Moog synth tones

[Jokeyman123]

Anybody have any success creating a moog filter type of tone? I will try but could use a few pointers. Not sure its possible but the original Moogs used square and sawtooth waves among a few other tricks and the incomparable filter. The XW has a few  Moog type tones, maybe its best to study those? I'm not sure the xw and px560 have the same filters either.

[AlenK]

I have not tried to do that but the filter in the PX-560 is very different than the filter(s) in any Moog monosynth or the one in the XW-P1; it is only 2-pole rather than four and it's not a ladder type, so doesn't exhibit the same characteristic distortions as the famous Moog filter. On the plus side, it is REALLY smooth, which helps enormously with analog synth emulations in general. The XW-P1's filter is, how shall we say?, just a TAD rougher in comparison.

 

In any event, some signature Moog sounds don't actually depend on the unique characteristics of the Moog filter. Just using some detuned saws (no more than three), passing them through the LPF with a highish resonance, employing portamento and riding the pitch bend and modulation wheels can get you in the ballpark. Oh, and be careful of your phrasing because the PX-560 doesn't know monophonic. If you play more than one note you'll sound like an Oberheim polysynth, not a Moog monosynth. (Moog made polysynths too, of course, but nobody particularly cares how the Memorymoog sounded and the infamous Polymoog is a different beast entirely.)

[Jokeyman123]

some discussion here about  the filter and other characteristics.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/707623-what-makes-moog-sound-like-moog.html

 

I have played some of the old equipment-without effects most of these early synths didn't sound all that good, except some of the Moogs, constant osc drifting and double-triggering could make a keyboard player crazy.  Uncharacteristically, my digital SY77(!) has some of the closest Moog emulations I've heard, but I can't seem to replicate that characteristic fat hollow sound I've heard-so far with the simple saw and square waves in the Casios, but I'll work on it-resonance might be the key if i can get it just right. I know Mike Martin had some decent Moog simulations for the XW which I have and have listened too. the filter design must have had something to so with it. since Moog patented it, apparently many people thought so at least.

 

Robbie Schindler-the first heavy keyboard player I worked with in the rock field, recorded with the first Memorymoog-it was an awful very expensive monster-and it didn't sound much better than the earlier, smaller original Moogs. He is on Facebook if you are curious, we did some very nice prog covers live back then, but only with modded B and C-3s. I met the engineer Eddie Offord at Robbie's recording session in Bearsville Sound Studios in Woodstock when Robbie got a record contract-when this studio was being created, now defunct. He was thrilled to have it at the time-until he spent some time playing it! I think it cost 10,000 US and that was in the early 70s!  They had Marshalls stacked 15 or so feet high, I almost lost my hearing in the hour I was there listening! But good memories messing with stuff at the beginning of this technology.
 

[AlenK]

I would characterize many tones I have heard from the original model D Minimoog, which remains to me the best of the Moog synths, as "nasal" in character. So perhaps using a bandpass filter response on some, but not all, of the layers might bear fruit.