The Matriarch is many things, but I didn’t think “simple” is one of them
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The interface is as simple as it gets apart from the Grandmother. Its laid out left to right and even colour coded for you. No menu diving.
Not sure how it’s lame for any company to do this. Even tiny companies do it. It’s effectively showcasing a product in a way that has been done for hundreds of years and provides super valuable perspective. If you can’t appreciate the creativity of the job these folks do, you could easily avoid it altogether and be none the grumpier. Every person who got a unit from Moog put their own spin on it and I love that.
I do wish Moog didn’t tease it for so long, though.
I am super happy there wasn’t a preorder.
Something these companies do that annoys me is give a unit to someone who gets involved in the development of a product and makes videos to hype it up, but it’s not even available and exploit the process with fomo and not a genuinely good product.
Sure, except for the modular patch points, which can reroute the signal flow. And the secret menu items selected by the esoteric button combinations that have no screen to confirm their current state
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I came this close to selling more or less everything to get an 8 voice Moog One when they first launched, and I still kinda regret not doing it. Especially now that they’re discontinued.
So maybe this is the time - I’m liking everything I’m hearing here, it feels like it’s got that Sub 37 thing of being a lot wilder under the hood than it appears at first glance. Layout looks good, like the oscillators and filter options. The thing about Moog is that some people try to pretend it’s only about the badge and “elitist” appeal, when in reality it all comes back to the fact that their designers have put out some really cool stuff in the modern era.
Unless I’m missing something, it seems like this one is a lot more flexible than equivalent DSI analogues, e.g. Prophet 6 and OB 6?
Also just fwiw the ignore function on this website really helps keep threads tidy.
Having the triangular button in the upper corner of the control section that takes you directly to the menu items for that section is an excellent UI design decision. I can see that getting copied on high end synth moving forward
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Yeah, that was the key thing that really got my attention about the Moog One at the time. I have a Sub 37 where you can see the beginnings of this kind of approach. It’s kinda modular-ish when you dig in even though it looks on the surface like a pretty unremarkable analogue mono. And they took it to a whole other level after that, the probability sequencing etc. here seems like an extension of the same philosophy.
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I think down the line they will make it 16 voice. Everyone always wants more voices. Thats why its worth waiting as they will already be working on this im sure.
…and add some fans.
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Oh, it has a menu and it is one of the worst menu systems I have ever used.
Sad they didn’t ask Emily Sprague to do anything after her lovely Moog One video. Maybe she’s just happy with the Moog one.
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I would like to see Rick Wakeman do a demo.
It really depends what you mean by flexible… the p6, t6, and ob6 all have a very distinct character and have oscillators that are extremely flexible. This has a lot of digital tricky on top but many appreciate a wysiwyg layout and well want the character… you can do most of this with midi. This sounds great but really generic Moog. I’m not sure they really compare to me.
Those wishing for cheap second hand sequentials good luck, folks been saying that since the peak came out and the price has only ever gone up… I don’t think this box of tricks will change that.
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Different strokes, I guess - the two way FM and per-voice ring mod sounds pretty great to me and are sounds I can’t make with a sequential six.
I suppose I could patch something like that with a matriarch or some AJH modules, but not polyphonically.
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I’m gonna try to move past these salty dogs…
Loooove LBD!
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Yes it doesn’t have to be either/or… no doubt this thing rips.
That doesn’t mean the 6’s aren’t great too though… they have a sound and each of them is pretty incredible at the character they have. Plus this thing is a pretty big thing… most five octaves synth’s are but some like the more compact design. I dig this thing but I wouldn’t trade any of the 6’s for it though but that is just me… I will always value the character of the sound more then features though, they all sound great but sequential just really speaks to me.
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I like the sixes for what they are, but the current price point now feels rather high.
~$3500 for any of the three when a Super 8 is $3995 and a PB12 is $3999 (and the PB12 will undoubtedly sell for a few hundred less soon).
The same price as the Muse, and while the UI on the sixes is very good it could be better, and that’s a hard comparison.
I’ll of course spend a lot of time with my Matriarch and Trigon when the Muse gets here, but I don’t imagine all three make the cut.
The way the things like the voice cards work and the filter is configured (at least on the P6) makes me wonder if there is any wiggle room at all or they need to move to a new product platform based around the new chips available to compete.
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seeing her a bit on Saturday at Earthquaker Day. wonder if she’ll play it there…? I remember she brought the Grandmother to demo through some pedals, right after it came out.
I once saw her sitting on a bench in Ann Arbor, MI and I was too chicken to go talk to her… a small regret in life and a silly story. If I see her again I’ll go chat 
Stuff in the voice architecture like the mod matrix, the oscillators which go a long beyond the usual waveforms even with continuous morphing controls, the dual filter setup, LFO shapes as well as the UI for accessing all of this, plus the sequencing with generative features, motion sequencing parameters and the chord features. I don’t see that any of the other synths at the price point have nearly as much going on under the hood.
It’s a fair point that it has a Moog sound signature - it would be weird/disappointing if it didn’t. But I don’t know about “generic”, especially based on the Mylar/LBD demos.
Also totally fair to say that the the OB6 in particular but also P6 and others have their own sound that it can’t get near. But I always - rightly or wrongly - felt like a lot of these were mainly about capturing the “vintage” signature with a few modern bells and whistles. Which is why I haven’t bothered getting myself an analogue poly, with the exception of my trusty Poly 61M that I got a great deal on - I felt like I can get as close as makes no difference for my uses with plugins like Repro, OB-X Pro, PolyMax plus a little Analog Heat saturation.
This and the Moog One seem different though, like they’re not just tributes to the past but fully up to date instruments. Similar reasons that I got myself a Sub 37, it seemed like more than the sum of its parts and far more than a Moog tones “clone”. Funny enough, I glanced at a certain blue hellsite we all know and love and they’re currently performing a tribute to the “it’s not True Vintage Analogue enough” schtick they always default to on modern Moog. Which to me is a positive, but anyway plus ca change with that.
I will say though that I haven’t been paying that much attention to DSI/Sequential stuff post the OB/P 6 and I could be completely wrong about that, and the Polybrute looks cool but its base sound and interface don’t really appeal so I haven’t looked too closely. But it’s definitely my impression.
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