In this video, Jamiroquai’s Matt Johnson shares his take on the state of the Moog One synthesizer, and demos a new collection of his custom presets.
The Moog One Preset Pack features 113 of Johnson’s custom sounds for the Moog One. He notes that they feature “Lots of added modulations built in, with the expression pedal and aftertouch.”
Pricing and Availability:
The Moog One Preset Pack is available now for £29.99.
Although i like Matt’s groovy style that goes realy well with Jamiroquai i hope he will make some kind of lounge’ish album one day.
If you watch regulary his youtube channel you’ll see he is playing sometimes in different styles.
Agreed, the style of his chilled jams would make for a great album.
Matts a hugely inspirational player and synth nerd.
If I could afford a Moog One I wouldn’t be buying presets for it; I would be learning for to use it myself.
You can do both.
Exactly. Especially considering it has an 8 gig drive on it, I don’t see how buying a preset pack would cramp anyone’s ability to learn how to use it. In fact, I would venture to say some might pick up a few things by seeing how a preset is constructed. Not sure why it is an either/or deal.
I guess one leaves no money in the pocket for buying presets with a one on the table… 😉
Johnson is so talented that he makes other reviewers and demo guys look bad.
Some people like to complain about what the Moog One doesn’t do or how it’s expensive.
Johnson’s demo, and Lisa Bella Donna’s performance demos, show how magical it can sound in the hands of musicians that have both chops and technical know-how.
magical? like buried under tons of digital effects?
It sounds like you need more oscillator oscilloscope demos to be able to appreciate a synth.
He didn’t exactly give the Moog One an unqualified endorsement. For 9 Grand, I expect near perfection and it sounds like it still has a lot of quirks. That’s unfortunate…
yup I am happy i found a behringer D used. I can run another synth into the ext In and it all ends up sounding like a memorymoog, no downloads required to get there. I would love to praise Moog if it made sense to anymore but almost nothing they’ve released for a few decades has sounded ‘like a moog’. . . cheers to Matt tho I love his channel.
Suggesting that the Model D and the modular reissues don’t sound ‘Moog-y’ is ignorant, let alone the Matriarch, the Sub 37 or the Voyager, which are all iconic Moog synths.
Comparing a behringer D to a Moog One is like comparing a chicken to a banana.
I did say ‘almost nothing’, and the exceptions that have the sound (to my ears) would be the Grandmother, System 15/55 obviously, and the Model d reissue sure. That said, i have tested the Behr. D compared to the ‘real moog’ Slim and Sub phatties, DFAM, the Voyager XL etc and can say i feel the Behr. got closer to the sound than many of those products. And , that said , another polysynth sent to the aux of it quickly sounds closer to a memorymoog than a Matriarch or Moog One or even Polymoog or many other polys on the market honestly. There is just a sound difference that certain products have, where the master filter brighten and thickens it just like how the moog should sound.
I can’t fault the Behringer D sound. Behringer copied the Minimoog circuits and if you do that right, the copy is going to sound almost exactly the same as the original. (Excepting variances for parts choices, aging, subtleties of build, etc).
I don’t agree, though, that all Moog synths should sound like a Minimoog from 40 years ago.
The Sub synths are great and sound very ‘moogy’, really great for bass riffs and sequences. The Mother-32 style Euro synths all sound good, and the DFAM and Subharmonicon are both creative designs that take Moog into new territory.
Taste is obviously subjective, so I respect that yours may be different. But I really think Moog’s current lineup of synths is as good as any synth maker’s.
The question I’d ask you is this: When has Moog ever had a better lineup than what they have now?
Moog’s got some of the best software synths, four great Euro synths, great entry-level monosynths, and high-end stuff as high as you want to go. Korg is about the only mainstream synth maker that covers so many bases, and Korg is probably a company 10 times as big or more as Moog.
“sounded like a Moog”?
What is that even means 🙂 All of Moog products sounds musical, thick and warm, each with it’s own character.
Do you want them to make product that all sounds like model-D/MemoryMoog?
Isn’t that great that its not and they don’t try to knockoff themself?
“it just like how the Moog should sound”
What are you talking about? Moog is a brand not an instrument or an animal (I’m a Moog, what do i say?) it doesn’t needs to sound like anything.
“brighten and thickens”,
Sounds like mambo jambo SSL advertising. Any process can be good or bad, it’s just a process, like overdrive or eq, not a magic. Model-D original filter can can easily make a sound thinner and darker.
“another polysynth sent to the aux of it quickly sounds closer to a memorymoog”
First, it will sound like a paraphonic synth 🙂
But seriously, no, maybe in some cases, but it’s just becouse you looking to something very narrow in the Memorymoog pallet.
The osc will probably sound much different from Memorymoog and it’s a big part of it’s sound, most poly will only have two vco’s not three. Matriarch or Moog One don’t try to be a Model-D, its a strange way to judge a synth.
If you want something that sound very close to Model-D/Memorymoog sound (and its “sounds” like you really do) buy a model-D or a clone/knockoff (like you did) or a plugin of model-D.
Model-D/Memorymoog is not the “moog sound” it’s only one of the Moogs instruments sound.
If you are a fan of music you know with funk, prog, hip hop, and techno, the beat and impact of your sounds is a huge factor on yourself and your audience. Moog’s original systems and standout products like the D were defining sounds for the public perception of synthesizers and popular use of them because of this quality they had that was superhuman. This sound gets diluted and basically lost on lots of people despite it being so famous. What I find is that people who can’t hear it are actually just not attuned to the frequencies as much as they imagine because it is readily apparent. Marc Doty did a whole blind test to prove this and I got the answers correct. Many people can’t hear the difference between true frequency range and mere saturation or merely interested in specifications and prices. The ‘moog sound’ is about that full frequency impact it is supposed to have on you. If you take away the impact, you are left with a mere instrument that is different but inessential. One other line of products that certainly had it was the Oberheim SEM, and still with them there are some variants that don’t have the same full response. This is experienced as volume, richness, and mix clarity that is beyond the decibels they put out. It is the full character of the waveforms and components that is there for people actually studying it.
“Moog’s got some of the best software synths“
Love their iOS apps. Mucho audio/sonic fun.
The Synth that sunk Moog 2.0. So much wasted capital on a greenhorn engineering mess with noisy fans. So much wasted engineering effort that could have spun off products that forward the company. Now one mired by protests. I bought a Model 15, a D reissue, 3 DFAMS, a mother and a Grandmother, but I am worried whether the company will survive this synth. The RMAs must have eaten them alive.
They’ve sold thousands of them at $6-8k.
This is millions of dollars of additional revenue per year for Moog.
Good ‘problem’ to have.
Don’t be fooled by commenters who love to complain only a few of them are real costumers and maybe one English youtuber 🙂
They sold 3000 units in the first two years so i wouldn’t worry to much, 27M$ income from one product sounds not bad for a synthesizer in that caliber.
And If somebody like Matt with so much experience with so many synthesizers says “The Moog One is my pride and joy” I think they will continue to do well? 🙂
A lot of that pride stems from the badge on the front of the synth. If that same exact synth came from any other manufacturer, I doubt he’d have as much pride of ownership.
Stop being poor
They pumping out these $8000 beasts and they don’t even have the nerve to pay their employees fairly. I’m done with them until they make something that is priced fairly like the hydrasynth. I’m done with those mini screens as well send those back to whoever sold them to you.
Maybe ASM chinese workers don’t know they deserve more, Isn’t that a big of the reason to mass produced cheaply built digital synths in china?
What I’m really hoping for is that Uli decides to take the elephant on straight ahead. I’m betting that not only would a Behringer version be cheaper, it would probably have a lot less deficits, as well. Given the sonic characteristics of the Model D, I think that a Behringer knockoff would finally put Moog out of its misery.
The fact that you, as fan of synths, are actively advocating for Moog’s demise is mind-boggling and sad.
You want a cheap copy of the Moog One, but you want the company that created it to go out of business.
I don’t get it.
Reading this, wondering how it always gets here. Then remembering that the actual owners of the Moog One are sitting at it playing and designing in bliss while you all snip away at it’s price tag (it’s a 48 oscillator moog spacecraft) and its (tiny, true bypass-able) digital effects module. The synth is one of a kind, a godsend, there is nothing like it