Moog MF Drive
In this article I’m reviewing the Moog MF Drive from Moog’s Minifooger line of pedals aimed at guitar and bass players. The MF Drive boasts all analog circuitry that is inspired by American and British tube amp tones. Its combination of gain-staging, tone, and filter knobs combined with a resonate peak switch and expression input beckons players to plug in and start experimenting with sounds and harmonic textures. Other pedals in the MF line include the Flange, Chorus, Boost, Ring, Trem, and Delay which cover the gamut of a classic pedalboard. You only need to venture elsewhere for the reverb.
The Minifoogers’ matte-black brushed metal exteriors make me imagine them as the hardworking soot sprites from Spirited Away. The soot colony come alive when they have a job to do, and the MF Drive is the outgoing one that scuttles up to befriend you. The Minifoogers’ sloped-front enclosure echoes the design of their larger Moogerfooger cousins. While Moogerfoogers are bigger and more complex modular-friendly hybrid pedals akin to what you’d expect if you cut out the dedicated panel section of a classic Moog synth, Minifoogers come in a compact pedalboard-ready size that drops most of the modular pretense while pragmatically being powered by a battery or standard 9v pedal power. A guitar player only has to deal with a mono I/O, expression input, and a few sensible knobs and switches. Players don’t need to be familiar with synth concepts to get full use from them.
Features
- All analog circuitry, featuring premium OTA & JFET
- Gain knob from clean to distortion
- Drive switch: down is +6.8dB to +48dB & up is +16db to +57dB
- Filter knob featuring Moog’s 4-pole ladder filter
- Output knob
- Tone knob used to control the dark to bright voicing
- Peak switch: when engaged (up), adds +15dB boost at the Filter cutoff
- Expression input for controlling the filter
- Standard 9v power
- True bypass foot-switch
- Cast aluminum casing
