Moog Grandmother: be or not to be?

That’s what I mean .It’s enough space for experiments and getting some interesting sound and not to get lost in the wires )

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As far as I understand, it all depends on the device that came to you, some are with problems, some are without

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While I love the Matriarch sound and spirit, I’m super annoyed by the software side of it. Still full of bugs (some of them actually prevent me to actually use it ‘professionally’), and a nightmare to use the ‘Globals’ settings.
An awesome synth, but with some flaws. Incidentally it made me really hate Moog as a company.
The Grandmother should be less frustrating because as far as I know, everything is working properly.

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I bought a second hand Grandmother a couple of months ago, so I’m still honeymooning and scratching the surface, but no regrets so far. Great sound and no problems with the build. I guess I got one from a good batch? Also never had any build issues with my DFAM (the only other Moog instrument I own).

I’m still in standalone bread’n’buttter territory, haven’t started getting wacky with other eurocrack or the sequencer/arp yet. I’m expecting further sonic potentials there.

WRT the ladder filter characterics, I assume everyone would know about that before going in and I see it as a feature. Work the angles or get something else if that’s a drawback to you.

I also have an Leipzig-S in my setup, so between that, the Grandma and the DFAM I do feel a ladder filter redundancy here :thinking:

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Is there anything special about how the filter works?
I didn’t touch this topic to be honest.

Sorry, was referring to

See also this current thread:

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this is unfortunately true, and also is with the Matriarch. they wanted an analog synth interface but there’s some digital control underneath that needs to be configured. that said, it’s not like they’re the only ones to ever do this. the Tubbutec midi retrofits for vintage synths operate this way. even the new Buchla 218 LEM v3 does; and it costs 50% more than the Grandmother and makes no sound. and those are all totally useable, just as the Grandmother and Matriarch are. most of the options you need to configure with it are set and forget. still… yeah you likely have to bust out the manual when you do need to change something.

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This is where I disagree, unfortunately : I need to switch between the Round-robin modes A LOT. This is what I like the most on this synth.
Also MIDI clock options, local control, etc…
I’m using a Electra One to send snapshots, but I’d love to do it (easily) on the synth, and some of the sysex simply don’t work unfortunately.

fair enough! there’s definitely more on the Matriarch. there’s only like four options on the Grandmother. just noting since this thread is actually about that synth. and the system is far simpler on the Grandmother. it’s a bit confusing on the Matriarch.

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Having two envelopes is nice also, compared to just one.

edit: as all of the basic functions are already working without any patching, I fail to see how one would be seen as more immediate than the other.

They’re both incredibly well thought out and they both sound incredible without a single patch cord used.

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Love my Grandmother! I think I’d love the Matriarch just as much, but there are no quality issues to speak of. It works exactly as intended, very well built, and I haven’t run into a single thing about it that I dislike. Sure it’s somewhat limited, but it inspires creative use of what’s there. It really the perfect little mono. Highly recommend it! I’d rather have the delay of the Matriarch than the spring of the Grandmother, but I have delays that I can run it through. Not a big deal.

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I don’t know where the build quality sentiment comes from. It honestly feels like a thing a very small amount of people have had issues with and way more people have repeated on internet. Like, I don’t know if I’ve actually read first hand issues with their synths.

anyways, both grandmother and matriarch are awesome synths. Of the two, if it’s an option, I think the Matriarch is the better one to get. But they are mostly different. I think the overdrive on the mixer sounds a bit different. On the grandmother the two oscillators can sit pretty well together where one is overdriven and another isn’t. On the matriarch it actually sounds like any oscillator that isn’t overdriven gets quieter or something. You definitely have to overdrive all the oscillators at once or pull it back.

Of course any shortcomings over either synth can be fixed with a well thought out eurorack skiff. I personally use a Megatang Mixer to allow for panning of the oscillators for the Matriarch. It really brings a new dimension to that synth. And sometimes I’ll use different filters so I don’t have that ladder filter low end drop out with increased resonance.

But anyways, I digress. The Grandmother is an awesome synth and absolutely worth it. They are both synths that are extremely inspiring to use and beg you to fiddle with the knobs and explore with patch cables.

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I have a Granny and I really like it. Tho over the time I was a little frustrated about small issues. Spring reverb was broken once, so I shipped back to Thomann and they fixed it. Now its broken again and it’s not the lose cable connection to the tank, I opened it like Moog Support told me to. So that Reverb unfortunately is not useable for me :confused: and for me that Reverb really does some magic. When I use the arpeggiator there are always some notes stuck, so I can not really use that in a live situation.

Apart from that I love the look, the feeling of the keyboard, the sounds etc…
Maybe I was just unlucky with my Model but it’s one of my favorite synth (apart from Karp)

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That’s sad ,what about the warranty, is it expired?

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ye :confused:

It’s the only Moog I’ve owned that doesnt have weird software and/or hardware problems. It needs a sturdy straight table as otherwise you can hear the spring touching metal parts. The sound of the synth is ace. I would get one now as they will very likely triple in price eventually when out of production.

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Do you think they stop producing this synth ?

With inMusic taking over Moog, I think it’s safe to assume that even if they are continued, they won’t be constructed in the US anymore going forward. I also bought one in anticipation of major changes @ Moog. It’s a really great sounding synth!

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Hey there,
I have my grandmother for about a year and was honeymooning a lot at first.

There’s a couple annoyances though which I’ll share here:

  1. all buttons (like play etc., OSC sync,…) feel pretty squashy and don’t respond 100%.
  2. transposing the keyboard (oct + and -) is a shift operation and it’s quiet cumbersome. It actually starts the sequencer/arp if you let go of SHIFT first - not exactly made for live performance.
  3. The mod wheel doesn’t have a dedicated patch point. It’s hard wired to only attenuate the LFO modulations. it’s ok but also sad.
  4. As mentioned earlier, the Moog filter is stealing all low end when turning up some resonance. Yes, “we all” know that’s the way the Moog filter works. But especially for a mono = bass synth it’s rather undesirable.
    There’s a workaround though using the LFO as a third (sub) OSC which bypasses the low pass filter.
  5. Sometimes, the hold function or the seq/arp get stuck. I still can’t tell when exactly this is happening.
  6. My filter knob has some cracking to it. Might be because of air humidity surpassing 60% sometimes in my Synth cave.
  7. No aftertouch. This is a missed opportunity for expressiveness in any synth without aftertouch.

That said, it’s a semi-modular synth after all so you can overcome quite some limitations by creative patching (internal or using additional modules).

All that said, it sounds lovely. The keybed is good. The overall feel is nice. I like the look.
And - most importantly - I do love playing it (especially as a melody instrument to complement my Moog Sound Studio 3).
It’s a keeper.

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Hi there!
This is very interesting and informative.Thank you for your feedback and description :ok_hand:t2:
I’ve got a Behringer Poly D now and Korg prologue 8 ,and I’m thinking of buying something semi-modular to explore this field.