Minimonsta

[lesha]

u martovskom broju SOS-a imas clanak o arturia minimoog-u V. evo isecka...

Given the number of differences I've flagged between the Minimoog and Minimoog V, I expected the two instruments to sound very different from one another. Yet, creating simple patches on both, using a single sawtooth wave and fine-tuning the controls to be as close to one another as possible, I found the sound from the software synth to be surprisingly authentic. Moreover, in blind tests that I carried out on two knowledgeable friends, both could hear that there were two instruments present, but neither could reliably identify which was the 30-year-old lump of wood and circuitry, and which was the software emulation.

But the more I introduced filter resonance, the easier it became to distinguish between them. If I then used different waveforms or introduced multiple oscillators, it became simple to identify which synth was which. And when I stopped playing individual notes in isolation, and started to play riffs and melodies, the incorrect envelope generation of Minimoog V made it obvious which was which.

This was when I also started to notice that the timbre would jump slightly after every handful of notes played. Playing rapidly with the Detune knob (ie.drift) set to zero, and while watching the waveform on an oscilloscope, I could see that the relative phases of the oscillators would occasionally jump from one state to another. As expected, there was no change when I held a single note indefinitely, just a quantised jump after a bunch of notes were played. This makes soloing an odd experience, and may be even more disconcerting for players who use their Minimoogs primarily for bass work. I also noticed Minimoog V generating random clicks when I played quickly with instantaneous (ie. Attack = 0, Decay = 0) envelopes. These are not the Attack On and Release Off clicks of the original synth, but digital clicks generated in the software as it fails to handle the rapid envelope settings.

All in all, I have to report that, judged as an emulation of the real thing, Minimoog V is a disappointment. How could I conclude otherwise? Despite sounding very good at times ? indeed, rather Moog-like at times ? its oscillators, mixer, filter and envelopes all behave in a significantly different manner from those of the original. Sure, it looks like a representation of a Minimoog, and it has a very likeable character ? big and imposing. Nevertheless, generally speaking, Minimoog V doesn't respond to my playing as a real Minimoog does.

So what if we ignore the pretty picture on the screen, and judge Minimoog V as a synth in its own right? The inaccuracies in the emulation are then irrelevant. Considered like this, what we have is a fat-sounding, interesting, and sonically imposing synthesizer that can sound excellent, albeit with a couple of operational quirks and bugs that need correcting.

sto se tice minimonsta-e, na prvo slusanje mi se svideo njegov zvuk...
sutra opsirnije..