Moog Matriarch

[LoboLives]

The more I hear this thing the more I love it. One of the features I requested to Moog on the One was a Paraphonic Mode which would be perfect for emulating some of those PolyMoog divide down type sounds.

I would love to hear more paraphonic sounds on The Matriarch...some string mach8ne or organ type sound examples. If I like what I hear from those, this will be a strong contender in my setup.

[Paul Dither]

Here are two more videos that also include paraphonic patches:

https://youtu.be/gRyuP6_W3fk

https://youtu.be/axdPuDB8VtA

[Paul Dither]

The more I hear this thing the more I love it. One of the features I requested to Moog on the One was a Paraphonic Mode which would be perfect for emulating some of those PolyMoog divide down type sounds.

I would love to hear more paraphonic sounds on The Matriarch...some string mach8ne or organ type sound examples. If I like what I hear from those, this will be a strong contender in my setup.

I always thought the Grandmother's ability to emulate the old Moog modular sound would be a good enough reason for you. Think Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. 

Sean Costello from Valhalla DSP came very close to that bass sound in his Carpenter-ish Grandmother piece:
https://soundcloud.com/seancostello/themefromgrandmother

[LoboLives]

The more I hear this thing the more I love it. One of the features I requested to Moog on the One was a Paraphonic Mode which would be perfect for emulating some of those PolyMoog divide down type sounds.

I would love to hear more paraphonic sounds on The Matriarch...some string mach8ne or organ type sound examples. If I like what I hear from those, this will be a strong contender in my setup.

I always thought the Grandmother's ability to emulate the old Moog modular sound would be a good enough reason for you. Think Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. 

Sean Costello from Valhalla DSP came very close to that bass sound in his Carpenter-ish Grandmother piece:
https://soundcloud.com/seancostello/themefromgrandmother

Haha yeah. I was strongly considering a multiple Moog Mother 32/DFam setup linked to my Sub 37 to get into those early Carpenter tracks. While the Grandmother sounds nice you really would need some type of modular setup to do those early Carpenter sounds. You need to have multiple sequences going with white noise and what not. I mean unless you want to have about 6 or 8 Grandmothers synced together...lol

[LoboLives]

Here are two more videos that also include paraphonic patches:

https://youtu.be/gRyuP6_W3fk

https://youtu.be/axdPuDB8VtA

Yeah I知 a big fan of her work. We are friends on Facebook and she said once her Matriarch order arrives she will do some string patches and organ patches...and even run em through an analog Phaser

[Paul Dither]

The more I hear this thing the more I love it. One of the features I requested to Moog on the One was a Paraphonic Mode which would be perfect for emulating some of those PolyMoog divide down type sounds.

I would love to hear more paraphonic sounds on The Matriarch...some string mach8ne or organ type sound examples. If I like what I hear from those, this will be a strong contender in my setup.

I always thought the Grandmother's ability to emulate the old Moog modular sound would be a good enough reason for you. Think Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. 

Sean Costello from Valhalla DSP came very close to that bass sound in his Carpenter-ish Grandmother piece:
https://soundcloud.com/seancostello/themefromgrandmother

Haha yeah. I was strongly considering a multiple Moog Mother 32/DFam setup linked to my Sub 37 to get into those early Carpenter tracks. While the Grandmother sounds nice you really would need some type of modular setup to do those early Carpenter sounds. You need to have multiple sequences going with white noise and what not. I mean unless you want to have about 6 or 8 Grandmothers synced together...lol

Sure, you'd have to multitrack for that. But I think Sean replicated that kind of bass sound quite well, and that was exactly one patch. The bass sounds in the latter two Matriarch examples also have that character, which I guess is also related to the pleasing saturation you can get out of that mixer module.

[Paul Dither]

Yeah I知 a big fan of her work. We are friends on Facebook and she said once her Matriarch order arrives she will do some string patches and organ patches...and even run em through an analog Phaser

Met her last year at Superbooth where she was playing a Minimoog through an array of effect units. Very talented player and fun to talk to.

[LoboLives]

Yeah I知 a big fan of her work. We are friends on Facebook and she said once her Matriarch order arrives she will do some string patches and organ patches...and even run em through an analog Phaser

Met her last year at Superbooth where she was playing a Minimoog through an array of effect units. Very talented player and fun to talk to.

My favorite performance...https://youtu.be/EsiRt1jiKWY

[Paul Dither]

My favorite performance...https://youtu.be/EsiRt1jiKWY

Yeah, I remember that one. Liked it too. She also demoed lots of Earthquaker Devices effects at Superbooth, hooked up to both a Minimoog and a Rhodes piano.

[LoboLives]

My favorite performance...https://youtu.be/EsiRt1jiKWY

Yeah, I remember that one. Liked it too. She also demoed lots of Earthquaker Devices effects at Superbooth, hooked up to both a Minimoog and a Rhodes piano.

I知 not positive but I believe she works for them. She has them listed under her name on FaceBook.

[Paul Dither]

I知 not positive but I believe she works for them. She has them listed under her name on FaceBook.

Yes, she was there as a representative.

[Kja]

So have anybody thought about trading your prophet 6 or OB6 for this? I'm very conflicted about it.. I only have money for one big poly and I love my prophet 6, but this thing is sweet even though it's not a true poly I'm not a great keys player anyway.

[Paul Dither]

Nah, I would never trade in my Prophet-6 for a Matriarch, they're completely different beasts. I've only been thinking about swapping my Sub 37 for a Grandmother, which I think would be enough for me. Taking the Matriarch into consideration would at least require a hands-on test. But no matter how much I would like it, it couldn't replace the Prophet-6 for me.

Like you said, it's not a poly synth. And although it seems to have a lot going for it, I would rather see it as a great companion for something like the Prophet-6 or any other poly synth for that matter. If, however, polyphony is not that important to you, the perspective might be different. I would still wait until you get the chance to try it in a store because the whole approach is totally different.

[jok3r]

I don't have any Eurorack stuff by now, but I thought it would be possible to build a little case with some more LFOs and EGs and connect it with your Matriarch/Grandmother? Isn't it all about that in the modular world? Or did I miss something?

I thought about buying a Matriarch (and perhaps a Grandmother, too) as a nice starting point in the modular world. So I would have the most important moduls in a case with a keyboard and MIDI connections. I don't think I would by more oscillators and filters, because I really like the sound of the Moog modular stuff, but thought of building a little "Modulation Box" in a Eurorack case. Thought of some LFOS, EGs, this crazy Math module I've often seen by now, Attenuators, Mults, and so on. I thought I could use this Box with every synth or other Eurorack compatible system.

Please enlighten me, before I buy this thing with a plan in mind that will never work.

It would certainly work as you described above. I would, however, suggest to wait until the Matriarch is actually available, which might be around late summer or fall, depending on where you're located. Then compare it to the Grandmother and ask yourself whether you would really need a Matriarch if you're planning on building an external modular box anyway. I also suggest this because there are quite a few users who really like the spring reverb of the Grandmother, which isn't included in the Matriarch.

As for heading out into Eurorack territory: It will always be important to follow your actual musical needs and to have at least a rough understanding about why you would need a specific module. Given that you narrowed it down to a couple of utilities modules and additional modulators, though, it seems to me like you already have a pretty good idea of how to expand the functionality of a semi-modular system.

Thanks for your reply. I'm located in Germany, about 30km from Treppendorf where the Thomann headquarters and showrooms are. So I will definitely try the Matriarch before buying it. I can visit Thomann almost weekly if I want to (the biggest problem is spare time ;-) ), so I tried all of my synth before I buyed them. Sometimes it takes a whole year until I'm really sure about it.

I tried the grandmother again and again for the last few month this year and am pretty sure that (semi)modular will be my next way to go. I really like the sound of the grandmother and am hoping the matriarch will have the same basic sound. The keyboard feels very good, too. I know about the missing spring reverb and that is the only minus of the Matriarch I can think of. On the other hand, an analog, modulatable stereo delay could be a lot of fun, too. And I like the stereo and paraphonic concept.

The main advantage (besides the obvious ones) the Matriarch has over the Grandmother (at least for me) is the bigger keyboard and the patchable aftertouch. I play live a lot with several bands and when I do, I often need my left hand to play chords or bass lines, so I use aftertouch for fading in vibrato and other effects. I think I could do this with the Matriarch by linking aftertouch out to the CV in of an attenuator which controls the amount of the second tri/square lfo and still have the main LFO left for modulation (will this work? as said: I don't have any experience with modular and am just working with the theoretical knowledge I have ;-) ).

The Matriarch has more stuff in one box than the Grandmother, so perhaps I don't need external modules for quite some time in which I can save money again and learn from experience which modules I really really miss. Or perhaps I come to the conclusion that I simply want to have both models ;-) I think that would give me a lot of possibilities and I could have both the reverb and the delay.

Back to live gigging: I don't really have the time on stage for doing a lot of patching and tweaking and don't want to have a separate modulation box on stage, too (that's just for home/studio usage). So the Matriarch would give me every thing I need to build the basic lead sounds I often play in one single box, which I can patch before the show and then do only minor changes in the timbre of the sounds during the show. It just seems to be the better gigging machine for me.

Thanks Paul for making me think loud about why I want this machine. I think I really want to go this way, so hopefully the Matriarch will deliver what it promises so far. Can anybody comprehend my thoughts, or is this a bad, bad plan?

Another thought I had: the Grandmother has several parameters that are modulatable per MIDI. I thought about using one of my workstations to build a kind of "external memory" for this machine. I want to save the needed CC changes in a MIDI file and automatically send it to the Grandmother (or then Matriarch) when I'm sending all the Program Changes to the other synths before playing a new song. So perhaps I don't have to do any tweaking on stage at all (besides live tweaking for performance reasons, of course), if the MIDI modulatable parameters are all I need. Has anybody here done such a thing on stage and can share his experiences?

[Paul Dither]

The main advantage (besides the obvious ones) the Matriarch has over the Grandmother (at least for me) is the bigger keyboard and the patchable aftertouch. I play live a lot with several bands and when I do, I often need my left hand to play chords or bass lines, so I use aftertouch for fading in vibrato and other effects. I think I could do this with the Matriarch by linking aftertouch out to the CV in of an attenuator which controls the amount of the second tri/square lfo and still have the main LFO left for modulation (will this work? as said: I don't have any experience with modular and am just working with the theoretical knowledge I have ;-) ).

Aftertouch is indeed an advantage of the Matriarch. And yes, you should be able to patch Aftertouch as you described above.

Another thought I had: the Grandmother has several parameters that are modulatable per MIDI. I thought about using one of my workstations to build a kind of "external memory" for this machine. I want to save the needed CC changes in a MIDI file and automatically send it to the Grandmother (or then Matriarch) when I'm sending all the Program Changes to the other synths before playing a new song. So perhaps I don't have to do any tweaking on stage at all (besides live tweaking for performance reasons, of course), if the MIDI modulatable parameters are all I need. Has anybody here done such a thing on stage and can share his experiences?

You can control a few parameters via MIDI, but you won't be able to send any settings to the Grandmother or Matriarch that would result in something like a preset change, as there's no edit buffer like, for example, on the Minitaur, which has its dedicated editor and patch librarian. So there's no equivalent for a program change on these synths. When working with a DAW, you can send CC messages to automate certain parameters during playback or recording, but that's about it. So you'd have to practice manual changes in realtime to be able to quickly switch from one sound to another.

[LoboLives]

So have anybody thought about trading your prophet 6 or OB6 for this? I'm very conflicted about it.. I only have money for one big poly and I love my prophet 6, but this thing is sweet even though it's not a true poly I'm not a great keys player anyway.

I致e thought of pairing it with my Prophet 6 as they would seem to compliment each other.

[Sacred Synthesis]

Nothing against the Matriarch, but the Prophet-6 strikes me as belonging to a different (and superior) category.  In some ways, the Moog is closer to a Pro-2, in that it's basically a monophonic instrument with paraphonic capabilities.  But the Prophet-6 is a genuine poly synth.  I wouldn't have even thought of comparing them, except for this thread.

[Paul Dither]

Yeah, it's indeed more like the all-analog cousin of the highly underrated Pro 2.

[jok3r]

You can control a few parameters via MIDI, but you won't be able to send any settings to the Grandmother or Matriarch that would result in something like a preset change, as there's no edit buffer like, for example, on the Minitaur, which has its dedicated editor and patch librarian. So there's no equivalent for a program change on these synths. When working with a DAW, you can send CC messages to automate certain parameters during playback or recording, but that's about it. So you'd have to practice manual changes in realtime to be able to quickly switch from one sound to another.

I don't know if you're getting me right. Sending the CC messages is exactly what I was thinking of. I will store the MIDI messages that cause these changes in a file which I "play" through one of my Workstations (Kronos or PC3) before I start playing the song... so after "playing" the MIDI file only containing some CC messages, the Matriarch should be in the right state after all the messages were send? I think this should take only some milliseconds to "play" the whole file. Doesn't a DAW basically do the same thing if you save your modulation settings in it? The only difference is, that my "modulations" send one static value once at the beginning and the Matriarch should keep it until I do something manually or send another value per MIDI.

[Paul Dither]

I don't know if you're getting me right. Sending the CC messages is exactly what I was thinking of. I will store the MIDI messages that cause these changes in a file which I "play" through one of my Workstations (Kronos or PC3) before I start playing the song... so after "playing" the MIDI file only containing some CC messages, the Matriarch should be in the right state after all the messages were send? I think this should take only some milliseconds to "play" the whole file. Doesn't a DAW basically do the same thing if you save your modulation settings in it? The only difference is, that my "modulations" send one static value once at the beginning and the Matriarch should keep it until I do something manually or send another value per MIDI.

Hm, never thought of it that way. To be honest: I don't know. Maybe someone else can chime in on that.

One thing to keep in mind, though: MIDI implementation will probably be pretty limited on the Matriarch as well. Below is the CC list from the Grandmother manual for reference.