Moog Voyager Old School

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!

As the two synths are so intimately related, I'd advise you to revisit Gordon Reid's comprehensive review of the Voyager from June 2003's SOS. Here, like some twisted dentist, I'll ponder the impact of the extractions — and will doubtless wallow in nostalgia along the way. After all, merely glancing at the Old School takes me back to my youth — to a time when what you saw really was what you got. This Moog is that rarest of creatures: a modern synthesizer built with ergonomics, layout and style in mind. This is no exercise in feature cramming!

Weighing in at a hefty 18kg, the Old School is a serious contender. If you admired the standard Voyager, I think you'll agree its latest sibling wins any posing contest between them — without even needing to pout. The wood finish is superb, the feel of the knobs top-notch, and the 44-key (F to C) keyboard is a delight — it certainly beats any vintage Model D I've played for both speed and responsiveness.

On first power-up, the solitary pulsing LED of the Low Frequency Oscillator is understated in comparison to the extravagant light-shows of other Voyager models. This reserved façade blends more naturally amongst older synthesizers, and the lack of a backlit panel or glowing mod wheel should banish any fears of extraneous electrical noise.

No Minimoog would look right without its familiar tilting panel. This one offers five operating positions, although (as Gordon observed in his original review), the wooden case is too close to the rear jack sockets to allow you to use them when the panel is laid flat. Looking closely, you'll see that the panel is actually a printed laminate affair similar to those seen on Dave Smith's recent instruments — all very clear and logical. Scanning from left to right, we find the modulation section, consisting of an LFO and two modulation busses. Then the three VCOs, mixer, dual filters, envelopes and, finally, a big, friendly volume knob. Being both right-handed and a compulsive tweaker, I'd love to encounter a panel laid out in exactly the opposite direction, since the filter and envelope knobs seem to be where my left hand travels most often. Fortunately, the angled panel negates any crossed-arm obstructions!

Adjacent to every control is a pale-blue mark. This is your designated safe escape route, presumably for when it all goes horribly wrong. Once upon a time we patiently learned to program our synthesizers with patch-book examples and cardboard overlays. Frankly, Moog are the last company I'd have expected to print a 'default' patch on one of its synths — an indelible set of 'L' plates!

Mildly exasperated, I turned to the rear (or upper) panel, which is largely the same as the Voyager's. This means lots of quarter-inch voltage inputs (11 in total) for interfacing with expression pedals, or modular gear such as Moog's own Moogerfoogers. An effects loop insert point is provided too, ideal for plumbing in external effects after the mixer section and before the filters. This is one of those simple additions that prove to be genuinely worthwhile in practice and had me digging out a wide collection of old effects processors. Adjacent to the insert point, the external audio input is on hand to process any source you fancy — including the Old School's own headphone output. This version of the Minimoog trick sounds a trifle different in this incarnation; indeed, with the levels cranked up it threw up some of the most extreme (and occasionally scary) noises in the Old School's repertoire.

Familiarisation with the controls took literally seconds, after which I started to get the kind of buzz that took me back to my earliest days discovering synths. The first area I turned to was modulation — perhaps the most significant upgrade from Minimoog architecture. This consists of two identical modulation busses, each offering six modulation sources routable to six destinations via any of a list of six controllers. I thought this synth was a beast, but I didn't realise it was The Beast! The sources available differ from those of a standard Voyager; they include the three VCOs, the LFO, the noise generator and an external modulation input. These may be routed to overall pitch, the pitch of Oscillator 2 or 3, filter cutoff, oscillator wave or LFO rate.

Wave modulation is something you couldn't do at all on a Minimoog, and the only drawback here is that it affects all oscillators — or none; you can't specify a single VCO wave to be modulated. If this isn't as flexible as you might like, it does at least keep things simple. The controller component of the modulation bus has the usual suspects: mod wheel, velocity, aftertouch and both envelopes, plus an external CV or expression pedal.

Lacking the menu options of the standard Voyager, the Old School benefits from more modulation controllers on its panel. But as there are only two busses and three main performance controllers, you might not be able to do everything you want in a single patch. For example, if you route velocity to the filter cutoff and aftertouch to wave modulation, you can't then bring the mod wheel into play — the two busses are already fully booked. Here's where that optional VX351 CV Expander (see 'CV Concerns' box) starts to look anything but.

In stark contrast to my own (now departed) Mini, the VCOs behaved impeccably, stabilising after just a few minutes and staying that way. Oscillator 1's pitch is set by the main fine-tune control, with the other two oscillators detunable over a range of seven semitones, up or down. The oscillators sound great — from their lowest 32' setting right up to 1', an octave that comes into its own when you start to explore another 'post Model D' trick — Frequency Modulation. At the flick of a switch, VCO3 becomes the FM source for VCO1, serving up wild excesses of discordant metallic tones, adding bite to any solo.

Speaking of bite, I was recently impressed by Moog's Freqbox and its rich oscillator sync, and I'm even happier with the Old School's implementation. Draft in a modulation bus giving aftertouch control over Oscillator 2's frequency, and you're in sync heaven. I'm guessing Moog improved the aftertouch response after the original review, because I found it played very well, second only to Korg's Prophecy in my own 'pressure hit parade'.

As has been said before, Moog don't provide a way to access each filter's cutoff frequency individually. Instead, a spacing control sets the interval between them over a range of +/- three octaves. Switch into High-pass/Low-pass mode and you enter thin and raspy territory; if you're looking to break away from blatant Moog power, this could become a favourite, with filter spacing acting as a direct thin/fat control.

The ADSR envelopes are positioned vertically and offer a snappy response rated between one millisecond and 10 seconds. I wasn't particularly taken by the way the knobs are calibrated. In the case of attack, the bulk of the knob's travel is occupied by the fastest attacks, and in the case of release, a large portion of the knob's movement translates to very short release times; only the last sliver of pie is available to set a range between one second and maximum. On the review model, this maximum was over 20 seconds, so finding accurate release times proved rather finicky. It's likely that my solos are just too slow and 'new agey', but this is something to be aware of when you audition an Old School.

As with the Minimoog, the envelopes default to single triggering. This suits my noodly style perfectly — but could be troublesome if you need fast, articulated phrasing. In such cases, multi triggering is available, but is activated by powering on while holding down the top two keys of the keyboard. Not something you'd want to do live! You must also do this every time multi-triggering is needed, as the status is not remembered. The keyboard employs last-note priority rather than the Minimoog's low-note bias, which I think is an improvement. Lastly, a switch will deactivate keyboard triggering of the envelopes — handy when processing external signals via the filters.

There are 896 patches in a V3 Voyager, but I warrant a skilled Old School performer should be able to rustle up the sound he or she wants in the time it takes to locate a favourite amongst that lot — with the advantage that each time it will be a little different. Don't go for an Old School if you insist on absolute repeatability in your music; without memories to draw from, the synthesizer player is forced not to memorise (or write down) each favourite patch but to understand the instrument so deeply that it becomes intuitive. At £500 less than a Voyager Performer, the Old School could be both a money saver and an education.

Not everything in the garden is rosy, however. Dropping MIDI seems a cut too many when faced with the challenge of sequencing the Old School via the CV input. A lesser gripe is the difficulty of setting long attack and release times accurately. Admittedly, this could be more about my preference for a particular style of flowing solo than a serious complaint. Actually, if I had to name just one thing that genuinely bugged me, it's those 'default' patch markings. They really spoil an otherwise elegant panel. Yes, I'm a grumpy old man to get fixated on such things — but have we really dumbed down so much in the space of 30 years that this is necessary?

To sum up, the Voyager's digital bits were never part of its signal path anyway, but if you feel that this new-fangled MIDI lark and patch memories are cheating, or if you simply dream of a modern, reliable, simple-to-use Moog, the Voyager Old School is exactly what the doctor ordered.