Moog

Reviews | Moog Minitaur
74
B
ack in 1974 it was easy to
make light of stacked heels
and the other cosmic clobber
that littered the pages of the
weekly music papers. That is until one
of the high priests of Prog Rock set off
a Taurus bass bomb in your local sports
arena, prompting to you to apologise
for smirking at his sequined cape.
The people at Moog remember
those days fondly, and for those who
weren’t around to bear witness they’ve
now come up with the Minitaur bass
synth to give you an idea of what you
missed out on. Minitaur’s raison d’être
is to bring a bit of that classic analogue
thunder to today’s musician in an
effi ciently designed monophonic
knob-per-function package that won’t
have you eBay-ing off your Van der
Graaf Generator collection to help pay
for it. The three versions of the beloved
Moog Taurus bass pedals that precede
it have bequeathed a good chunk of
their DNA to the new synth.
And despite eschewing pedals and
presets for knobs and ingenuity, this
new module can still move a fair
amount of air about.
Small packages
Because Minitaur’s isn’t much bigger
than the chunky wood-paneled
Moogerfooger pedals the company’s
also known for, it positions itself
straightaway as something that can be
easily integrated into a keyboard stack,
DJ rig, or studio space without too
much consideration for space.
On collecting our prototype, it was
so light and portable that you’re more
likely to rethink taking the band’s
smoke machine to the gig than
excluding this modestly-sized piece of
kit from the setup.
Because of Minitaur’s reduced
footprint, however, several design
consideration with regards to the
amount of physical space available had
to be made. One of them was that
there wasn’t room to cram a power
supply into the chassis – leaving you to
fi nd another jack for the included wall
wart. But that’s a niggling point to
make, especially when you consider
the benefi ts of sidestepping electrical
noise leaking into your analogue signal
path, and any additional cost to the
synth’s retail price.
Knob-landia
While Minitaur is by and large
modelled after the Taurus line,
welcome differences abound. Starting
right beneath the snorting bull logo are
the two square plastic VCO switches
(coloured amber for “extra warmth”
sayeth one clever Moog engineer…)
WHAT IS IT?
Two oscillator, monophonic
bass synthesizer
CONTACT
Who: Source Distribution
Tel: [phone]
Web: www.moogmusic.com
HIGHLIGHTS
1 Huge sound
2 Small footprint
3 Classic Moog sound
Moog Minitaur |
£443
Moog Music have packed their legendary bass sound
into a compact unit that can still shiver your timbers.
Jon Andrews gets down to the bass-ics
ON THE DVD
Triangle wave-based
LFO can be sent to
either the VCOs or
the Moog fi lter
Manages release
segments of both the
VCA and VCF
envelope generators
MOD Options
Let Me Go!
Four-pole Moog
low-pass VCF that
can be dialled in
from 20Hz to 20KHz
Phat Filtering
also known for, it positions itself
straightaway as something that can be
easily integrated into a keyboard stack,
DJ rig, or studio space without too
much consideration for space.
so light and portable that you’re more
likely to rethink taking the band’s
FMU250.rev_moog.indd 74 2/1/12 5:26:13 PM