What is the secret with Moog VCF?

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Listening some to the new Behringer Poly-D nailed it and it's something lovely about those filters.

Feel like a high shelving LP there, not to be brittle. A little bit like recordings of Abbey Road - mids are there but never too much, just right.
The omph-factor is really high.

Is the resonance characteristics the secret?
Or is the voltage control slightly off - in the right way?

KingKorg had some emulated Moog filter type - but didn't create that special sound what I recall.

Or am I in the wrong park - and it's the oscillators circuits?

The new Sequential Pro 3 sounds great too, is that the same type of filter as Moog?

Thanks.

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The Pro3 has 3 filters. A OB6 filter, A Prophet 6 filter and yes, a ladder (read: Moog) filter.
The Pro3 does have a 'bass compensation' option for when you crank up the resonance which the actual Moog filter doesn't have. (When you crank up the resonance, you lose the bottom end).

The 'secret' of the Moog VCF is the ladder design which gives it its sound. You can see why it's called a ladder filter because the circuit design... looks like a ladder.

And yes, the Pro 3 sounds pretty neat and just judging from videos they did a very good job on the ladder filter.

Dave Smith says it's the last mono synth you 'll need. I bit exaggerated of course, but it can sound like a Moog and can also do pretty nasty so I rather go for this one than the new Korg MS-20. The Pro 3 does not sound like an MS-20 but it can cover nasty sound territory, which imo is the biggest selling point of the MS-20: an agressive sound. So, I concur that the Pro 3 is somewhat of a mono powerhouse.


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Thanks a lot for input - interesting read.

One of the most intriguing pedals I have for guitar is parametric eq - which has both gain, frequency and width(Q-value).

Wonder why synths does not have both gain and width as resonance settings?
I see this with some delicate filtering I do sometimes with plugins too - makes all the difference to have all those parameters to shape sound.

I saw Argon8, digital but still, have some kind of morph thingy between filter types - a bit curious about that.

Like the idea some have like Wavestate, Jupiter X, KingKorg etc - a choice of a couple of filter types.
MS-20 is one on my arriving Wavestate.

"Filters: 2-pole LPF, 2-pole HPF, 2-pole BPF, 2-pole Band Reject, 4-pole LPF, 4-pole HPF, 4-pole BPF, 4-pole Band Reject, Multi Filter, MS-20 LPF, MS-20 HPF, Polysix"

Quite a bit to explore....

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After 15 years on KVR you finally learn about filter types? :shock:

Moog ladder is 4-pole low-pass. Each pole does 6dB/oct roll-off.

Korg ms-20 I think is 3-pole. It's a different sound (personally I can't stand it)

Arp got sued by Moog with their 2600 for patent infringement.

That parametric EQ of yours is quite different from a low-pass or hi-pass.
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moog ladder filter is shit grrrr.

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Well, this one doesn't eat the bass when you crank up the res.

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The filter patent of Robert Moog, with comments:
http://www.till.com/articles/moog/patents.html
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Stefken wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:57 pm Well, this one doesn't eat the bass when you crank up the res.
grrrr.

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BertKoor wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:24 pm After 15 years on KVR you finally learn about filter types? :shock:
Just more like being particular about what they are called - Steiner Parker and Moog as MatrixBrute has. These names started to interest me more what is particular about them.

I always used 2-pole and 4-pole and know what it means in reactive components and certainly looks like ladder that too just adding two more reactive components efter each other - a coil and capacitor. But less about what it does to sound when we made Butterworth and Chebyshev stuff in school. Different kind of ringing at crossover.

First synth with proper filter options were Nord Rack 2 I had 15 years ago, and now the Nordlead 2X. Even combinations of notch+LP etc.

Deepmind has interesting options for envelope doing curve in how it transition over time.

Prologue has one type only, and very pointy resonance - but what they were going for were maybe self oscillating which is does really well. I would not mind having option to widen resonance so maybe mids and bass were affected as well - part of the discovery process what works.

Having dual timbre like in Prologue or four like Nordlead that opens up to compensate what one voice does.

Issue with analog might be to make each voice get the same analog behavior since circuits are duplicated. If you hit one note, and then hit the the same note again - it sound too different, maybe not so good. It has to be predictable.

So mono analog synths are easier that way - one circuit to match. And those analog that are poly have less filter types often.

Doing calibration in Deepmind take quite a while, because it goes through everything like envelopes and stuff - everything calibrated electronically - for each voice.

Calibration in Prologue seem to be tuning only - when it is cold the analog sound off to digital part in multiengine. After 20-30 minutes warmup it sounds the same from then on. Or some parameter like fm modulation does not sound the same when cold as warm.
That parametric EQ of yours is quite different from a low-pass or hi-pass.
In particular interesting used with tube amps since it decide which frequencies are saturated first of all - and what it does to the flood of harmonics. Then you use normal eq on amp as post eq kind of.

I would like that option in synth filters too, but being voltage controlled maybe difficult to do, don't know. If to allow key tracking. But you go by how it sound in various key ranges - so could be there is my thought.

I guess as Stefken pointed out the bass loss in one type - as I see it - could be that Q-value to low when LP crossover affect bass that much.

If you can make that more pointy - less wide - it would not.

So doing all exploration of synth sounds going in various directions - I would not mind a parametric eq to the filter and key tracking or not on that.

I had that in a thread before - but not much attention or interest at all.
viewtopic.php?f=102&t=536104

Korg Wavestate has a multifilter which allow combination of some filters which I find intriguing. Way to go....
Last edited by lfm on Sun Jan 19, 2020 4:09 am, edited 6 times in total.

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vurt wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:28 pm moog ladder filter is shit grrrr.
Yes, we all know your feelings on that! :roll:

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Forgotten wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:37 am
vurt wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:28 pm moog ladder filter is shit grrrr.
Yes, we all know your feelings on that! :roll:
Well it is shit. Worst filter ever made.
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Halonmusic wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:36 pm
Forgotten wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:37 am
vurt wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:28 pm moog ladder filter is shit grrrr.
Yes, we all know your feelings on that! :roll:
Well it is shit. Worst filter ever made grrr.
ftfy :)

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vurt wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:46 pm
Halonmusic wrote: Wed Jan 22, 2020 5:36 pm
Forgotten wrote: Sun Jan 19, 2020 3:37 am
vurt wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:28 pm moog ladder filter is shit grrrr.
Yes, we all know your feelings on that! :roll:
Well it is shit. Worst filter ever made grrr.
ftfy :)
Hawk the Slayer Behringer Crave is rubbish

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:lol:

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BertKoor wrote: Sat Jan 18, 2020 9:24 pmKorg ms-20 I think is 3-pole. It's a different sound (personally I can't stand it)
MS-20 is two filters: 6 dB/oct highpass, and 12 dB/oct lowpass. Both resonant. :)

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