Moog Voyager

At its inception, the Minimoog was surprisingly close to being the perfect solo synthesizer. Indeed, you could argue that there's not a serious rival for the role even today. Yet soloists demand to express themselves — and there the Mini had obvious shortcomings. For a start, its keyboard lacked velocity and aftertouch, while the pitch–bender and modulation wheels never felt like the final word in performance control. Nevertheless, without becoming lost in the enigma that is the Minimoog, let's agree that it must have possessed special qualities to set it apart from the crowd for so long — even from others in the Moog stable. Would we ever see its like again?

In 2001, rumours began to circulate of a revised, regenerated Minimoog, followed by a competition to name Bob Moog's latest progeny. The resulting Minimoog Voyager answered the prayers of many. It was, after all, a monophonic analogue synthesizer from Moog featuring Moog oscillators, Moog filters, wood, MIDI, a responsive keyboard, patch memories and knobs and components that were shiny and new. Throw in patch points for extra control, a dedicated LFO, oscillator sync and waveform modulation and you'd think all the boxes had been ticked. However, some amongst the analogue community worked themselves into a lather, convinced that grafting menus onto a Mini was tantamount to nailing a humbucker pickup to a Stradivarius. Some saw it as cheating to dial up a patch from memory rather than making your own, on the spot, every time. Not even Bob Moog, it seemed, could please everyone.

Well, the beardy types' wailing and gnashing of teeth can cease, because there's another new Moog in town — one that rejects all things digital. Ladies and gentlemen, let me present the Moog Voyager Old School!