Moog Grandmother

I remember there being calibration routine using a sysex file which can be found on the moog website. My GM went out of tune in the higher octaves and doing that routine fixed it. I don’t remember the routine, but you should be able to find it somewhere online.

It sounds like @Traindepot has already tried the calibration procedure from their post, but just in case they haven’t or it’s useful to anyone else, Sweetwater has a guide to calibration here: https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/moog-grandmother-calibrate-and-update/#

Thanks for your your thoughtful response @Stazma

-So I figured out the weird tuning issue—I had accidentally transposed the keyboard down a few octaves so that the low octave settings were so bassy that they were hardly audible, farty/clicky, and just could stay in tune with Osc. 2. Now it sounds great on that front.

-I’m still having the midi sync issue though. It’s strange because I can slave my minilogue to my digitakt (clock and sequence start/stop are locked in step.). When I go to slave the grandmother the the digitakt the midi light in the back doesn’t blink or light up and the arp/sequencer tempo is not locked into the digitakt.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but midi channel should’t matter in this case? I’m just looking to sync clock and start/stop sequence. My digitakt is setup to send midi info via its midi connection, and the sync settings are setup to send all the correct midi info.

The only thing that happens when I plug in my grandmother to my digitakt is the g-ma’s arp/sequencer tempo light turns from red to green. Does this happen on y’all’s grannies?

On the MIDI sync item. I have my GM synced to a Digitakt, that is receiving its clock and transport from an Analog 4MkII.

It’s very solid.

However, I’ve only used it to sync the arpeggiator. (I haven’t actually sequenced with the GM yet.) I would think the sync would be the same though between the two.

One thing to note though. In the case of the arp, it doesn’t sync to MIDI in place of the knob position for the internal clock. The knob actually seems to divide the incoming signal. So you’ll want to turn the knob a bit and experiment to get an exact 1:1 clock signal synced from your external source. I don’t know if it’s exact divisions, or mixed in through a comparator, or something, but I noticed that turning the knob was still technically synced, but at variations of the internal clock. When I put it at just the right position, it was a nicely locked 1:1.

I haven’t read the manual yet, or looked for more information on the exact functionality there, as that was good enough for me.

Edit: Appears I was correct. (see highlighted text from the manual)

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GM looks beautiful in that corner. Hope you’ve watered your Peace Lily :wink:

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I got to play around with a Grandmother today. Those knobs are really nice to tweak.

I got a Grandmother last week, and it’s the best thing I’ve bought since the OP-Z. So versatile, and so fun.

I’m back to losing hours just playing it and tweaking patches, like when I first started to make music.

Any tips or cool patch ideas? It seems like the S&H could cause some chaos. Any way to fake a delay? And so on.

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Man congrats on getting it! It’s my favorite synth since I got it 3 1/2 years ago, and right now it’s my only one, since I figured I dont actually need any other hardware synth.

There’s a lot of things the GM can do, and one of the most inspiring things to me is to hook it up to a sampler (or daw ready to record) and just spend some time trying out patches on the GM and sampling the result to reuse in the sampler later as either a synthvoice or effect. I got some great fm sounds I sampled, and also turning off the oscilators and just messing around with the noise or filters can also lead to interesting results.

Have fun!

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I like to use the MOD section as a 3rd OSC (set to SINE) for deep basslines, patching it this way:

(arp/seq) KB OUT > (mod) RATE IN > (mod) WAVE OUT > (mixer) NOISE IN

Use the RATE knob to tune to desired sound.

FILTER section to further shape it.

Enjoy the rumble!

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I’ve just started doing this. I though the Octatrack would be a good partner, but for sampling like this I prefer Ableton for speed and auto slicing.

The FM part was what sold me on this in the end! It’s pretty raw, which I love.

Nice. Sub bass here we come :slight_smile:

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I’ve had mine for a while and I enjoy it a lot as well; not having presets is a blessing. I was a bit scared; normally I use presets, tweak minimally and proceed, but it’s such a creative device as a result!
Patching is not as hard as it looks. Still have to understand all the hidden features, but so far it’s a blast to play.
I’m going to get a subharmonicon in a trade; not really sure if matches the grandmother but I really hope it does. Anyone else rocking the GM with a mother32 / DFAM or Sub? Any cool tips?

I tried a subharmonicon with the Grandmother, but found its sounds disappointing. It’s pretty weak compared to the GM’s fatness.

One tip is to patch the subharmonicon’s two sequencers into the Grandmother’s two oscillators, and patch the trigger into the GM’s gate (or use drone to leave the gate open).

That’s neat, and you can use your LFOs to screw with things.

My Grandmother Dark arrived a few days ago after being on backorder for several weeks. Therefore, I do not have much experience with the GM at this time. It is presently incorporated in my Moog semi-modular setup that consist of a DFAM, Subharmonicon, and two Mother-32s. The GM adds an additional mono voice with more sound possibilities than the Mother-32s.

No complaints about the said setup so far, but the GM might be put to use in my main or another alternate setup in the future.

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fun demo of an amazing sounding synth. I want this on top of my take 5 :upside_down_face:

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Has anyone else had problems direct sampling the Grandmother onto the Octatrack mkII? Even with volume at 5 o’clock on the Grandmother and DIR at 127 on the Octatrack, the sampled sounds are so soft as to be unusable.

I should add, I’ve tried sampling on two different OTmkII’s. I bought through Sweetwater and they sent me a replacement, since neither I nor their support people could figure out what the problem was.

I also have a Digitakt and direct sampling from Gma sounds fine on there.

Is that just how the Grandmother sounds when direct sampled by the OT?

Are you using a TRS cable by any chance? Maybe try a TS and see if it helps

Thanks so much for the prompt reply!

Unfortunately, this is the first thing the Sweetwater people asked. I’m using TS. I’ve also tried different TS cables.

Ah ok, well hopefully someone with an OT (that’s not me!) can help

From the OT manual:

Maybe the problem is in gain settings?