Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 From: Mike Peake As the Synthesizers.com system is en homage to the Moog system (at least in format), it begs for a direct comparison... Here's a re- posting of something I put up on TGS, as well as the Synthesizers.com Yahoo group: I have a Moog, basically a 15 and a 10 system (two portable cabinets). A few weeks ago I brought it up to the Hayward synth gathering (see this forum for pix etc.). Konkuro, Synthbaron , Cary Roberts and I spent a few hours comparing aspects of the two systems, and Konkuro and I spent a while longer the next day continuing in the same vein. The Moog 904a lowpass filter and the Arrick ladder (in the "traditional" response configuration in which resonance is proportional to Fc) sounded quite alike! Very much so. The tests weren't detailed enough to be conclusive (owning and using both would be the next step) but dang, they were close. The Arrick tracked a hell of a lot better than my Moog filter (but then again, it's not calibrated at the moment) without sounding rigid. The only issue I had with the Arrick ladder was some self-noise. But for the price, if you want something that close, you can't beat the Synthesizers.com ladder filter. You could probably buy three or four Arrick ladders for the price of a vintage Moog 904a! Both filters responded to either an Arrick or a Moog envelope so similarly.. But the VCAs were different. The Moog "closes" a bit more quickly, and the Arrick tails off to silence a lot better. The Moog VCA in Exponential mode sounded closer but still didn't have a smooth fade to silence. IIRC, the Arrick VCA had a bit less trouble with minimum attack times and produced less clickies. The Moog and Arrick oscillators, when doing sawtooth waves, were pretty close indeed, but you could definitely tell which one the Moog was due to drift (the Arrick oscillators are very, very stable- I couldn't imagine needing anything more stable than that for music and complex FM). When we switched to other waveforms, the Arricks fell behind quickly. The Moog sounded grittier and more aggressive. Neither has a decent sine wave, however, few oscillators do (the Modcan being an exception) and you can always self-oscillate and track a filter if you need a pure, pure sine. The extra harmonics can produce different FM than a pure sine, so it's a feature, not a bug ;-) I liked what I heard, especially considering the price of a system! There are always things that you have to take individually, such as my not liking the configuration of the CV patching being above the audio patching on the Arrick (the Moog is the reverse of that) and the panel graphics. The silkscreen is very even but look at any straight line; you will see that it is made up of several sections, each of which have a slight tilt. Weird. The white on black panels are easier to read in dim light than the silver on black of the Moog (looking at my Moog/Arrick system right now; I have a few Arrick modules in it, such as a Signal Processor etc.) I don't like how far the jacks stick out from the front panel on the Arrick compared to the Moog, but a DIY-conscious person could change this if needed. The Arrick also dispenses with Moog's S-Trigger system, which used two-prong Cinch-Jones plugs and connectors and not the 1/4" jacks found on the rest of the Moog. My envelopes are modded for the standard V-Trigger convention as well as with standard 1/4" jacks and a nifty LED which follows the envelopes voltage output. There is also a tiny button on each to allow the envelopes to be fired by hand. (Here's a link to a pic of one of my envelope on Kevin's site.) http://www.synthfool.com/images/mod911.jpg The Synthesizers.com system have all of this as standard on their envelopes. The Moog produces small voltages, and as such, some modulations such as oscillator FM are not very deep. There are "master oscillators" such as the 921, which have much higher outputs for modulation, but they are still limited in range. VCAs can be used to add a 2x gain, but that's a stop-gap measure. The Synthesizers.com system produces very wide-range voltages, allowing for very deep FM and modulation effects, and if for some reason you're not getting enough range, there are amplifier and processor modules to boost things further still! IMO, the Synthesizers.com system is not a Moog replacement (nothing is, when you total the things which end up producing the Moog sound, such as drift, offset, mis-tracking, the character of the waveforms, and on and on) BUT you can't beat the price of the Synthesizers.com system. To get into a genuinely interesting Moog, you'll need more than a single cabinet of modules. You can easily build an Arrick for less money and not have to worry about restoration (a given with something that is 30 years old). I plan on adding more and more Synthesizers.com modules to my Moog setup, as they are thoughtfully compatable formats. Easier, -- Mike Peake, Your Psychic Friend Some Responses ----------------------------------------------------------- Wow! Thanks for such a wonderful review. I've been thinking about ordering enough modules from .com to produce a single monophonic tone and this really helps to justify my future purchase. Of course there will be obvious differences in Moog and .com filters and oscillators, but I'm more willing to invest in .com because they seem more stable and affordable. I don't have the budget, like I used to a year ago, to buy a Moog modular, or MOTM system, so this really helps. Thanks Mike! -Bob