Is the moog guitar just not all that?

[girevik]

Where can I try one out? I'd like to SEE one. I've never seen one in person! It's expensive sure but.... I want one. With hex output and analog out. I could do a lot with one I'm pretty sure. I don't think it looks too bad myself, but guitarists are a conservative lot and have problems with "new things that do things nothing else does". This is for the sonic explorer/trailblazer.

 

 

I was hoping to go to MoogFest 2011. I figured that would be the time to try a Moog Guitar in person.

 

I'd especially wanted to hit up the Moog Lap Steel.

 

Instead, my friend asked me to participate in a studio recording of "In C", Terry Riley's piece... that very same weekend. Maybe I can go to MoogFest 2012.

[BryanMichael]

To me, at least in the demos, it seems:

 

1. WAY too expensive for the average axe slinger, and even too expensive for the more experimental types! That's a LOT of dough!

2. The "sustain" and "non sustain" features seem to be the most unique thing about it (from the demos) and they can be emulated through much, much less expensive means. All the other sounds seem to be pretty standard "guitar synth" type of sounds that can be emulated through other means as well.

 

3. Most guitarists want a guitar that sounds like a guitar, not something else.

 

IMO, a Fernandes Dragonfly with a sustainer and a GK pickup and some used Roland gear would get you in that ballpark for less than half the cash.

[aliensporebomb]

I was not aware that the strings were a custom deal. 35 bucks a pack? Is this a bass guitar or what?

[aliensporebomb]

 

To me, at least in the demos, it seems: 1. WAY too expensive for the average axe slinger, and even too expensive for the more experimental types! That's a LOT of dough! 2. The "sustain" and "non sustain" features seem to be the most unique thing about it (from the demos) and they can be emulated through much, much less expensive means. All the other sounds seem to be pretty standard "guitar synth" type of sounds that can be emulated through other means as well. 3. Most guitarists want a guitar that sounds like a guitar, not something else. IMO, a Fernandes Dragonfly with a sustainer and a GK pickup and some used Roland gear would get you in that ballpark for less than half the cash.

 

 

Yep. I saw Dragonfly Elite for well under a thousand dollars on ebay from various dealers, I seem to remember a Jackson Dinky that had a sustainor built into it too.

[BryanMichael]

Yep. I saw Dragonfly Elite for well under a thousand dollars on ebay from various dealers, I seem to remember a Jackson Dinky that had a sustainor built into it too.

 

 

 

The dragonfly PRO with sustainor is even cheaper than that! They are going around the $400 range! Add a GK pickup and a used VG and/or GR and you would still be less than $2K!

[TieDyedDevil]

Yesterday I revisited several of the demo videos, which left me even less curious about the Moog guitar than I was before.

I expected that I might hear fantastic things, especially from the "celebrity" players. What I heard instead were effects that, had I heard them on a recording, I would have assumed were the result of amp-to-guitar feedback, or a "plinky" sound that sounded like a very poorly set-up guitar.

Maybe there *is* more to be wrestled from the Moog guitar through persistence and experience. Maybe not. Either way, I'm not curious enough to invest $3,000 in that particular experiment...

[girevik]

I had a Fernandes Fretless Sustainer once. The Sustainer and the fretless neck were an awesome match.

However, when playing chords, the lower string notes would quickly dominate in volume over the higher string notes. I changed the strings to .011s and that mitigated the problem quite a bit, but the lower strings would still take over eventually.

The Moog Guitar supposedly does not have this problem - all notes in the chord will hold their volume at whatever level you played them, so if you played the higher strings louder than the lower ones, the notes should stay that way while sustaining. The Fernandes Sustainer could not do that.

In one of the Moog videos, Fareed Haque demonstrates Controlled Sustain Mode. To do this he taps a lower string note with his right hand and holds it in infinite sustain while tapping a melody on the higher strings with his left hand. The lower note held without drowning out the high strings. Any open strings he was not fretting were automatically muted. This cannot be done on a Fernandes Sustainer.

I'm not saying the Fernandes Sustainer and Sustainiac are not viable alternatives to the Moog Guitar. If you mainly sustain one note at a time and are fine with the lower strings taking over your sustained sound, and you don't have any use for Controlled Sustain Mode, they are ok and you should not spend your money on the Moog.

Bill Ruppert demonstrated that much of the Moog Guitar sound and performance can be duplicated on a Roland VG-99 using its "infinite sustain" features - it won't sustain your physical guitar strings, but it will sustain the VG-99 virtual guitar/synth model by a trigger from the D-Beam or foot pedal (like piano pedal sustain, except it goes and goes until you take your foot off). Since I have a VG-99, this is yet another factor keeping me away from the Moog - I'm not THAT much of an analog purist.

[lz4005]

 

I was not aware that the strings were a custom deal. 35 bucks a pack? Is this a bass guitar or what?

 

 

The strings are 3 packs for $35.

I don't know if they are absolutely required. It doesn't say the system doesn't work with other strings, just that it works "best" with theirs.

 

I wonder if a Strat pickguard pre-wired with the Moog system would sell if it was in the $500-800 range. Or if that would even be possible, given the technology.

[girevik]

I wonder if a Strat pickguard pre-wired with the Moog system would sell if it was in the $500-800 range. Or if that would even be possible, given the technology.

 

Some kind of customization is possible. I posted this link earlier but it was ignored:

http://www.moogmusic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11369

 

Maybe the link was ignored because I didn't copy and paste the purty pictures - it's obviously not a Strat, but it shows a Moog Guitar with a totally non-standard body:

 

 

 

Reading the customer's posts, I could not tell if he bought a Moog Guitar then had his luthier rip out the guts and put them into a new body, or if his luthier made a guitar with the Moog parts inside with Moog Music's approval.

[BryanMichael]

I had a Fernandes Fretless Sustainer once. The Sustainer and the fretless neck were an awesome match. However, when playing chords, the lower string notes would quickly dominate in volume over the higher string notes. I changed the strings to .011s and that mitigated the problem quite a bit, but the lower strings would still take over eventually. The Moog Guitar supposedly does not have this problem - all notes in the chord will hold their volume at whatever level you played them, so if you played the higher strings louder than the lower ones, the notes should stay that way while sustaining. The Fernandes Sustainer could not do that. In one of the Moog videos, Fareed Haque demonstrates Controlled Sustain Mode. To do this he taps a lower string note with his right hand and holds it in infinite sustain while tapping a melody on the higher strings with his left hand. The lower note held without drowning out the high strings. Any open strings he was not fretting were automatically muted. This cannot be done on a Fernandes Sustainer. I'm not saying the Fernandes Sustainer and Sustainiac are not viable alternatives to the Moog Guitar. If you mainly sustain one note at a time and are fine with the lower strings taking over your sustained sound, and you don't have any use for Controlled Sustain Mode, they are ok and you should not spend your money on the Moog. Bill Ruppert demonstrated that much of the Moog Guitar sound and performance can be duplicated on a Roland VG-99 using its "infinite sustain" features - it won't sustain your physical guitar strings, but it will sustain the VG-99 virtual guitar/synth model by a trigger from the D-Beam or foot pedal (like piano pedal sustain, except it goes and goes until you take your foot off). Since I have a VG-99, this is yet another factor keeping me away from the Moog - I'm not THAT much of an analog purist.

 

 

 

Good info. I think my point was just that for most people the investment would be quite high for those features.

[girevik]

 

Good info. I think my point was just that for most people the investment would be quite high for those features.

 

 

I got your point. I feel similarly, actually. Most of us don't want Controlled Sustain Mode badly enough. If the music calls for sustained parts in which one or two notes move and the others stay where they are - without the lower notes dominating the higher ones in volume unless I want them to, I could get close enough to Controlled Sustain Mode using the VG-99's virtual sustain.

 

Or I could plug synth into the VG-99's MIDI out and sustain the synth via a sustain pedal input on the synth.

 

Or I could also just play keyboard (which is an instrument I do play, though not awesomely), though I'd give up the potential of vibrato/bending on one note while the others have no vibrato/bend, unless I play multiple keyboards or split the keyboard multitimbrally and disable pitch-bend/vibrato behavior on the sounds I don't want to vibrato/bend.

 

Or I could get an Eigenharp... but then I'm back to square one as far as spending money.

 

Actually, scratch all that. I just finished practicing on my viola. Acoustic bowed strings are always more satisfying to play for me - can't match the dynamics and tonal control of a bow with any electronic scheme.

[poserp]

I'd bite at a cross between the Moog guitar and the Ernie Ball Gamechanger.

[Triplanetary]

I think that all of you have good points.  The price should be dropping right now. Moog Music is making the mistake of passing the cost of development along to the users.  It is not 1968 again, the first person to make Moogs ideas cheap enough for a student rather than a Dentist will sell most of them The first guy to make make a controllable Midi  (not CV) Theremin (in actual fact a Tannerin) and a more flexible guitar sustainer ( a small controllable electromagnet) are going to take the market.  MXR sells more analog delays, Synthesizers .com makes any Moog modular prohibitive, they can't even play in their own sandbox.

Like nearly everyone I am rooting for Moog but if I can get four Behringers (without bells and whistles,ok ) but I get change.  Moogs end up being like Cadillacs but not because they are insruments not cars.