Moog ONE Revisited - Oscillator Compensation

There's no music and no playing in this video. It's low budget, basically just discussing some technicalities which I think would be good for you to be aware of if you are a Moog ONE owner.

[surrogatemarker]

I’m a Moog one owner.. yes I’ve come across similar issues and I too would like Moog to reach out to Tim for his input as all he wants to do is make this synth better .. which of course is what we all want.

[StevenTrytten]

I'm late to the party but this is a great video. Tim's point is valid and important. I was also late to the party in buying a Moog One, which I bought in fall of 2023 (16V). I quickly learned about v. 1.5 and installed it and did all the calibrations, and it solved the tuning problems for my unit. I haven't seen any other bugs (yet). I love my Moog One and I'm very glad I bought it. I'm sure I'll be exploring and learning about this instrument for many years to come.

[danielpirone]

When folks like Tim and our resident saint of PWM at sonic state both politely mention significant bugs, I will continue to hold off. Thank you for the detailed and careful video

[asteele]

Great video Tim! It appears that Moog has came out with a new Firmware v1.5 that (Moog's words) "improve the tuning and calibration of the many precision analog circuits on the Moog One voice cards. The improved Voice Card Calibration routines can potentially tighten the intonation, filter tracking, and level matching between voices of the instrument, providing enhanced musicality, consistency, and more precise stereo imaging for your sounds." It would be great if you can put together another video on this Firmware v1.5 and if it addresses, amongst other issues, the oscillator compensation issues you mention. I'm keen to own a Moog One but I'm holding off due to the oscillator compensation issues. Firmware v1.5 possibly solves these issues and another video from you on this would be great to gain your thoughts on what Firmware v1.5 brings to the table.

[CircuitKisser]

Tim - absolutely fantastic video. I'm a proud Moog One owner as well. I'm actually on my second Moog One. My first had tuning issues that even the deep calibration was unable to fix. When the oscillator compensation update dropped, the tuning issues actually became MORE apparent. As you mentioned, the adjustment is happening in real time, and for some of my more out of tune voices, you could actually hear an artifact of the note "gliding" into the center of the pitch. (I have documented recordings of this if you're interested) My current unit is quite a bit more in tune and I most often play with OC turned off, a luxury I definitely didn't have on my first. That, combined with the phase cancelation issue, always made me feel like OC was a bandaid; a temporary solution. I do know that a major firmware update is headed our way in the coming months and I sincerely hope there's a better tuning fix. Per voice, per oscillator tuning would be an interesting solution so owners can tweak only the voices that are really unbearably bad, as opposed to just normal analog variance that we all know and love. Superb work!

[stationstation]

I had three different Moog ONE 16v's in rapid exchange fashion, and completely independent of your issues, I had bugs on each from locked up permanently (even with power cycles), to no left channel audio. After the 3 unique Moog ONE 16v's I had to bow out. My poor retailer was besides themselves with Moog. I hear there's going to be a big holiday 2021 firmware revision coming up. I wish you guys the best. I would love to see this Land Rover become the staple of sound and reliability it should have been from inception.

[dorothyshrodinger]

Agree with you. As a Moog One owner, I'd like it to be a legendary synth with all the deserved fixes. Hope Moog will watch this video. Thanks for the great feedback.

[seektruth]

I don't own any Moog and I am very new to Synthesizers, but I fully understood all of your explanations and learned a few useful things! Tim, you are gifted with teaching abilities. If you were a professor in my university, i wouldn't hesitate a second to register for all of your courses and work my a.. off to pass the final exams with full joy! I am a university lecturer (computer scince and A.I) so i really know and believe in what I said about you. Simply thank you for being awesome!

[csu]

When Tim finally gives the thumbs up on this unit I’ll buy it. Once again great video.

[skrachdisful]

Thanks for making this video, Tim, and I hope Moog watches it. I've been a Moog Owner from the very beginning and it's just sitting here collecting dust until these issues are fixed. There's other polys in my room that work better for now.

[michaelfeiner]

I love my Moog One and the sounds I can get out of it, but I agree with you 100% that Moog need to fix so many things on it. I’ve got a whole list of things that I’m still waiting for to happen in a firmware update.. and it’s been taking far too long time now to be honest. It’s really annoying considering that I’ve owned the synth now for 2, 5 years and I’m still waiting for it to work as would expect… My hope is that Moog make a very focused effort to deal with solving all the problems with it so that it fully can become the super synth it deserves to be, and also to respect all people who have invested in it to make them happy and satisfied with such an expensive instrument. Come on Moog! You can do it! ❤️

[tragus]

Thanks Tim you just saved me $9000, I love the concept of this synth and love the sounds from Moog Matriarch. was going to buy this synth this week. Now I will wait as 9k is a lot of lunch money to share with Moog for a suboptimal execution of a great idea. Instead I think I will get a DS OB-6 seems like so much more quality for the money.

[DJFresh]

🙈 as a Moog one owner this is definetely a disappointment. I don’t get why they can’t allow you to adjust the strength of the compensation. And that bug that happened for you happens for me all the time .. such a shame because it is a piece of art.. if they can fix these things

[mysteritmodk]

Tim, I love your videos. You are really good at explaning complex matters. You take your time to do it and I have learned a lot from your videos. Thank you!

[MikePensini]

Really interesting video, Tim. Will have to dig into the Osc Compensation settings and explore this further.

[rabbitfist]

Thank you for helping solve this mystery. I ran into this problem a few weeks ago with a synth layer for which I had assigned a particular number of voices. Every 6th note was silent and for a short while I thought I had a dead voice card. After rebooting and loading the same patch the problem disappeared.
I still love the One and appreciate the things which are completely unique to it while also feeling disappointment in Moog's inattention and lack of communication with the users who have invested so heavily in their flagship instrument.

[audioartisan]

I've always used Oscillator Sync to abolish the phasing. But it's that very phasing that makes everything so interesting :)

[thecylonsmusic]

Only had mine a week, watched this and realised the compensation was on by default. Sounds so much better now its off.

[andyjones]

To me this issue alone reflects really badly on Moog, never mind the other bugs you mention. I don't own one, but I've thought seriously about taking the plunge until I stumbled across your excellent videos. Agreed with you totally when you said a halfway tuning solution might be a satisfactory way out of this, especially if the degree of compensation could be user-determined.
I'd hazard a guess that Moog's engineers can't be happy with the current algorithm, I find it hard to believe they'd settle for it. Either way Moog's management carry the can here.

[neilloughran]

Really sorry to hear about all the problems that the Moog One seems to have... I was one of those guys that was really eager to get one when they were announced, but there seems to be so many problems and uninspiring demos out there. I am sure the potential for this synth is huge but I'm feeling the vibe of the Matriarch more. Hopefully Moog will get around to making this synth the best synth of all time.... which it should be. Owning one would be making me feel a little ill to be honest...