Moog One Announced

About time:

Moog have finally done it. After decades of being absent from the Moog product line-up they’ve finally unveiled a brand new polyphonic synth called One and boy oh boy, does it pack a punch. And after keep my lips sealed behind an NDA for 13 months, I can finally talk about what I’ve seen and heard. In the summer of 2017 I was incredibly fortunate enough to visit the Moog factory with some of the most amazing people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting (you know who you are), we made the 11 hour flight and 2 hour drive to Ashville, North Carolina where the employee owned Moog Music Inc. are based. Walk down to the bottom of the high street, under a bridge and to your right, a vividly coloured, voyager XL laden building that adorns the Moog logo which conceals one of the most breathtaking showrooms and busiest, vibrant workshops I’ve had the pleasure of seeing, and talking to the people building the machines, it’s very apparent they love their craft as much as we do. During our time there we were invited for Moog Pro training, which is a special certification you can obtain by only completing a series of tests and questionnaires at Moog HQ to prove you know your apples (well, synths anyway). Once we’d completed said training Moog took us into the sound lab and Amos and the gang showed us something I’d wanted from them for a long time…a rather big synthesizer codenamed L.A.S. which stands for large analogue synthesizer, but it’s now formally known as One. One was demonstrated to us in great detail for almost 2 hours, the team went through the impressive spec and at the end of it everyone, including me was left with their jaws on the floor. But after that impressive demonstration, we had to sign a non disclosure agreement so up until today, I’ve not been able to mention One at all.

Blue pill or the red pill?

So what is this synthesizer we saw, shrouded in secrecy for so long? Well One is the synth you always dreamed someone would make, a truly impressive multi-timbral analogue synthesizer with dual filters, a massive modulation matrix, tonnes of hands on control, a superb Fatar TP8S 61-note keybed and brand new oscillator technology. Available in both 16 and 8 voice configurations, The One houses some of the most advanced analogue circuitry coupled with a rich and fully featured UI developed in-house on the JUCE platform, which allows you to easily navigate this potentially very complex synthesizer. One in its 16 voice configuration houses 48 oscillators, since there's three oscillators per voice. Each oscillator is built on brand new technology, which was dubbed variable core at the time of our first sighting, this oscillator tech allows smooth morphing between waveforms well up into audio rates, for rich, dense and complex timbres. One contains two unique filters which can run in parallel. One filter is the classic Moog 24dB transistor ladder filter and the other is a state variable filter, which gives amazing flexibility and sound shaping potential just in the VCO’s and filter alone, but there’s ring mod, FM and that whopping modulation matrix to play with too. Couple these sound design capabilities with a world class suite of effects from Eventide onboard and you are really in the deep end with the vast amount of sounds you can make with this thing. And what about preset storage and recall? One has that covered too, with hundreds of possible storage locations for instant recall of your carefully designed patches, making is a superb tool for live players as well, the storage also allows for instant recall of your sequence data as well. Yeah, a sequencer. As if all of the above that wasn’t enough, Moog have put a truly impressive sequencing system onboard, with up to 16 notes per step and support of up to 256 steps, you could pretty much make a whole track. You can run a separate sequencer and an ARP per timbre…blimey.

Specific specifications:

• 8 or 16 voice polyphonic analogue synthesizer
• Three oscillators per voice
• Brand new oscillator technology with OLED displays for the waveforms
• Ring mod, Sync and FM
• Tri-timbral architecture
• Craft unique splits, layers and zones
• 61 note FATAR TP8S keybed
• Two analogue filters, one classic Moog low pass and one state variable
• Four LFO’s and three envelope generators
• Eventide effects onboard
• LCD display with UI powered by the JUCE platform for effortless navigation
• Preset storage and recall
• USB MIDI and DIN MIDI
• Assignable CV and Gate IO
• Premium Moog build quality

MegaMoog:

So, let’s be real. This is a premium machine at a premium price point which delivers unheard sonic qualities and a seriously, seriously impressive spec. One sounds absolutely stunning, with incredible sonic precision, articulation, power and immersive quality that’s going to set the standard for polyphonic synths for the next 30 years, at least. This is a game changer, no better yet…..a game winner. The Moog one is going to be available on demo and in stock at KMR soon, so if you want to hear this monster through some serious monitoring and get some expert advice, then drop me line and I’d be more than welcome to share my enthusiasm for what I believe represents the next quantum leap for synthesizers.