2009 NAMM Show: Moog Music made the NAMM announcement of its plans to bring back the rare Taurus Bass Pedal in a limited edition
The new edition of this classic bass synth will reproduce the Taurus I sound engine, but combine it with modern features.
The image on the right shows Moog senior engineer, Cyril Lance, “extracting the Taurus DNA” from an original Taurus I.
Moog is planning to build only 1,000 of the new Taurus bass pedals. The pedals will retail for $1995; Moog is offering a discount on early orders before February 15, 2009. Moog expects to ship the pedals in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Taurus Bass Pedals have been used by Rush, The Police, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Phil Collins, Asia, Weezer, and many more.
Preliminary specifications:
- 100% Analog Sound Engine based entirely on original TAURUS I circuits
- “Taurus I” style
- 2 VCO Oscillators, ADS Contour Generator, 1 VCF Filter, Output VCA
- PRESETS: 16 Banks x 4 presets = 48 Total Programmable Bass Sounds
- BANK 0 will contains the Original Taurus I Presets: VAR, TAURUS, TUBA, BASS
- MIDI: DIN and USB, Merging and Routing
- ARPEGGIATOR: MIDI Sync, TAP TEMPO, Internal
- CV Inputs: VOLUME, FILTER, PITCH, GATE
The features and price of this product are extremely ridiculous for 2009!!! Its ok if you are a collector though…
It’s about freaking time, Moog!!! I’ve been waiting years for this to happen. While I’m quite happy using my Roland PK-5 midi pedals, I simply must own one of these… I’m pre-ordering a set Monday!
As a former owner of these that paid 550.00 back in 1982 to purchase them, I'd like to say two things. First, thank you Retrosound/Moog for reissuing these things. It's truly absent-minded that all the sample libraries in the world have NEVER reproduced the (main) sound of these correctly. When they all try to'… they sample every sound that Taurus Pedals could possibly generate' from the variable preset button (far left button on the Taurus) and astonishingly.. forget to sample the button right next to it' called : (brace-yourself…) TAURUS. Yes… you heard me right. The most recognizable preset on the original Taurus 1' used on Rush's La Villa Strangiato' and Genesis's Dance on a Volcano' and Squonk' is always forgotten' when major sampler companies do vintage synth libraries containing Moog Taurus samples. The Legacy CD-ROM came the closest' to reproducing it, but only sampled the first 1 second' of the true' Taurus sound – the rest of the sample went immediately into a one oscillator fade out decay. Unbelievably-reckless' in a day and age of Gigabyte-sized sample loading.
The second thing I want to say is: 2000 bucks huh…. umm… yeh. I'm going to wait until Moog adopts the business plan that the Japanese' employed to put Moog' out of business the first time' back in the 80's. Flood the American synth market with musically-inspiring synths' (i.e. Roland JX-3P/Yamaha DX-7) and charge 1000 dollars less. Bye-bye' Memorymoog… you sure looked cool with all those knobs and switches, but musically… you-be-overpriced for whatchu do friend.
Voice Crystals' makes the Legacy CD-ROM. They got the Tuba and Bass presets accurate of the Taurus 1, but they flubbed the main Taurus preset. Having said that, it's not a total waste of a CD to have in one's sampler library. The OB-Xa, ARP 2600, modular Moogs' and Juno-106 are almost better than the original machines. Goose-bumps' appear on your arms when you hear them through headphones.