[linux-audio-user] live moog madness

[tim hall]

Last Saturday 16 October 2004 04:17, Austin was like:
> Without buying an old Moog, what are my options, and what do you
> suggest... looking for cheap, and flawless on-stage?

I really don't know about flawless. Moogs use proper oscillators all digital 
sounds are effectively samples. There does seem to be a limit.

> Ideas:
> 1.  Look for a cheap used MIDI sound module with great portamento.  I've
> never seen one.

Me neither. Korg MS2000 has a module version, probably about the closest.

> 2.  Alsa Modular Synth.  I really like the portamento effect, but I've
> yet to find any great moog sounds, and I'm not good at making my own.
> It's quite stable, but gives me "clicky" artifacts sometimes.

I think probably the best. A lot of the clicks are caused by agressive attack 
stages on the envelope generators, back them off a tad and the click goes.
The art of those Moog sounds was really twiddling about with the knobs, trying 
to find a preset is often hard work. I'm a particular fan of resonant filter 
sweeps. Any preset you might find is guaranteed to be naff.

> 3.  ZynAddSubFX.  Has some great synth sounds, but the portamento is too
> "over the top".  Over dramatic.

Ah. ZynAddSubFX is beautiful, transparent and probably the wrong place to 
look.

Dunno about VST

For raw instant gratification, try amsynth. It's a one-stop two osc polyphonic 
[!] with knobs on. It's rough as you like, but if this is a rock band, you 
may like. The other option would be a working version of Bristol (sadly, I've 
never seen one). A Pd patch would probably be fairly straightforward too, but 
as you say you're not a sound designer this may not be an option.

So, pure GNU solutions boil down to amsynth, for rough & ready; ALSA Modular 
synth if you're prepared to create your own patch.

Failing all that, I'd borrow an MS10 or SH101 from somewhere.

cheers

tim hall