The Moog Voyager versus the old Minimoog D

a quick comparison by Lutz Wernicke, 2004

Here I'd like to give You a few personal hints, if You should ask Yourself, if to go for an old Minimoog from the second hand market or to purchase a new one like the current Minimoog Voyager. I am quite familiar with the multiple considerations concerning the options and the quality of the Voyager compared to the original Minimoog, because I had both instruments at home for 5 weeks, enough time to check it all out. So, which one to go for? Here are my personal test-results:

Besides stepping through the Voyager's presets (You do it quite automatically, if You have presets) I tried to handle it as intuitive as I do with the old Minimoog. Just being into one sound. Yeah, good! Smooth working of the potis, quite easy to follow the routing, wonderful sound results. Nice to have the additional LFO, and so the full option of all 3 oscillators. The keyboard's Aftertouch is not working properly (yet?), nor are the velocity-functions. Is it really only a software-problem? Hopefully. But these are functions, the old Minimoog doesn't have - and therefore not comparable.
And: “My“ Voyager had a strange noise in the very background, not definable what the actual source might be. Operation system 1.5 is upgraded now to 2.?, somewhere I heard that the noise problem is also solved now. But I'm not sure, if we are talking about the same accidents.... I just tell, what my careful ears are experiencing.

The Minimoog is sort of limited, while having a certain character of it's own. You just play the sound, without thinking about saving or archiving it, 'cause it's simply not possible. You just play and enjoy.
There is s.th. the Minimoog has, that is not continued in the Voyager:

1. the sharktooth-waves in osc1/2
- in my opinion the Voyager's continuously adjustable waveforms are more important and can easily replace the sharkwave

2. the sawtooth upwards (was it called “ramp“?)
- to be used as 3rd osc or as LFO. Particularly the LFO-option I find VERY inspiring, and I can't understand, why this waveform was discontinued.

Compared to the Voyager the Minimoog's resonance can be adjusted more extremely, and more uneven and lively. The Pink+White Noises sound better. Access to sound is more direct. The Minimoog has more of this fine dirtyness.

Filters are wonderful in both, really. In my opinion the osc-sound of the old Minimoog is it, what makes the slight difference. But don't get me wrong: If You want to rebuild a MiniSound on the Voyager, You'll get it somehow. But turn the Voyager to mono before and don't use this “spacing“-setting of the Voyager's filter frequency in order to keep the directness of the instrument's sound.

If I hadn't have this old Minimoog, that was quite on the way to me, and that was in very good condition and inspired me directly, and if I had the additional money, I could imagine to go for the Voyager model, a wonderful rich synthesizer. And I always would look for the latest software.

All the best sounds to You!

Lutz Wernicke    (Berlin, Germany)     Website Lutz Wernicke