Moog Muse - Cat's out of the bag!

[J.F.N.]

Just now, HammondDave said:

Here is a good walk through of the Muse by Sound on Sound. Unfortunately, it does display its Achilles heal at 22:10 when the demonstrator hits the preset button without waiting for the sound to end (I became suspicious when he was waiting so long to change presets). It seems that the previous sound cuts off as soon as he changes the preset. This is unfortunate. 
 

https://www.soundonsound.com/news/moog-launch-muse-polysynth

 

That's a bit of a petty indeed, else it seems pretty well designed for performance use!

[HammondDave]

19 minutes ago, J.F.N. said:

 

That's a bit of a petty indeed, else it seems pretty well designed for performance use!

I agree that it seems well designed for most performance uses. I just thought (like lack of poly aftertouch), that it is a poor cost-cutting decision that some players could find disconcerting when playing it live. I wonder if its’ competitors also have these issues. 

[J.F.N.]

3 minutes ago, HammondDave said:

I agree that it seems well designed for most performance uses. I just thought (like lack of poly aftertouch), that it is a poor cost-cutting decision that some players could find disconcerting when playing it live. I wonder if its’ competitors also have these issues. 

 

I have a feeling cost cutting was a very important point here, to get this into a very competitive level, InMusic starting a new journey for Moog really aiming at getting profitability from the beginning and not taking any risks. I am sure they have more things up their sleeve during the next years to come...

[Theo Verelst]

From what I've heard thus far, the modular oscillators and the ladder filters sound good, I suppose SMDs make this integration possible, but I'm pretty sure the modulation "matrix" is digital, it sounds that way, and that's far from ideal. Of course, making a mod matrix is technically difficult in analog form, but I feel it would sounds so much better.

 

T

[Jim Alfredson]

I can't think of any analog synthesizer where the sound continues after you change presets. Remember, you're dealing with very limited polyphony: 8 voices in the case of the Moog Muse. A modern digital workstation like the Kurzweil K2700 has 256 voice polyphony.

[HammondDave]

1 hour ago, Jim Alfredson said:

I can't think of any analog synthesizer where the sound continues after you change presets. Remember, you're dealing with very limited polyphony: 8 voices in the case of the Moog Muse. A modern digital workstation like the Kurzweil K2700 has 256 voice polyphony.

Good point. It’s been a while since I used an analog synth in performance, so maybe my expectations are too high.  Of course there are workarounds. 

[CrossRhodes]

New vid from Moog just dropped. All presets, no talking.
 

 

[Matthiola]

Lots of diffusion delay in those presets.

[HammondDave]

25 minutes ago, Matthiola said:

Lots of diffusion delay in those presets.

LOVE IT!!!!  

[Phil Aiken]

On 8/2/2024 at 12:00 AM, DrSynth said:

Jim, it sounds pretty good in person !  

 

The cool thing about the Polybrutes is that you set your A patch and your B patch and it takes care of the 'morphing' of parameter changes for you;  The Muse can do a very similar thing within a single Timbre (A, B or Both) using the Macro Knob like Yamaha's Montage SuperKnob.  But you have to build the parameter modulations in the Mod Matrix manually.  I did a lot this on quite a few of my presets to mimic that behavior of the 'Brutes.

 

My Polybrute 12 just arrived the other day and this weekend I'll have it up and running next to the Muse.

I have both The Muse and PB 6.  They are both great keyboards. I got The Muse to potentially be my go to live synth, on gigs that are primarily piano/organ, but having a synth that can do Mono of the Model D style, and Poly convincingly. It absolutely can do that. The presets are Diffusion Delay crazy, but the basic tone is excellent. I enjoy the Polybrute and find the Matrix to be the funnest and most intuitive programming interface ever. And really you can do a pretty decent Model D on it.  I dislike the physical keyboard. I mostly play it from a Midiboard, and have never used it live. 
So....I will either keep The Muse, or replace my PB6 with a PB12 and consider a now MPE capable OBX8 desktop a few months down the road to pair with it.  
Talk about first world problems.  We have a lot of great instruments available without paying collector type prices for vintage stuff. 

I was kind of hoping The Muse would convince me to sell The Voyager, whose oscillators are ostensibly of the same lineage, but it doesn't. That would basically be an even swap money wise, or close to it. I tried to match them up a little bit, which is kind of a cool exercise if nothing else, and could not get them that close. The envelopes seem part of that, but the filter behavior seems to contribute. This, mind you, with a cursory attempt, and there might be some hidden modulations in the Voyager patches I did not emulate. Also, the Voyager is slew modded, so the oscillators are a LITTLE bit different. 

Feature request for all keyboards with built in effects: Global effects on/off.  Using outboard effects? Off. Those effects not available, or playing live? On.   Started thinking about that while scrolling through the presets and shutting the diffusion delay off to hear the basics more clearly.  But useful in a lot of instances, I think. Rambling.

[HammondDave]

That diffusion delay sounds pretty awesome though. 

[Mike Martin]

12 hours ago, HammondDave said:

That diffusion delay sounds pretty awesome though. 

 

This was really impressive when I played it. I played the instrument for about 20 minutes dry, then added the diffusion delay and was kinda blown away. Moog's dedicated video on the delay was kinda lame unfortunately. 

[J.F.N.]

So the Diffusion Delay is a huge part of the sound of the Muse? What hardware Diffusion Delay were they taking the inspiration from?

[CrossRhodes]

14 minutes ago, J.F.N. said:

So the Diffusion Delay is a huge part of the sound of the Muse? What hardware Diffusion Delay were they taking the inspiration from?

 

This is the only description I have seen so far:

Muse’s most enticing effect might be the new Diffusion Delay processor. Inspired by golden-era vintage digital rack delays, Diffusion Delay offers a unique and powerful set of diffusion, multi-tap, and filter effects for adding dimension and depth to any patch.

 

The diffusion delay sounds really great to my ears but based on Matt Johnson's demo, the Muse sounds just as good without it as well. 
 

[HammondDave]

1 hour ago, Mike Martin said:

 

This was really impressive when I played it. I played the instrument for about 20 minutes dry, then added the diffusion delay and was kinda blown away. Moog's dedicated video on the delay was kinda lame unfortunately. 

 

 

On 8/6/2024 at 9:41 AM, CrossRhodes said:

New vid from Moog just dropped. All presets, no talking.
 

 

 I found the one hour video above with the artist only playing each preset very impressive. Wear headphones and you will hear the extraordinary effects the diffusion delay creates coupled with its stereo capabilities. 

[ProfD]

Makes sense that Moog would include delay effect on the Muse. Matriarch and Grandmother have it too. 

 

Of course, delay was used a lot to wet those early synth sounds emanating from the Sahara.😎

[J.F.N.]

Interesting stand, and interesting choice of angle on the Roland Juno-X...

 

 

[eric]

I saw the Olympics show Muse placement as well and took a picture of my TV, thinking of sharing here and the cat's out of the bag! LOL.

 

It's pretty impressive that such a new instrument made its way on TV so quickly. It looks cool on stage! Very Jupiter 6/8 vibes.

[J.F.N.]

13 minutes ago, eric said:

I saw the Olympics show Muse placement as well and took a picture of my TV, thinking of sharing here and the cat's out of the bag! LOL.

 

It's pretty impressive that such a new instrument made its way on TV so quickly. It looks cool on stage! Very Jupiter 6/8 vibes.

 

HEHE!

 

Photo's not mine though, grabbed it from another conversation as I wanted to share it here..

 

[eric]

Here are some photos I snapped on the TV yesterday.

 

 

[J.F.N.]

24 minutes ago, eric said:

Here are some photos I snapped on the TV yesterday.

 

 

 

Man cave I suppose?

 

🤣

[TomKittel]

Does the Polybrute Moog? No. Does the Muse? You bet! The Muse wins by a mile here:

 

 

[kpl1228]

Maybe this will push the OB-X8 to drop their price. Not likely though.

[HammondDave]

 

So tempting….

[Phil Aiken]

I returned mine today. Not a knock on the instrument at all, and indeed I liked it. It just doesn't fill enough of a niche for me to justify keeping. I have other Moogs and other analog Polysynths, and other than the nifty sequencer (which I'd never use) it covers very little ground I can't already cover. I think I'd be better off allocating the funds elsewhere. For now, anyway. The Muse is definitely worthy. 

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, Phil Aiken said:

I returned mine today. Not a knock on the instrument at all, and indeed I liked it. It just doesn't fill enough of a niche for me to justify keeping. 

Coolest aspect of 45 day return policy is allowing allows folks to demo gear at their leisure to determine whether or not it's a fit. Nothing to lose.😎

[Mighty Motif Max]

I had the opportunity to try one of these out today! I went in thinking that this might be a bucket-list synth. General thoughts are that it had a nice keybed, but would really benefit from poly aftertouch, which is something I didn't realize I really liked until the recent resurgence of boards with that feature. Just in terms of getting more expression out of the sound. The diffusion delay is quite nice, and I appreciate that they included some type of effect onboard. The build quality was very good.

 

As far as the actual sound, I'm still getting accustomed to what I believe is what some folks call the "Moog sound", and maybe it's not quite what I'm looking for. Very nice overall, very smooth and glossy. Just not something I could see myself using a lot. I'd probably mainly want that type of sound for basses, and a Muse would be serious overkill for that purpose, especially with their monosynths that are a bit cheaper. When it comes to polysynths, I'm starting to realize I might lean more toward the Oberheim and digital/VA realms perhaps...brighter saws, etc. Less polite sounding, perhaps. But the Muse is absolutely a sweet machine!

[JoJoB3]

On 8/5/2024 at 8:08 PM, Jim Alfredson said:

I can't think of any analog synthesizer where the sound continues after you change presets. Remember, you're dealing with very limited polyphony: 8 voices in the case of the Moog Muse. A modern digital workstation like the Kurzweil K2700 has 256 voice polyphony.

Uhoh - enter the genius that was Ensoniq once again.  * can continue the previous patch as you select and play others with their ESQ1 and SQ80.

at 3:13 - brief example 

 

 

[Jim Alfredson]

35 minutes ago, JoJoB3 said:

Uhoh - enter the genius that was Ensoniq once again.  * can continue the previous patch as you select and play others with their ESQ1 and SQ80.

Neither is an analog synth. They have analog filters, but everything else is digital; envelopes, oscillators, LFOs, etc.
 

[YashN]

Yep, these are a Hybrid architecture: Digital Oscs followed by Analogue VCFs.