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OTHER DISCUSSIONS => General Synthesis => Other Hardware/Software => Topic started by: chysn on May 14, 2018, 01:13:54 PM

Title: Moog Grandmother
Post by: chysn on May 14, 2018, 01:13:54 PM
https://www.moogmusic.com/products/semi-modular/grandmother
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: chysn on May 14, 2018, 01:28:45 PM
All right, this thing is adorbs. Sort of a Moog Rogue with patch points. I love the colors.

At first glance, it seems like More-of-the-Same, but there really aren't too many choices for instruments with (1) full size keys and (2) CV capability. It's a little disappointing that they still haven't replaced Voyager; Grandmother seems to extend Moog's lineup downward than to fill a gap.

I'm relieved that I sold my Little Phatty with CV Outs when I did. It would have been hard to sell that for $900 now that Grandmother is out there for the same price.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Paul Dither on May 14, 2018, 04:16:17 PM
I like the appearance as well. While the synth all by itself doesn't appear like anything groundbreaking, it's the details that are interesting. In one of the videos one can see that they used SMT-based boards that feature the circuits based on sought after Moog designs (oscillators based on the Minimoog, mixer based on CP3 module, filter based on 904 module, EG based on 911 module, VCA based in 902 module, and spring reverb based on 905 module). This effectively means that they obviously found a way to manufacture and sell these classic designs in a far more affordable manner. Would be interesting to see if they make more of the Moog modular ingredients accessible to a wider audience in the shape and form of other products or with Eurorack in mind.

As for the Voyager gap: There's still another synth to be announced at Moogfest (three in total were planned to be announced and the Subharmonicon and the Grandmother are already known by now), which I assume is going to be the one that is related to Amos Gaynes' and Geert Bevin's presentation at last year's JUCE conference.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: ddp on May 14, 2018, 05:59:01 PM
The spring reverb in the modular Moog had at Moogfest last year was really fun.  I'll bet this sounds really nice.  I'm also looking forward to hearing the Subharmonicon.  The Mother-32, DFAM, and Subharmonicon should make an awesome Eurorack.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: cr73645 on May 14, 2018, 06:15:02 PM
Seems interesting... if it really reaches high frequencies with oscillators and filter, I might trade my Sub Phatty with it. That 25 keys limitation is very complicated for someone that somes from classical piano.

Liked the interface, the happy color scheme, the reverb, patch points, Fatar keybed. On the cons side, might have to get a Mother 32 to go with it, seems big and bulky, maybe plasticky sides (worse than on the Sub).
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: ddp on May 14, 2018, 06:57:25 PM
None of the charm of the Mother-32, DFAM, or Submarmonicon, no.  It might appeal to new people, I could see that.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: chysn on May 15, 2018, 06:16:27 AM
None of the charm of the Mother-32, DFAM, or Submarmonicon, no.  It might appeal to new people, I could see that.

Oh, it'll definitely appeal to old people, too, especially those of us who look back on this form factor with fondness.

Although I sold my Mother-32 pretty quickly, I have to say that its voicing was very nice. My Little Phatty seemed sort of constrained to the low- and mid-range, but the M32 really sparkled in the upper registers. If the voicing on the Grandmother is similar to that of the Mother-32, then it will be a nicer all-around instrument than the Little Phatty (with the unfortunate exception of keyboard length).

If I hadn't moved to a keyboard-less modular synth, the Grandmother would be on my short list. And I'm definitely not a new person.

It will be interesting to see how its oscillators track volt-per-octave. The post-Briar Moog instruments--the Voyager, Little Phatty, Minitaur--were not factory-calibrated, nor did they have a factory-installed calibration trimpot. Mother-32 was better, but still not well-calibrated like a good eurorack oscillator. It's time for Moog to pay some attention to this.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Bryan_D on May 15, 2018, 08:43:40 AM
Ordered one today to test against my Slim Phatty (which I have come to highly respect). Love the look and interfacing of the GM, but as Chysn noted and my experience bears out, Moog synths do not play well with Eurorack 1v/octave tracking. It may not be a deal breaker for me since I will in many cases just clock the sequencer with my modular kit. But I would like the option of adding another oscillator the the GM, so tracking would be important there. TBD.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: ddp on May 15, 2018, 10:32:43 AM
Moog synths do not play well with Eurorack 1v/octave tracking.
Why is that?
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Bryan_D on May 15, 2018, 11:28:20 AM
I'm no expert on the subject, but I seem to recall it having to do with the internal calibration. I read somewhere that the Slim was operating at .97 volts/octave or something like that. It never tracked correctly with my MicroBrute or BSP (although it works fine with MIDI). At one time Moog had a factory mod to adjust the calibration on the Slim to the 1v/octave standard.

The newer instruments may be different, but I thought I saw some forum posts about the M32 having issues as well. Perhaps Chysn has some experience there; he apparently had one for a season.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: chysn on May 15, 2018, 01:16:44 PM
Moog synths do not play well with Eurorack 1v/octave tracking.
Why is that?

Honestly, I think some of these instruments were released at a time when very few people cared about CV, so Moog didn't bother to calibrate them. If you needed accurate tracking, you could send a Voyager or Little Phatty back to the factory to have a calibration trimpot installed. They saved like a dollar on each instrument that way, right?

I don't know what the excuse is with the Mother-32. Mine tracked over a couple octaves, but it wasn't great. The M32 does provide a calibration trimpot, but I sold mine before pulling that thread. I know that the M32's tracking is a common complaint, but a lot of people use M32s with CV, which suggests that proper calibration makes everything well. But it'd be nice to see this done in the factory. I've never once had to calibrate a eurorack oscillator, and I've tried about nine.

If the Grandmother tracks as well as the average eurorack oscillator, it'd be quite a coup on Moog's part.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: LoboLives on May 18, 2018, 12:19:35 PM
I like the look and the on board Spring Reverb but sadly I have no interest in it as a product. I have a Moog Sub 37 and really like it. I think it was a step in the right direction for Moog. On some ways it was what a modern Minimoog should be in regards to functionality. Yet as cool as the Mother 32 is (although overpriced for what you get with it...or lack there of) I just feel Moog has been regressing in some ways. Doing away with memory, presets, and sort of getting back to its origins in some ways...that’s all well and good but I’d like to see them take the concept of the Sub 37 and expand on it and no 8 don’t mean just add CV capabilities I mean offer something fresh.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: chysn on May 19, 2018, 06:51:12 AM
I like the look and the on board Spring Reverb but sadly I have no interest in it as a product. I have a Moog Sub 37 and really like it. I think it was a step in the right direction for Moog. On some ways it was what a modern Minimoog should be in regards to functionality. Yet as cool as the Mother 32 is (although overpriced for what you get with it...or lack there of) I just feel Moog has been regressing in some ways. Doing away with memory, presets, and sort of getting back to its origins in some ways...that’s all well and good but I’d like to see them take the concept of the Sub 37 and expand on it and no 8 don’t mean just add CV capabilities I mean offer something fresh.

I've kind of turned around on Moog's whole retro gestalt. I think there's a place for it. We've got Dave Smith, who sometimes touches on the past, but also makes nigh-radical, innovative stuff. There are plenty of other innovators and disruptors out there (tons in eurorack alone). So I say, let Moog be Moog. Let's have the endless procession of monophonic dual-sawtooth-core-oscillator ladder filter stuff. It takes a tremendous amount of creativity to keep doing the same thing in new ways, and I've come to admire it, with no hint of irony in my admiration.

When they went off on their modular reissue course, I said that they were probably not doing it to sell lots of $35,000 synths, but to train their engineers in the nuances of the old modules in order to bring these modules back to musician-level (as opposed to university-level) instruments. And that's what it looks like they're doing with the Grandmother.

I think that the reissue project really broadcast Moog's philosophy for the foreseeable future; so if anyone still has hopes of them coming out with polyphonic synths or digital anything, or triangle core oscillators, that's a sure road to disappointment. The biggest concession to modernity you can expect is continued support of eurorack in lieu of their own 5U modular format. That's pretty big, actually.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Bryan_D on May 19, 2018, 06:18:43 PM
Just as a follow-up, the GM oscillators had no trouble tracking from the Pro 2. Works as it should. Love the sound and the build quality. In a word, beefy! I also dig the aesthetic. I feel like I have found an instrument from yesteryear, but I guess that was Moog's intention. Great synth!
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: chysn on May 19, 2018, 06:37:30 PM
Just as a follow-up, the GM oscillators had no trouble tracking from the Pro 2. Works as it should. Love the sound and the build quality. In a word, beefy! I also dig the aesthetic. I feel like I have found an instrument from yesteryear, but I guess that was Moog's intention. Great synth!

Nice to know! Thanks for the report.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Paul Dither on May 20, 2018, 09:46:30 AM
Sean Costello from Valhalla DSP recorded some nice demos:

https://soundcloud.com/seancostello/sets/moog-grandmother
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: chysn on May 20, 2018, 10:48:04 AM
Sean Costello from Valhalla DSP recorded some nice demos:

https://soundcloud.com/seancostello/sets/moog-grandmother

I was happy to hear "Moog Grandmother vs Sleestak God." I can pretty much trace my childhood love of synth tones directly back to Land of the Lost.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: LoboLives on May 20, 2018, 11:12:40 AM
I like the look and the on board Spring Reverb but sadly I have no interest in it as a product. I have a Moog Sub 37 and really like it. I think it was a step in the right direction for Moog. On some ways it was what a modern Minimoog should be in regards to functionality. Yet as cool as the Mother 32 is (although overpriced for what you get with it...or lack there of) I just feel Moog has been regressing in some ways. Doing away with memory, presets, and sort of getting back to its origins in some ways...that’s all well and good but I’d like to see them take the concept of the Sub 37 and expand on it and no 8 don’t mean just add CV capabilities I mean offer something fresh.

I've kind of turned around on Moog's whole retro gestalt. I think there's a place for it. We've got Dave Smith, who sometimes touches on the past, but also makes nigh-radical, innovative stuff. There are plenty of other innovators and disruptors out there (tons in eurorack alone). So I say, let Moog be Moog. Let's have the endless procession of monophonic dual-sawtooth-core-oscillator ladder filter stuff. It takes a tremendous amount of creativity to keep doing the same thing in new ways, and I've come to admire it, with no hint of irony in my admiration.

When they went off on their modular reissue course, I said that they were probably not doing it to sell lots of $35,000 synths, but to train their engineers in the nuances of the old modules in order to bring these modules back to musician-level (as opposed to university-level) instruments. And that's what it looks like they're doing with the Grandmother.

I think that the reissue project really broadcast Moog's philosophy for the foreseeable future; so if anyone still has hopes of them coming out with polyphonic synths or digital anything, or triangle core oscillators, that's a sure road to disappointment. The biggest concession to modernity you can expect is continued support of eurorack in lieu of their own 5U modular format. That's pretty big, actually.

I will say one thing. They are making the Grandmother and their modular gear affordable for a lot of users.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Paul Dither on May 20, 2018, 11:57:57 AM
I will say one thing. They are making the Grandmother and their modular gear affordable for a lot of users.

I think that's the real news behind the Grandmother: that they managed to make affordable versions of the classic Moog modular circuits available.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: dsetto on May 23, 2018, 06:16:08 AM
...
I think that's the real news behind the Grandmother: that they managed to make affordable versions of the classic Moog modular circuits available.
This is the thing that piqued my interest. My assumption is that the grandmother may share some characteristics of what they say is its reference point, and that it’s smaller circuit board doesn’t sound just like the big chips. This is an assumption based on my non-engineer observations.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Manbird on February 04, 2021, 03:49:59 PM
It's been a mad two weeks in my synth world. My Prophet 5 arrived last week and as of yesterday I'm the proud father of a Grandmother! I'd tried it out at Justmusic, back in the Before Times, and always liked it. I know I'm not the only one spending more money than I should these days, but I don't regret grabbing this lovely synth. It's got that gorgeous, classic tone for traditional "musical" purposes - leads and bass - and then, of course, it's got that semi-modular rabbit hole charm. While my music has always been about blending structured pop with random weirdness, I find myself lately a bit anxious or uptight about putting too much time into simply playing around with sound. I've become very purpose-based. But last night and much of today has been very much a guilt-free "What happens if I plug *this* into *this*??" Quite liberating and very fun. And it has THAT sound.

I left a Micromoog behind in Berlin. I always figured if I moved back to California, I'd sell the Micro, as it's not sturdy enough to ship. I thought the Grandmother would be a great replacement to have here in Cal. Selling and shipping are moot points right now with the pandemic calling all shots, but just as the heavenly rev 4 Prophet 5 makes me miss my P6, the Grandmother makes me appreciate the Micromoog. I don't think I've ever been able to say "Such and such synth covers all the bases because it can sound like this one and that one..." To me, each one is unique. As Mr. Smith would put it, It's a curse!!
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: timboréale on February 04, 2021, 04:14:43 PM
I had a Moog Grandmother for just shy of a year. Beautiful sound, but I didn't gel with it and the lack of patch storage annoyed me more than I found value in the manual patching. I miss my Subsequent 37 though - that was a beauty of a synth. That said, there's a sort of wide open depth to the Grandmother that the phatty series lacks, and that was definitely appealing. I can see why it's still a popular synth! The thing that finally did ol' grandma in though was the keyboard. I consider 32 keys at least 5 too few. 37 is my hard limit and I prefer the 49 keys of the Nord Lead (although I could be happy with the 44 of the Pro 2 as well, in a pinch). So, between my frustration with the way it didn't fit in the studio workflow and the keybed, it went out the door and I am presently Moog-less (and monosynth-less).
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Manbird on February 04, 2021, 06:49:24 PM
I had a Moog Grandmother for just shy of a year. Beautiful sound, but I didn't gel with it and the lack of patch storage annoyed me more than I found value in the manual patching. I miss my Subsequent 37 though - that was a beauty of a synth. That said, there's a sort of wide open depth to the Grandmother that the phatty series lacks, and that was definitely appealing. I can see why it's still a popular synth! The thing that finally did ol' grandma in though was the keyboard. I consider 32 keys at least 5 too few. 37 is my hard limit and I prefer the 49 keys of the Nord Lead (although I could be happy with the 44 of the Pro 2 as well, in a pinch). So, between my frustration with the way it didn't fit in the studio workflow and the keybed, it went out the door and I am presently Moog-less (and monosynth-less).

I'm used to the Micromoog's keyboard, which is also 32 notes, so the Grandmother doesn't feel strange or lacking. Plus, it's MIDI'd up to my P5, so if I do need those extra keys... And I started off on the Pro One, so a non-programmable mono is familiar, too. Come to think, the only programmable mono I've ever had is my Evolver. I used to always write down patch settings, either on the blank patch sheets that came with the manual, or on a scrap of notepaper. I don't know why, but I don't bother anymore. Maybe mono is meant to teach me to live in the moment or to just point out I'm a bit lazy!
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: timboréale on February 04, 2021, 07:36:16 PM
Yep, for you that all adds up to "you're gonna love it!" The Grandmother and a Prophet 5 is a really charming combination. Very complementary (and quite different) timbres.
Title: Re: Moog Grandmother
Post by: Manbird on February 04, 2021, 10:22:29 PM
Yep, for you that all adds up to "you're gonna love it!" The Grandmother and a Prophet 5 is a really charming combination. Very complementary (and quite different) timbres.

Indeed. The Prophet and the Moog already get on very well! The Prophet is an old friend at this point, though that doesn't lessen the thrill of having a rev 4, while the Grandmother, despite being based on chips of yesteryear, keeps pulling me forward. A very "American" combination of synths, which I suppose it fitting as I've been back in California for nearly a year now!