Moog Taurus III Revealed

[ethersine]

For anyone who's interested (and doesn't know already), Moog Music has finally posted pics and specs of the new Taurus III bass pedals.

www.moogmusic.com/taurus/?section=product&product_id=21299

[MrArkadin]

i'm expecting mine before Christmas i hope.

[nervejam]

Now that's cool. Unfortunately, It says to have a listen to the samples, but there aren't any.. Boo!

[MrArkadin]

Pah. i don't need no steenkin' samples! No internet streaming compressed bollocks is going to reveal anywhere near the true depth of this machine.

Not sure if i'll get mine before or after Christmas. i have someone coming over with a set of original Taurus pedals and we're going to do a side by side showdown (the new T3s weigh twice as much as the originals for some reason).

[vortex]

Of absolutely no use to me but it looks very cool. Nice piece of design

[ethersine]

On Dec. 30th, sound samples of the new Taurus III pedals were added to the Moog website.

www.moogmusic.com/taurus/?section=product&product_id=21299

There are four different sets, so don't think the first one is all there is.

It seems from the samples they've updated the sound (and capabilities) a bit to appeal to the techno crowd. There's nothing substantial offered in the way of the classic sounds, but I'm sure they're well within its capabilities.

Perhaps, with the release of the new Taurus, there might be a slight dip in the prices for the other techno machines (TB-303, SH-101, MC-202).

If you're listening with laptop speakers, don't bother to tell us how disappointing it sounds.

[MrArkadin]

Jan 7, 2010 20:56:59 GMT ethersine said:

It seems from the samples they've updated the sound (and capabilities) a bit to appeal to the techno crowd. There's nothing substantial offered in the way of the classic sounds, but I'm sure they're well within its capabilities.

The main criteria when designing this was to get that Taurus sound - hence they copied the original circuit. The new arpeggiator is what gives it that acieeed sound, so it's more a case of the original Taurus could have been an acid machine if it had had the right interface options - try doing fast arps on pedals - not happening, rather than making a machine for the techno crowd (this is for the prog crowd after all, but i can see that arp coming in handy live).

The original presets will occupy the first three spaces plus a new one: Taurus, Bass, Tuba and Taurus3.

[ethersine]

Agreed.

If you read what I said, I was simply pointing out what the sound samples they provided tended to emphasize its use as an acid machine. Nothing more.

[MrArkadin]

My pedals finally arrived this morning and I've been playing with them all day. What can I say? They're great and the new features really take this to another level from the original, plus feature requests are being added in firmware all the time.

[neo]

That's useful to know Arkadin, i've returned the authorisation form for payment for mine, then heard zip from Moog. Presumably you got stung at customs?

[MrArkadin]

Silence is Moog's forte. I had the email saying could they authorise payment. I said yes. Heard nothing back. A week later a big box arrived (I was expecting emails with tracking numbers etc.).

I thought I'd got away with customs but UPS are coming round today for the cash

I paid £240, so if you're in the UK don't pay more - if you get it for less tell me.

So far updates have included or will include:
Random on arpeggiator (my idea).
Patch holdover (patch doesn't change till you hit a new note).
A form of step sequencer.
Some general requested changes (proper bpm display on tempo rather than parameter values up to 2496! wtf speed is that?).
Ongoing bug fixes.

[neo]

arghhh...Moog have just told me my f$%king building society have put a hold on the payment for my Taurus! I told them months ago to make sure the payment went through. If i loose this because of my bank, i'm going to ... spend all my money on synths, they appreciate more anyway!

[ethersine]

For anyone who's interested...

Marko (retrosounds72) has posted a new video doing a side-by-side comparison of the basic presets of a new Moog Taurus III with his vintage Taurus I.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPZ3N8p_96M&playnext_from=TL&videos=7DlsPM4b8h0&fmt=18

Obviously, there is going to be some difference, especially considering there would be some variability between the originals.

The last comparison (Reso Bass) seems to be the most telling. I'm not sure why, but the filter seems to have a lot more "character" in the Taurus 1.

[MrArkadin]

Apr 26, 2010 2:06:53 GMT ethersine said:

For anyone who's interested...

Marko (retrosounds72) has posted a new video doing a side-by-side comparison of the basic presets of a new Moog Taurus III with his vintage Taurus I.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPZ3N8p_96M&playnext_from=TL&videos=7DlsPM4b8h0&fmt=18

Obviously, there is going to be some difference, especially considering there would be some variability between the originals.

The last comparison (Reso Bass) seems to be the most telling. I'm not sure why, but the filter seems to have a lot more "character" in the Taurus 1.

I have a few issues with this demo - mainly that there's no description of anything. So for instance my initial thoughts are:

1. The T1 will sound different to how it sounded 20 years ago due to component age. Has this T1 been recently recapped to bring it closer to original spec? (probably not)

2. Has the T1 been calibrated to original specs any time recently?

3. Were the T1, Tuba and Bass presets on the T3 tweaked at all or as factory? Moog have admitted they've shipped with incorrect factory settings and will be correcting in a software update soon (you could of course just copy the presets and tweak yourself to get them closer).

4. The Rez Bass preset is a variable preset on the T1. The T1 and T3 do not have the same panel layout - so how were they matched? It's easy to mismatch them and make them seem completely different (as they do here).

I think this needs a bit more vigorous testing and description of the testing. I hope to do some in August when a friend of mine can bring down his T1s.

Regardless, both sound bloody good. ;D