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UPS delivered to my door in an obscure little building in the northern outskirts of BKK. What an age we live in. I do wish to whine about import taxes though… damn import tax blows…
Although I’m sure you all know this, it’s a filter in a box. It’s Fairly similar to the original Minimoog filter, and as far as I can tell, identical to the Moog LP filter (sans MIDI triggering or real envelope control etc). It has a 2pole/4pole swtich, and an envelope follower that tracks the input amplitude, but simple is good. I got the whitewash version, and at the risk of starting the bitching to early… the white is not exactly the best. The wood version looked hot enough already, but I just had to be different and get the fancy white one. It turns out this is just very very very badly painted wood. I mean, it looks like a kindergarten project. Moog seems to have gone all out with their crazy range of woods and backlight themes lately, which is very cute, but if they are delivering things like this, I would say stick with the original versions.
I’m in a list mood, so here we go:
Pros:
- Good price. Well not so good if you are thinking of it just as a LPF that takes up a lot of room on the desk. Good considering it sounds just as Moog does, ie. very good. I think back when these were sold as “Big Briar” they were a lot more expensive, but the build quality was better. As long as the insides stayed the same, I’m not too fussed.
- The drive is very satisfying, especially on low frequencies.
- The difference between 2pole and 4pole is very noticeable, as you would expect. Unfortunately, on a lot of other gear including my Virus, switching slopes doesn’t really get the results one could wish for.
- The env follower is very effective on the “fast” setting, even for sounds with a lot of release, it tracks perfectly.
- The resonance is ever so Moogy. There is something about the resonance on Moog filters that is so distinctive, especially on high settings with the filter very open. It adds a kind of nasty hiss that is just, nasty. I’m probably sending myself deaf and killing my speakers with supersonic ribbish.
-It also does something odd when the env amount and resonance are set quite high, the cutoff is fairly open and the incoming signal is fairly constant in volume (ie. fast attack, full sustain and no release… I’m not sure if this is making any sense). It adds a strange sizzle that I have not been able to catch since I stopped using the Waldorf D-pole plugin many years ago. In theory, any filter with an amplitude follower should do this, but these are the only two I have found that do it just the way I like it.
Cons
- There are two settings for the env follower, “fast” and “smooth”, on a rocker. Basically it seems to effect the attack time only, or maybe the release as well. I would hardly expect a full ADSR on something in this price range, but having a pot here sweeping the between the two values would have been nice, even if it had increased the price a little.
- Why is there a mix knob? Maybe guitarists using it as a wah wah thing need it… I don’t know, I never wah. I do know I don’t need to mix wet and dry on a filter. Maybe a heavily driven single could be mixed with the dry to add “depth”, but seriously, “depth” would have to be one of my least favourite words. So, I will reiterate, why is there a mix knob on a filter?
- Added to that, when the filter is as low as it can go, ie. more or less silence, and then you turn up the volume high and listen really hard, a little of the dry signal is coming through. Practically, this isn’t important at all, and I reeeeaaalllly shouldn’t be pushing the volume up with the filter at 20hz (the resonance was on zero so my monitors were relatively safe, but anyway)… I expect more than that!
- It would have been a lot nicer, and smaller, if it weren’t doubling as a stompox. Guitarists with their bluesy wails and drunken, clumsy feet don’t rate highly in my world. It also makes patching the cv controls a pain seeing as the jacks are at the back of the unit.
- There is no true bypass. The big ugly stompbox switch will bypass the filter, but not the drive. I don’t really mind, seeing as the drive sounds great anyway, but it makes it difficult to see exactly what the thing is doing to the sound.
- Bob’s grandchildren should be taken off the décor committee.
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