Listening to a Legend

I recently had the pleasure of listening to Dr. Robert Moog present a seminar on analogue vs. digital technology with respect to building synthesizers. He had one of his new Moog Voyagers on hand to demonstrate examples and went from the technology of tubes, to transistors, to digital signal processing, shedding light on why analogue sounds the way it does, and the reasons why digital technology has problems emulating it. It seems that there are nuances inherent in analogue circuitry that can even depend on the specific types of components used that many digital “emulations” don’t take into account. Also, it seems that though the empirical data supporting the necessity of sampling rates above 44.1 kHZ is fairly slim, many feel that sampling rates need to be much higher than the stated minimum and that aliasing could also be an issue with respect to a lack of detail or realism in digital emulations. In response, Arturia has come up with TAE (True Analog Emulation), “a new technology dedicated to the digital reproduction of analog circuits.”

The New Way to Model a Moog

Arturia has implemented what they call TAE –or True Analog Emulation- to produce “algorithms that guaranty the respect of hardware specifications”. This is a bold statement that Arturia goes on to support with empirical results and examples describing the difference TAE modeling can make. Four main areas that TAE provides for are:

Aliasing-Free Oscillators, Better Reproduction of Analog Waveforms, Better Reproduction of Analogue Filters, Implementation of Soft Clipping

The Design of the Modular V

Arturia have tackled the emulation of a rather large synth where virtually every parameter has a physical knob, dial, fader, input, etc. This is the nature of a modular system and it could potentially pose a challenge for implementation of an economical User Interface. To their credit, Arturia has taken the time to design three separate layouts so you can control the parts of the synth you see or (and possibly more important) don’t see.

Sound Synthesis View/Conception Page

The first view is the main programming environment and contains 28 modules made up of oscillators, filters, LFO’s, VCA’s, trigger delays, and real-time controller outputs.

Sound Treatment and Control Access View/Full Usage Page

The second view displays the keyboard section with its assignable controllers, a step-sequencer, a fixed filter bank, stereo delay, and chorus.

Keyboard and Controller View/Reduced Usage Page

The third, and last view displays just the keyboard and its assignably controllers –giving you a condensed view while still being able to access real time controllers and sound presets.

Presets

Presets -big deal, every soft synth has preset capabilities right. I was intrigued that Arturia made such a big deal about the 400 factory presets and the artist who created the patches for the Modular V. Arturia rightly justifies the emphasis by pointing out that the ability to store presets “is one of the main areas of evolution that the Moog Modular V has when compared to its predecessor, which did not save sounds!”.

Arturia enlisted a slew of artists and sound designers to create the patches for Modular V and they made sure that the presets illustrate the enormous potential of this soft synth. You can read about the individuals behind the patches here. (http://www.arturia.com/en/mmdesigners.html) Presets can also be easily imported and exported via the Toolbar in the Modular V and Arturia will be making more presets available for download from their web site.

Manipulating the Moog Modular V

The quality of the modeling and the preset sounds available in the Modular V make it worth the price of entry alone in my book. This is one of the best sounding soft-synths I’ve ever heard. But this is just the beginning –as its name implies the Modular V is modular. I have some experience with modular synthesis having tweaked a Nord Micro Modular and some other virtual analogue soft synths, but I am in no way an expert.

Arturia has written a great manual that will take you through each module and what it does so you don’t have to worry if you don’t know the difference between a VCO (Voltage Controlled Oscillator) and VCA (Voltage Controlled Amplifier). The manual also has a section on subtractive synthesis as well as a chapter that takes you through 10 different examples to illustrate some of the ideas behind modular synthesis.

This points out one of the main reasons I really love the Modular V. On top of sounding great and having excellent factory presets which are easily tweakable –you can slowly dive into the concept of modular synthesis and creating patches from scratch. This could easily become a main instrument for many musicians out there and it won’t “get old” on you since it is so flexible and capable of so many different sounds.

Making Connections

Creating patches and routing wires is a simple procedure in the Modular V. Simply click on a device and drag the newly created cable to another device to connect. You can also right click (PC), or shift click (Mac) to display a drop down menu that allows you to select which module you want to connect to. Cable connections represent Audio and Modulation connections, Trigger and Synchronization connections utilize menus, and Key Follow/Sequencer connections are done via display windows.

Arturia has made cable organization easy by color-coding cables depending on whether the cable is coming from an oscillator, filter, etc. They also provide a toolbar that allows you to “filter” what type of cables you see. There is even a control for cable tension, and my favorite –the Move Away Cables setting. This setting will make cables disappear as you move your mouse around so that the cable connections don’t get in your way of seeing and setting other parameters on the Modular V.

Arturia has also provided for accurate manipulation of onscreen controls. By shift clicking on a potentiometer, or knob, the precision of adjustment is increased by 10 fold. In Rotation mode the farther your mouse is from the knob you are adjusting the higher the precision of the setting. As said before, Arturia has paid attention to the details.

Of course, MIDI control is provided and the Modular V can receive up to 120 different MIDI controls for onscreen pots, cursors, joysticks, and modulation inputs. Linking onscreen elements to physical MIDI controllers is made easier with the MIDI Learn option.

Conclusion

Arturia has made a great sounding soft synth with a very nice interface and some excellent presets. I really love the Modular V and can see myself spending hours learning more about modular synthesis with it. I have only one real gripe about this program and that is you really need a fast computer to play all the patches -especially if you want to play in polyphonic mode. I wouldn’t want to give up any of the sound quality, but I think quite a few people will have a problem running this soft synth as a VST plug-in, with other apps and plug-ins going since it is such a CPU hog. Even in stand-alone mode I had trouble playing some of the more complex patches or playing in polyphonic mode on my dual 450MHz G4 running OS X. Granted, my computer isn’t the fastest thing out there, but it’s not the slowest either. Regardless, you need to at least download a demo so you can hear for yourself just how good a soft synth can sound.

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