Moog, the legend, brought us the Sub37, a brand new theremin, and even synthy chocolate with a healthy beverage while announcing an amazing festival!
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| Photo by Natefrogg |
A synthesist's favorite for decades, Moog brings us a beautiful 37 key velocity sensitive keyboard with their newly announced Sub37. Bold and big in sound, this duo paraphonic analog synthesizer is setup to allow oscillator one and two to trigger notes independently, making basic two note chords possible. We have not seen a paraphonic synthesizer from Moog since the MG1 in 1982. The MG1 was branded as a Realistic product, sold at Radio Shack, and not even designed by Moog in the first place!
Melding analog and digital together, in addition to midi i/o, the Sub37 has a usb port so it can be controlled easily enough from your favorite DAW via the free plugin that Moog will make available. Digital control is nice but voltage control is the future. The Sub37 has pitch, gate, volume, and filter voltage control inputs so you can slave it from a dc coupled soundcard and appropriate software, or from your Tip Top Audio Z8000 Matrix Sequencer or an Elektron Analog 4 or a myriad of other voltage based solutions - maybe the lovely and affordable Arturia BeatStep if buying the Moog has put a bit of a dent in your wallet.
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| Photo by Natefrogg |
There are two extensive modulation busses to aid in your sound shaping voyages. You can send from the lfo which can be midi synced, from the filter envelope, the oscillator pitches, and amp envelope, through the modulation busses and onward to feed the signal to the oscillator's pitch, oscillator's waveform, oscillator's level, lfo rate, voltage controlled amp, envelope generator time, envelope generator amount, noise level, filter slope, filter resonance, filter drive, and finally feedback and external input levels; what a beast! Thank goodness your settings can be saved as a preset on the Sub37.
Moog gave the Sub37 a handy onboard arpeggiator which can be synched to midi clock, but even more exciting to me is the step sequencer which can do ties, add the glide module with legato enabled, and, I am imagining the rubbery elastic time and space bending acid basslines that the Sub37 could generate. Couple all of this with the classic Moog ladder filter, using each oscillator voice to play counterpoint against each other. It would be a gorgeous acid techno lovers dream. The Moog Sub37 retails for $1579. Good luck getting your hands on one though. Moog sold out right after this keyboard was announced - not surprising.
Article by Natefrogg
The Theremini allows for a few new features that go beyond a regular theremin: pitch correction control that allows you to play notes and scales instead, a delay, presets based on wavetables, a built in speaker, headphone output, stereo line out, CV out, and USB.
Video courtesy of MusicStoreTV
You read correctly! It's THE MOOG FEST! Get tickets here!
