Voyager Problems

Well, I will have to post a lot more about the Moog Voyager after I've had more time with it. So far I think it's the most amazing synthesizer I've ever used. Really incredible how punchy and versatile it is.

However I have discovered another small problem: The release time for the VCA envelope wont go longer than 1 second. It should go to 10 seconds. This thing was obviously owned by an idiot before MusiciansFriend got it who randomly turned the trim pots inside just for giggles.

So far I'm happy with it the way it is though. No need for a long release at the moment. I can just use the decay instead. After I've gone through it in more detail maybe I'll try figuring out how to fix it myself or send it to Moog. It's so much trouble sending stuff across the border I don't really want to do that, but eventually I'll probably have to.

Last night I tried putting the Tom Oberheim SEM oscillators through it's external input and found that works really well. Makes the sound a bit too thick but I can add some upper harmonics to some sounds which could be cool. I'm sure I'll be using this thing a LOT in future recordings!

Minimoog Voyager RME!

Well I finally decided to get a real Minimoog. I was watching an auction for a Voyager RME (rack mount) last week that was in Ontario so that seemed perfect.... until the guy took it down a day before it ended! So I checked Musiciansfriend and they had 2 used ones. I decided to grab one of those while I could because it was a $600 savings over a brand new one.

It arrived today and sounds amazing!!! Really big and punchy! It sounds more like the old Model D than I expected based on what I'd heard, but it has a bunch of new features that make it much better, almost like a small modular. I love it!

The only minor problem is, the master volume control doesn't seem to go all the way down to 0. You can always hear some sound. Hopefully I can calibrate that easily.

As usual, I sure wish I had a LOT more time to play with this thing. But no, back to work in the morning. :(

Korg M3 Problem - Update!

A quick update to my last post - It turned out that I didn't actually even touch the pads after I fixed the problem and now that I try them again, they are not working again!

After some experimenting I have found that the problem is in a patch somewhere, or maybe a bank of programs. I don't know if something weird got programmed into there, or if a file on the flash drive got corrupted but that's what was causing it.

I ended up reloading the original programs and then loading in anything else I needed one at a time. Now I've saved that all back out again into a single collection of all the programs, which hopefully is good. I'll save a copy on my hard drive too in case this one (on the flash drive) gets corrupted.

Technology is a pain, eh! Eventually the answers can be found though.

Korg M3 Problem Fixed

This is just a post for Korg M3 owners who have strange problems like I did. This is the solution:

This fix is really simple, but I couldn't find it in the manuals:

WARNING!!!!!!  This will erase all programs and other data so back up EVERYTHING first!!!

- Turn M3 on while holding "Reset Controls & 1,2 buttons (the IFX1 and IFX2 buttons that are right beside the Reset Controls button).

This fixed 2 problems:

1. The pads didn't work. They would record the notes I was playing (visible in the pad setup page) but when I hit them, no sound.

2. The sequencer didn't work. VERY strange! I would record but nothing would play back. But oddly enough, if I muted the channel, the meter would start bouncing and show that there was data playing there!  So like the pads, it was recording, but not playing back.

The reset fixed both of those.

All programs were wiped but it only took a couple of minutes to reload them from the flash drive I had backed them up onto.

So all is well now.