (#896712) Journal

                  I certainly hope that someday is very close to this day, as I would very much like to hear this story!

                  Since you asked so nicely...

                  I was at the University of Chicago, working in their music lab. It was very early days for this stuff, John Eaton was a resident composer and had this plan to develop an organ with a microtonal, multi-touch keyboard. In other words, it wasn't just the keypress, but it was a left to right and up and down motion on the keys as well as aftertouch and pressure and velocity and all sorts of stuff. Some of that is standard now on midi controllers, but this was way before all that. So, he knows Bob Moog, and invites him. So, they're in his studio working away and I'm down the hall in the music lab and I hear my name being called because they need an extra pair of hands for something. Eaton, who was a little gnome of a man with a gigantic Great Dane that used to accompany him to school every day, introduces me to Bob Moog and I'm like thunderstruck. I was to shocked to even gush over him and say what a fan I was. Anyway, long story short, I ended up working as his research assistant and got to be with them every day for a while and learned more about electronic music and voltage control and oscillators and filters and envelopes and whatnot than I'd ever imagined. At night, I was playing electronic music with weird Pere Ubu style bands in Chicago's punk clubs and during the day I was with these two geniuses. Pretty cool huh?

                  --
                  You are still welcome on my lawn.
          • (Score: 2) by Webweasel on Friday September 20 2019, @08:55AM

            by Webweasel (567) on Friday September 20 2019, @08:55AM (#896433) Homepage Journal

            I get that reference!

            --
            Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
      • (Score: 1) by CheesyMoo on Friday September 20 2019, @04:42AM (1 child)

        by CheesyMoo (6853) on Friday September 20 2019, @04:42AM (#896393)

        "you could out-perform with a free open source software synth"

        Please be specific about which software synth you mean, and then we can discuss on which metrics it outperforms the replica.

        Is a digitally accurate wavetable lookup of a waveform better than an analog one? Perhaps if you are trying to make the smoothest sine wace, or pointiest triangle (or squarest square, etc.)
        But the accuracy is not what makes Moogs interesting (although the originals surely benefited from upgrades), all the randomness of the components is part of the sound the synth makes.

        My main point is, what open source software accurately models the non-linearities of the analog circuitry such that it _sounds_ as good or better as the original Moog?

        (seriously, if that exists I need to get off my own lawn and STFU)

        • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Saturday September 21 2019, @03:52AM

          by ilPapa (2366) on Saturday September 21 2019, @03:52AM (#896714) Journal

          There are some very good modular soft synths, but none that are both professionally useful and open source however. They have some that do all the wonky unpredictable stuff that the old gear did too, but they're not open source.

          I'm very hopeful for OSS DAWs and soft synths, so I stay on top of this more than most. There's just nothing yet that's ready for prime time. That doesn't mean that Linux boxes can't be an important part of your complete production setup. They most certainly can, but only for handling things like rendering and storage and effects and such, the way Cockos Reaper software does it.

          --
          You are still welcome on my lawn.
    • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:35PM (#896283)
    • (Score: 2) by rylyeh on Friday September 20 2019, @04:02AM

      by rylyeh (6726) <{kadath} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday September 20 2019, @04:02AM (#896382)

      2 oscillators.

      --
      "a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:03PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 19 2019, @10:03PM (#896277)

    I expect these new models all have MIDI/digital interface. Are they also equipped with circuitry to keep them in tune?

    • (Score: 2) by ilPapa on Friday September 20 2019, @12:21AM (3 children)

      by ilPapa (2366) on Friday September 20 2019, @12:21AM (#896301) Journal

      The recent Moog modules are rock solid at holding tune. It's not like the old days where you could hear them drift while you were performing.

      --
      You are still welcome on my lawn.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 20 2019, @01:09AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 20 2019, @01:09AM (#896325)

        It's not like the old days where you could hear them drift while you were performing.

        That was one of its charm, wasn't it? :)

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday September 20 2019, @02:03PM (1 child)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 20 2019, @02:03PM (#896493) Journal

          Can that be a control option introduced via a firmware update?

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by Rich on Friday September 20 2019, @03:01PM

            by Rich (945) on Friday September 20 2019, @03:01PM (#896514) Journal

            The system in question does not have any firmware :)

            Two sources of drift:

            1.) when you have a fully analog keyboard, the pitch voltage goes to sample/hold in some designs. If that is a bit lossy, you'll hear the note drift while you play.

            2.) the exponential converter that converts from conveniently manageable Volt/Octave to Ampere/Hertz needed to charge the oscillator's capacitor. This is a transistor pair with a scaling that varies over temperature. This needs either compensation or thermal stabilization, the Minimoog was both built with a CA3046 transistor array and a temperature compensating resistor (before S/N10175) and with a uA726 heated transistor pair at nominal 78.4°C (S/N 10175 and above). Values and Numbers according to the service manual. This is the loss of tuning and scaling experienced during warmup.

            Today, those heated pairs are no longer manufactured, but platinum PTCs are available at about 2€ each that do the job to a level of precision that the elders dreamt about. For a purely analog mono, you'll have a tuning knob anyway, and for a poly, there is a tuning routine (either explicit button, or background autotune) that adjusts the DAC values needed for the control voltages.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 20 2019, @12:05AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 20 2019, @12:05AM (#896297)

    How does this thing bolt onto a car?

    https://www.moogparts.com/ [moogparts.com]

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 20 2019, @04:17AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 20 2019, @04:17AM (#896388)

      Disambiguation:

      https://www.moogparts.com/ [moogparts.com] Car (suspension) parts. According to company history, started in 1919 in St. Louis by brothers Alva and Hubert Prater (H.P.) Moog. No relation that I know of to the Buffalo Moog family below.

      https://www.moog.com/ [moog.com] Motion control (Bill Moog inventor of the electro-hydraulic servo valve), supplies flight controls to both Airbus and Boeing, NASA, etc. Very high tech, branches worldwide. Started c.1950 near Buffalo, NY.

      https://www.moogmusic.com/ [moogmusic.com] Electronic musical instruments (Bob Moog, cousin of Bill Moog). Started in the 1960s(?), also in Buffalo NY area, original shop was behind my elementary school (but I wasn't clued in enough to visit, drat!)

  • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday September 20 2019, @03:23AM

    by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Friday September 20 2019, @03:23AM (#896368) Journal

    … Who will buy it are studios and instrument rental agencies who will then lease it out and advertise that they have one available. And the occasional person-who-has-way-too-much-money, or a band member who's already long since made and now living the good life.

    Then again, I bought way too much keyboard for my actual needs as well, because I could. Though nowhere on that scale.

    Apparently at one point they made an app to recreate the Model 15 [ubergizmo.com], wonder if they ever did that for the Model 10?

    --
    This sig for rent.
  • (Score: 2) by rylyeh on Friday September 20 2019, @04:08AM (1 child)

    by rylyeh (6726) <{kadath} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday September 20 2019, @04:08AM (#896386)

    I have an Itialian SIEL DK600 made in 1980.
    It uses 8 analog oscillators, yet has a digital memory, velocity sensing, and MIDI.
    Great, fat tentacled sound!

    --
    "a vast crenulate shell wherein rode the grey and awful form of primal Nodens, Lord of the Great Abyss."
    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Friday September 20 2019, @02:04PM

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 20 2019, @02:04PM (#896494) Journal

      Never had an analog synth.

      My first was a DX-7. Still got it. In excellent condition.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by Rich on Friday September 20 2019, @02:31PM (4 children)

    by Rich (945) on Friday September 20 2019, @02:31PM (#896499) Journal

    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)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 20 2019, @03:20PM (#896526)

      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)

        by Rich (945) on Friday September 20 2019, @04:54PM (#896555) Journal

        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)

          by JoeMerchant (3937) on Friday September 20 2019, @05:12PM (#896563)

          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

            by Rich (945) on Friday September 20 2019, @05:31PM (#896570) Journal

            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 :)

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