MiniMoog Voyager

Pardon me if there is already a thread dedicated to the MiniMoog Voyager on these forums. I could obviously go to Moog's forum but I'm interested to gather info and have discussion about the MiniMoog Voyager with other MPC heads, whether you have one, have used one, or not or even if you use one of the many many software modeled MiniMoogs (even iOS).

So some of you may know I copped this as an early xmas gift , I guess. I've lusted for this joint for years and I finally caught a deal at the right time.

Here it is



Some of my favorite artists and producer both past and present have used some form of a Minimoog whether Model D or Voyager (and any of the Voyager million flavors). The list is long from Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye & Bernie Worrell (Parliament Funkadelic) to contemporaries like Neptunes, Dilla,Dr Dre, Black Milk & Karriem Riggins... they've all spent a bit of quality time with this beast of a analog mono synth.

So at any rate, feel free to share your thoughts, tips, tricks, mods, effects chains, secrets, presets settings etc etc and so on...

For starters here are the settings someone mentioned on moog Forums (from advise given at the gear slutz forums) about how Dilla used to set up his bass patch on the MiniMoog Voyager.

kaz1 over at Gearslutz did give me some insight on how he programmed his basses, thought I'm much more interested in learning about his keys / leads.

From what I remember, Dilla used a lot of square and triangle wave oscillators for basses, a typical bass would start something like this:

OSC 1 - triangle at 32"
OSC 2 - square at 16"
OSC 3 - square at 16"

detune OSC 2 & 3 slightly

FILTER cutoff around 95%
emphasis (resonance) 0-10%
attack: 0%
decay: 60%
sustain: 35 - 40%
LOUDNESS attack: 0-10%
decay: 60%
sustain: 60% (percentages based on position of the dial
from left to right)

now remember this is not an actual patch, I'm just doing this from memory but it's a place to start that I think will get you close to something, may not be what you are looking for. There's not a whole lot of science that went into Dilla's uses of the Moog, it's more how he played and programmed it that made it sing, patches on the Moog are pretty easy to dial up and duplicate once you can identify the OSC shapes.

I don't recall a thread. Not many of us taste that fruit.

For real though, congratulations on copping one of the grails psr.
I had meant to congratulate you seeing you post flicks outside of the forum. Jaw dropped and I forgot to.

Have fun with the reverse engineering of so many famous sounds, as you said it's legacy is a lot longer than the current modern incarnation.

...and you got another Moog voice right there too...

thanks Metatron72
Been loosing sleep with this one man. recording into logic and mixing softsynth parts makes you realize instantly that the sound of hardware is superior in most cases. Software can get there but it takes a bit of processing. this thing just kills shit straight on in. Got a sonic maximizer and Space Echo on it... mad sweet.

The BBE is always nice, but you mean a vintage Space Echo? If so...

Although the Boss digital one is pretty cool too.

Metatron72 wrote:The BBE is always nice, but you mean a vintage Space Echo? If so...

Although the Boss digital one is pretty cool too.

nah not a vintage one with tape. I debated on that a few years ago but ended up getting the Boss RE-20 Space Echo

I recently upgraded my Voyager with the latest operating system (from the Moog website) and it's resulted in some of the patches becoming corrupted (it's the first 30 or 40 on bank A ).
I have tried re downloading and re installing to no avail.
Does anyone have an old operating system file I can try (to downgrade) or any advice?
Any similar experience?

ohhhh. man sorry. I havent had my Voyager long enough to have updated anything it has the latest update already. you may want to reach out to Amos at Moog.

*Pilchard* wrote:I recently upgraded my Voyager with the latest operating system (from the Moog website) and it's resulted in some of the patches becoming corrupted (it's the first 30 or 40 on bank A ).
I have tried re downloading and re installing to no avail.
Does anyone have an old operating system file I can try (to downgrade) or any advice?
Any similar experience?

Contact them to explain what happened and get them to send you what you need to get you fully running.

just an added note from the fav synths of all time thread about a design flaw / mod to fix it up. (http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=151585&start=45)

SimonInAustralia wrote:There is a design fault in the Voyager that creates what is effectively a 6dB low pass filter, there is an opamp with a bad slew rate used in the design, that was creating a spike in the waveform, Bob put a capacitor in the circuit to deal with the spike, the capacitor acts like a 6dB filter.

This 'muffles' the high end a little, and is possibly what users of the original MiniMoog don't seem to like about the Voyager sound.

There is a mod, to remove the opamps and capacitors, and replace the opamps with better performing ones, to restore the sound to what it possibly should have been.

ntalec wrote:
Contact them to explain what happened and get them to send you what you need to get you fully running.

Ok thanks, I'll try and get on to them in the new year and get this sorted.

I must have had the Voyager about ten years I think without updating it.
A friend showed me how to update it with the computer. I've started to regret it but hopefully can get it sorted.

Incedentally, for anyone who has updated, did you notice that it has changed the way the touchpad works?
Before I updated it seemed to work independently from the cut off and resonance controls, but now it seems dependent upon where you have those controls set.
What I mean is, before I could get full cut off and resonance from the touchpad regardless of how high the controls were set. Now it only goes as far as the settings allow.
Not sure if I prefer it or not. It certainly gives you control but I quite liked being able to freak it on the fly without having to adjust the knobs.
Probably just a matter of getting used to it.

*Pilchard* wrote:

ntalec wrote:
Contact them to explain what happened and get them to send you what you need to get you fully running.

Ok thanks, I'll try and get on to them in the new year and get this sorted.

I must have had the Voyager about ten years I think without updating it.
A friend showed me how to update it with the computer. I've started to regret it but hopefully can get it sorted.

Incedentally, for anyone who has updated, did you notice that it has changed the way the touchpad works?
Before I updated it seemed to work independently from the cut off and resonance controls, but now it seems dependent upon where you have those controls set.
What I mean is, before I could get full cut off and resonance from the touchpad regardless of how high the controls were set. Now it only goes as far as the settings allow.
Not sure if I prefer it or not. It certainly gives you control but I quite liked being able to freak it on the fly without having to adjust the knobs.
Probably just a matter of getting used to it.

I've noticed that with the touchpad but I don't have a previous point of reference.
I seem to recall something about the touchpad remembering the position of where your hand last touched (possibly as a part of the update) I wouldn't be surprised if there was some change in its dependency to the filter but I'd be willing to bet there is a setting that can be changed so each patch's touchpad settings are independent. The voyager seems to have several ways to do everything ... Mind you I don't know for sure but I'll bet a settings change will allow it to act as you are use to it.

Nice cop psr enjoy it definitely a good Christmas present you got yourself there

psr wrote:
I've noticed that with the touchpad but I don't have a previous point of reference.
I seem to recall something about the touchpad remembering the position of where your hand last touched (possibly as a part of the update) I wouldn't be surprised if there was some change in its dependency to the filter but I'd be willing to bet there is a setting that can be changed so each patch's touchpad settings are independent. The voyager seems to have several ways to do everything ... Mind you I don't know for sure but I'll bet a settings change will allow it to act as you are use to it.

Must admit, haven't had time to really explore the full implications (or implimentation ) of the update. I only updated about a week and a half ago so you may well be right.
Also because I left it so long, I think there might have been a few revisions before this latest one so any features I see now may not be new ones.
Good idea for a thread psr

cool... hopefully this thread will get some use.
here are a few tracks from last weekend.

^are you messing with midi and an MP along with the voyager? Also did you look into the cv expansions?