Monday 12 August 2013

Moog 901 Beats


Here is a little demo of the majestic R.A.Moog 901 VCO - the original and BEST VCO ever made! I'm really happy because this 901 (not to be confused with the 901 A B combo VCO) came with my original modular IIIC system that I bought in 1994, but it NEVER WORKED. Thats right - I tried a few times over the years to get it fixed but it seemed to beat the fixers - until last week when I took it to my friend. He fathomed it out and also did a simple mod to it on my request - I have added pulse width modulation on the square wave - something that Robert Moog himself didn't think of implementing on the first generation of VCOs. So for the first time I have a 901 VCO with PWM and it sounds spectacular. In this patch I am using the 901 and two 901B oscillators mixed together, and a third 901B saw wave to modulate the pulse with of the 901. Unfortunately the MP3 encoding on the MOV file does terrible things to the purity of these sounds, it sounds nothing like the real thing, in fact nothing sounds as good as these up close

6 comments:

  1. I also added PWM to my 901's... but I built a couple of dedicated LFO's to modulate them... that way I don't tie up any Moog oscillators for the job.

    Here's my first testing of the circuit:

    https://soundcloud.com/q-uazimodo02/modular-moog-pulse-width

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  2. noddy, thats great to hear, in all senses of the word. i met keith emerson once in a restaurant. i was about 17 and it was after they played the royal albert hall. he's got a gold rolex submariner. we were all really drunk! my friend damon was sick in the cab on the way home

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  3. Hey eben... I have loaned my Hammond L100 to Keith a few times. And I was at the RAH gig and ended up at the after show party.... and in doing so also I ended up on the ELP documentary DVD..! Ha!

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  4. Eben, Sounds fantastic! I too have a IIIC. I agree they sound so much better in person! Would love to have PWM to my 901s, but i have a few 921's that i go to for that sound i suppose. How did you (your friend) modify it? I was looking at your panel to see how you made a width control input?

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  5. Hi Dan. We used the 3rd CV input as the PWM in. The 901 a/b VCOs are not so simple to modify - they would need some kind of VCA or Vactrol circuit to implement the PWM, so I left them be. Are you based in the UK?

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