Turtlerock Forum

The Turtlerock team have kindly provided a new forum to discuss vintage synthesizers, as well as other electronic music devices. Many people are passionate about these machines, they are hotly traded on ebay and other markets, and keyboards that are 30+ years old are still in use every day. Names like Moog, ARP, Sequential Circuits, PPG, Oberheim, Fairlight, EMS, Roland, Yamaha, EMU and so on are historic in the shaping of modern popular music, and digital virtual copies are appearing of the most legendary. So here's a place to discuss them, and their uses. The idea is to make this a resource for owners of these machines where we can share information and ideas to aid in keeping them going and exploring new ways to use them.

As a service tech I will be on hand to offer some help with regards fault finding and sourcing of parts and spares, setup and calibration, and general help keeping machines running, it would also be great to hear from folks that are into synth DIY, as this is becoming very popular again, and anyone with experience in these instruments. Other topics could include:

Modifications
Patches
Memorabilia (Old Moog records, brochures and such)
Modulars
Photos of your rig
Theremins and other exotica
Heads up's on gear and performances around town...

Basically a place for shooting the breeze about all things analog and old school digital, and maybe getting a little help from the knowledge base of the other forum members.

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btw, anything i know about vintage synths could be written on the back of a postage stamp, so i am as keen as thirteen is to get this forum chugging .
how about somebody sort out the "tandy really did sell a synth made by made moog" legend for me

I have a guitar with strings that must be 18 years old, would that qualify to start a "vintage guitar" section here?

:-) :-)

[quote="rick"]"tandy really did sell a synth made by made moog" legend for me[/quote]

It's realistic rick! :D

awesome little rig too, gets used for live gigs here and there and is very versatile

sits next to a moog voyager at work and doesn't feel too useless

My old Moog needs some expert work. Who is recomended? Norm

norm wrote:My old Moog needs some expert work. Who is recomended? Norm

What model Moog is it and what is the problem? I do know of a tech in Perth who is supposed to be good, I will dig out his details and let you know.

Rick... some info from VSE:

This is the very source of cheap Moog bass! It is a lot like the strap-on Moog Liberation in its design and architecture and also looks and sounds very much like the Moog Rogue. The MG-1 was built by Moog for Realistic (Radio Shack), and was designed specifically for the home market. Very basic and easy to use, this is a nice cheap way to get your hands on Moog sounds!

The MG-1 is a 2-VCO monophonic/polyphonic analog synth with a genuine 24dB/oct Moog filter, however the overall sound is thin. On the MG-1, the VCOs are referred to as 'Tone Generators'. It can produce sawtooth, square and pulse waveforms, and the oscillators are detunable and syncable. A simple ASR (attack, sustain, release) envelope called 'Contour' can be applied to both the amp and the filter. The LFO section provides triangle or square wave patterns as well as Sample-and-Hold. Additionally there is a simple Ring-Mod effect called 'Bell'.

Unique to the MG-1 is a slider on the far right side of the keyboard which controls the volume of a simple 10-voice polyphonic organ sound. This feature makes it at least a little more versatile than the Rogue. There are RCA inputs and outputs (the input is routed straight to the output for playing along with music from your stereo system) but no external speakers as in most other home marketed synthesizers. There is also no sign of Midi or patch memory on the MG-1. It is used by Peter Gabriel, 808 State, Remy Shand, and KMFDM.

Now I've got to go out into the Garage and find out exactly what machines lie lurking in there and if they're worth fixing up... I know for sure I have an 101 out there somewhere, and an old Yamaha thing, and a REALLY old vocoder of some kind with heaps of buttons and dials... must go digging in the morning!

I'll be back in a few days with the results of the search... just when I was planning to play some golf and go fishing...

Dave

Dave, relaaaxxx. Sink a few tinnies, open some Christmas pressies. Those old things will still be there is a few days.

Hi Steve, The moog is an early minimoog. I have had it looked at by a tech over here however my son who is the musician tells me it still has minor problems. I also have minor problems with my ARP. While on the case I am looking for replacement keys for a nord lead. Norm

norm wrote:Hi Steve, The moog is an early minimoog. I have had it looked at by a tech over here however my son who is the musician tells me it still has minor problems. I also have minor problems with my ARP. While on the case I am looking for replacement keys for a nord lead. Norm

The Moog is pretty easy to work on if you are into DIY or are OK with basic electronics, 4 of it's 5 boards are easy to remove. The ARP, depending on which one it is, is harder to work on because you usually only have access to the back of the PCB's unless you pull all of the slider tops off and pull everything out, but in both cases most of the components are pretty common items, and the tuning procedures are straight forward. A common problem with both of them is noisy uneven keys as the rubber key shims dry out and crack, so need new shims to be installed. As for the Nord keys, I think that Electric Factory in Melbourne imports these units, they would be able to source spares.

Thanks Howard. :) I'll wait till after lunch to tuck into the tinnies though! :P

Dave