# MOOG ONE: Moog's first polysynth in over three decades



## gsilbers (Oct 3, 2018)

*Moog’s new polysynth starts at $5,999.*

Moog is releasing its first polysynth in over three decades.

The Moog One is available in eight-voice and 16-voice versions, and is described as containing “the most advanced architecture ever conceived for a Moog synthesizer”.

You’re going to need a lot of spare cash if you want to get your hands on one though – the eight-voice version costs $5,999, while the 16-voice synth will set you back $7,999.

The synth hasn’t been fully unveiled by Moog yet, but US-based online retailer Sweetwater has opened pre-orders for an October release date alongside the first images and specifications.


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## gsilbers (Oct 3, 2018)

price


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## gsilbers (Oct 3, 2018)

nice:
Per voice, Moog One features three state-of-the-art analog voltage-controlled oscillators (VCOs), two independent analog filters (a Variable State filter and the famous Moog Ladder Filter) that can be run in series or parallel, a dual-source variable analog noise generator, an analog mixer with external audio input, four LFOs, and three envelope generators. You can split or layer the three timbres — each with its own sequencer, arpeggiator, and onboard effects library — across the premium 61-note Fatar keyboard with velocity and aftertouch.


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## emu (Oct 3, 2018)

What a really nice synth (at least on paper as there are no sound demos yet, but hey, it´s a moog - I am sure it sounds right ).

I bought the Mini Reissue last year and love this machine. Although this new poly Moog is a little too pricy for me I find it very cool that Moog has the balls to relaese such a beast. Hopefully they will build this a little longer than the Mini to save up the cash .


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## gsilbers (Oct 3, 2018)

emu said:


> What a really nice synth (at least on paper as there are no sound demos yet, but hey, it´s a moog - I am sure it sounds right ).
> 
> I bought the Mini Reissue last year and love this machine. Although this new poly Moog is a little too pricy for me I find it very cool that Moog has the balls to relaese such a beast. Hopefully they will build this a little longer than the Mini to save up the cash .



yep. the specs are impressive. they went all the way!


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## blougui (Oct 3, 2018)

A dream machine for sure - and for once they had the brill idea not to go the ladder-only road 
I’m’on Gearslutz discussing the whole thing. Amazing how much people seem to be able to fork big amount of cash to preorder a product that has no review nor demo as of yet. Utter madness or consumerism - as we experience everyday with the preorders for non resellable products. But of different magnitude - but yes, one can resell its synth


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## charlieclouser (Oct 3, 2018)

It remains to be seen if the Moog One will be what people think and hope it will be. Just knowing the features as listed on paper isn't enough to decide. For instance, on paper, the MiniMoog Voyager looks superior to the Model D in every way - but it certainly isn't. I have both, and the D has got "that thing", while the Voyager just.... doesn't. A fine synth in its own right, but the Voyager doesn't have that saturated magic that the D has, that thumpy quality that makes bass notes in the second octave sound similarly heavy to notes in the first octave - that John Paul Jones "all notes are bass notes" aspect to the sound.

A while back, the Moog folks were soliciting opinions about possible future products, and reached out to me since they knew I'd had a few MemoryMoogs over the years.. I told them that I thought they shouldn't bother with a high-end poly synth unless they were able to capture the saturated, overdriven quality of the oscillator mixer on the original MemoryMoog (at one point I owned three at once!) - in other words, to start with the full MemoryMoog feature set and look and work upwards from there. I also (stupidly, perhaps) told them that price is not an issue unless it creeps above $10k. It was always obvious it would be an expensive piece - certainly not a $1,999 synth, so... screw the discount shoppers and shoot for the moon. Looks like they've done just that!

But even for an idiot like me who usually just sighs and clicks "add to cart", I won't bother to get one until I can see first-hand if it's got "that thing" that the MemoryMoog has, or if it's another Voyager - good on paper but underwhelming in person.

I do think they missed the boat on some of the panel design aspects - the whole front panel is a little too "same-y", too black, with not enough differentiation from section to section, and the labeling on the panel legends seems a bit too small - I miss that chunky Microgramma font on the legends and logo. But that stuff is mostly cosmetic and won't affect the sound - but if the thing gets confusing to use due to these UI aspects, it actually can affect the sound by way of increased user fatigue, boredom, and lack of enthusiasm. Minor issues, certainly not deal-breakers, but still. 

How much cooler would the front panel look with the good old Microgramma font?


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## LamaRose (Oct 3, 2018)

I'm a little confused with pricing, cuz I'm seeing $20K plus: one for the studio, one for the john(8-voice is acceptable), one for the back of the extended Bentley.


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## EvilDragon (Oct 3, 2018)

I'm one of those who are of the opinion that Memorymoog sounds so fat it's nearly unusable because all it can do is tear walls down, unless you really have your oscillators quiet (like, VERY quiet) into the filter, so that things don't overdrive too much there and actually start becoming juicy (otherwise all you can do is trim all the excess fat with tons of EQ in the mix, at which point - why do you even have an overly fat synth to begin with, if it doesn't fit the mix as it should?)... Well, I don't have the funds for One, so I guess I don't care, but it'd be nice if it has more tonal range than "DESTROY" which Memorymoog had.


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## blougui (Oct 3, 2018)

Mario : why bother introducing more instruments in the arrangement when the MM is fullfilling the whole space and range ?
The arrangement is then not vertical but just horizontal. One MM sound at a time...


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## charlieclouser (Oct 3, 2018)

EvilDragon said:


> I'm one of those who are of the opinion that Memorymoog sounds so fat it's nearly unusable because all it can do is tear walls down, unless you really have your oscillators quiet (like, VERY quiet) into the filter, so that things don't overdrive too much there and actually start becoming juicy (otherwise all you can do is trim all the excess fat with tons of EQ in the mix, at which point - why do you even have an overly fat synth to begin with, if it doesn't fit the mix as it should?)... Well, I don't have the funds for One, so I guess I don't care, but it'd be nice if it has more tonal range than "DESTROY" which Memorymoog had.



You are spot-on. That's why I don't have any MemoryMoogs anymore. Well, not really - the real reason is that maintenance and service is so difficult (and frequent) that it's just not practical to deal with for the three sounds that it does well. Even when I had three of the beasts, only two were ever fully functional at any one time. At least one of them would be throwing "3 tuned" on the display, and manually tuning the oscillators into the range at which auto-tune could lock on involved opening the thing, lifting the top panel (which was not hinged) while leaving a zillion ribbon cables still connected and somehow propping it up so it wouldn't fall, and then reading upside-down, flashing, hexadecimal numbers off the tiny red alphanumeric LED display while individually adjusting range and scale for each of the eighteen (!) oscillators. That's thirty-six range and scale operations. It. Took. Hours. 

And the output is mono! 

At one point I had two of the MM Plus units working, and I MIDI'd them together in unison mode and panned them left and right (earth-shaking) and attempted to sample the result into my Akai S-1000. The sound was so large that it seemed like it just "didn't fit" into the jacks on the Akai. The resulting samples were never in the same ballpark as the raw audio coming off the MM and through an analog chain to the speakers. I still have the samples, and they're cool, but not the same as the real thing. The raw power of the MM is unrivaled, but as you say - suitable for only earth-destroying sounds. Perfect for a Ministry remix, not so much for most other uses. 

I will definitely be taking a long hard look and listen to the Moog One, and I have no doubt that it will be a fine polysynth. But I don't really need a polysynth. Unless, however, it does that way-too-big thing that the MM did, in which case it will probably be another "sigh.... add to cart" situation. I still have fond memories of the Voyetra-8 (another overly complex and fragile boat anchor) which we used on the remix of "The Art of Self Destruction, part one" on the "Further Down the Spiral" remix album - it's doing the one-note low unison bass blasts. That was about the only useful sound we could get out of the thing - but it was so huge and so pleasing to the ear. So, if the Moog One will do the "too big" sound, I'm in.... I guess.

Still, good on Moog for going for the full moon-shot approach.


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## The Darris (Oct 3, 2018)

Yeah, the first thing I noticed is that you need to have great eyes to use that thing. Jeeze. Talk about an accessibility nightmare, and at that price. They should at least make a white panel/black font version. Let's hear how it sounds!!

-C


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## gsilbers (Oct 5, 2018)

maybe its not impressive to others but having 3 VCOs per voice is quite amazing. thats 24 ocislators for the 8 voice model and 48 VCOs for the 16 voice model. that has to bring some huge sounds and/or variety of sounds. hopefully there are some way to change the sounds of the normal vco. seems nowadays everything is morphable oscilator this wavehaper that. 
also, didnt see the back very well, hopefully it provides plenty of cv patches.


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## EvilDragon (Oct 5, 2018)

gsilbers said:


> hopefully there are some way to change the sounds of the normal vco.



There is.

"Each oscillator outputs a user-defined mix of the selectable triangle/sawtooth wave, plus a variable-width pulse wave. Unlike with traditional oscillator designs, you can shape and modulate the rise/fall time of the triangle wave, and the reset phase of the sawtooth wave, to build classic analog tones that are uniquely rich and complex."


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Oct 5, 2018)

If it sounds as good as it looks on paper, I will sell my (working) Memorymoog+ to finance it! Big if, though.


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## Studio E (Oct 5, 2018)

This thing is SO expensive and so amazing on paper....it almost fits my profile of over-spending perfectly, lol. It might be one of those things where I buy one just to know that I couldn't have done any better, and to say I have one, or do I just spend $200 on Diva and enjoy 99% of the benefit for a tiny fraction of the cost. Decision decisions.....


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## brenneisen (Oct 8, 2018)

zome zoundz


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## Leo (Nov 29, 2018)

Who has it here?
I like to know the owner's opinion, or little review. I saw only videos on you tube and on some I have fascinated. Especially from moog's sound designers.


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## Milelavar (Aug 4, 2020)

This is a really cool synthesizer, but it costs a lot. Perhaps if someone wants to buy it, then it is worth waiting for the ads on the used equipment market. Perhaps then the price will be more reasonable. I'm really wondering why an eight-voice synthesizer costs relatively little less than a 16-voice model. For example Mooq one can be found for a little over 8000 euros here https://i4studio.nl/moog-synthesizer. Perhaps the secret is hidden in what components were used, in their quality. Although I have never come across low quality components from this company. Maybe I was just lucky, but maybe this is the case in fact. Anyway, I'd be interested to hear feedback from a real person about this synthesizer. Is it really worth the money that is asked for it?


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## chimuelo (Aug 17, 2020)

Leo said:


> Who has it here?
> I like to know the owner's opinion, or little review. I saw only videos on you tube and on some I have fascinated. Especially from moog's sound designers.



I was about ready to pull the trigger but the world changed.

Videos and tracks give enough detail to tell that it’s really a powerful sound.
But I watched a friend play his doing the old British synth gods music of the 70s and couldn’t believe how it buries any other synth out there and I’ve got Solaris and a CODE 8 OD.

It’s probably not going to be a huge advantage recording unless you’re doing mostly synths.
But you can punish drums, guitar and bass live, just a beat down.
The higher octaves still retain an edge over the midrange too.

Newer synths tend to be overwhelming in the mids making same zone bass and lead less effective.
Moog One seems to have a nice dip making single zone bass, chord and lead perfectly balanced.

Think I’m going to sell my car


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