50 Year G.A.S. Itch Scratched.

[Vernon Barnes]

50 years ago my friend and I would wonder into the music store close to the technical college we were studying at and have ago an a ARP Odyssey they had on display.  Of course we soon wore out our welcome. We both knew our way around the college's EMS Synthi A pretty well and my friend was building a synth from plans in Practical Electronics. Of course if you could program a Synthi A an Odyssey was pretty straight forward but it was a bit of a mystery to the home organ salesman and he was convinced we were doing it wrong by not following the printed patch sheets!

Anyway, I always wanted an Odyssey and last week I finally got one, albeit a  Behringer clone. What a hoot! There is something about a real analogue instrument that is missing in the VSTi emulations.  Of course the VSTis, like the one from GForce have more options, simpler tuning and pre-sets and sound very good but the experience is somehow lacking. 

Why an Odyssey and and not a Minimoog? I caught my imagination with features like the duophonic architecture, the ring modulator, sample and hold and ADSR envelope missing on the Minimoog. I am really enjoying the duophonic, particularly when using the ring modulator and this seems to work a lot better than virtual version.

The Odyssey always sounded brighter than the Minimoog, probably because of the lack of the mellower triangle waveforms, the 12db/oct LP filter (on the first model) and the inclusion of a highpass filter. Behringer have included three LP filters from three different generations of the instrument so you can select a 12db or one of two 24db filters. The 4075 filter is particularly squelchy at high resonance.

They have also included a sequencer and some effects, and it's MIDI along side CV and Gate inputs which would be handy with other analogue gear.

I think the Minimoog had better performance controls with pitch and modulation wheels as opposed to pressure switches which I find a bit awkward to control precisely,  Also the range switches on the oscillators would have been far more convenient in a live scenario.  The Moog has three oscillators compared to the Odyssey's two but this is not such a disadvantage as it may seem as the Moog's third oscillator was often used as a LFO, the Odyssey has a dedicated LFO.

So I am really enjoying a vintage analogue synth experience, I may be some time!

 

 

Edited April 10, 2023 by Vernon Barnes

[craigb]

Let's face it.  Sure, you can be productive on a synth, but man are they just dang fun to waste HOURS trying out everything possible! ☺️

[Bruno de Souza Lino]

One of the things having loads of old inefficient electronics, especially tube ones, is the amount of money you'll save on central heating in the winter.

[User 905133]

12 hours ago, craigb said:

Let's face it.  Sure, you can be productive on a synth, but man are they just dang fun to waste HOURS trying out everything possible! ☺️

Damn those professional preset designers!  ? 

[Notes_Norton]

Happy New Old Synth Day

[57Gregy]

You should have fun with it.
In 1976, I couldn't afford the Odyssey, so I got the Axxe.
In 1979 we were doing a 'Doors' thing with no bass player. It came in handy for filling in the bottom end. You may be able to see the little getting started booklet on the left.

 

[bitflipper]

Every synth I lusted after in the 70's was beyond my reach financially. First it was the Moog modular, which cost as much as a house at a time when I did not own a house. Then came the Minimoog, which promised to be the synth for the masses. It cost as much as new car. I didn't have one of those, either. Arp, Roland and Korg offered more affordable alternatives, but those weren't the ones I wanted.

Around 1977 I finally got a real Moog - a MicroMoog - that I used almost exclusively for bass. Like Greg, my band had no bass player. Not to emulate The Doors, but to make the money split better. But the MicroMoog only satisfied my GAS itch for a little while, up until I used an Oberheim 4-voice at a recording studio. Thus continuing the cycle of lusting after something I couldn't afford. I literally dreamed about that Oberheim. But all I could manage was a single Oberheim Expansion Module (for $800) that I slaved off the MicroMoog.

Today, I have virtual versions of every synth I ever wanted. Even my "hardware" synths pack a music store's worth of synths into one. I put "hardware" in quotes because these instruments are actually just digital emulations. They have even more knobs and buttons than a classic analog synth, but the controls are oddly disconnected from any musicality. Beyond the mod and scroll wheels, one does not "play" a digital synthesizer's parameters in real time. Want to apply a filter? That's a submenu on an LCD touchscreen.

Which is a longwinded way of saying I'm jealous of Glenn and can completely relate to his joy at finally getting his Odyssey.

[Jimbo 88]

My setup in the 70's was much the same

11 hours ago, 57Gregy said:

only thing different was I had a Moog Prodigy as a synth. It was the least expensive synth at the time.

I bought my wurly used (cheap) from the touring 3 Dog Night keyboardist in an ally on the north side of Chicago (1977?).   It was beatup really bad and had many slightly out of tune notes and volume issues.  If you put your fingers on the chords for "Joy To The World" you could feel those notes where worn more than others.

I picked up the Moog Prodigy so i could have something to solo with.  I Had to constantly tune it as it would drift depending on how hot it was.

Good times.

[Jim Roseberry]

Years ago, I had an early MiniMoog.

Keyboard player from my high-school band owned it... and it was sitting in his basement collecting dust.

Sold it to me for $50.

I kept it several years... and ultimately sold it to a friend for $200.

I was planning on getting it refurbished... but never wanted to spend the money.

Bad decision... as (good condition) they're currently selling for $10-$12k.

 

The current reissues are a more "affordable" $5k... and they're better instruments.

Tuning stability is shocking.  I leave it on for hours (sometimes days)... and it's still in-tune.

There's a dedicated LFO, so you don't have to use the 3rd Oscillator for vibrato.

Key-bed has velocity and aftertouch.

 

I traded a lot of gear to get the reissue.

Wasn't going to do it... but figured I'd regret missing the opportunity.

There's no way I'd pay $10+k for a vintage Model-D.

Nostalgia plays a big part... but there's nothing quite like the sound/experience.

Software synths are infinitely more practical... but it's hard to beat the immediacy of a knob/switch/button laden hardware synth.

 

If you were into the PPG in the 80s-90s, the new "3rd Wave" from Groove Synthesis (couple former Sequential guys) is pretty amazing.

Has the same filter as the Prophet 10.

 

Kind of a renaissance or new golden-age for hardware synths

[Vernon Barnes]

7 hours ago, bitflipper said:

Every synth I lusted after in the 70's was beyond my reach financially. First it was the Moog modular, which cost as much as a house at a time when I did not own a house. Then came the Minimoog, which promised to be the synth for the masses. It cost as much as new car. I didn't have one of those, either. Arp, Roland and Korg offered more affordable alternatives, but those weren't the ones I wanted.

 

I am trying to remember how much the Odyssey in the 1973 music shop was, I think it was a little short of £1000 but I could be wrong, but certainly way out of reach for a couple of students. When I started full time work the next year I was on £96 a month.  Today someone doing 40 hours a week on UK minimum wage would be on around 17 times that, so making plenty of assumptions the original Odyssey would have been 16 to 17K in todays money.

So £440 for the Behringer Odyssey is quite a deal. Apparently they have matched the original components as closely as possible and retained the original architecture but they have added the ability to switch between the three original filter types.  The FX and sequencer have also been added but they are extras.  Original Odysseys seem to be selling a several times the Behringer price but not the cult price of a original MiniMoog. 

 

Edited April 13, 2023 by Vernon Barnes

[craigb]

I got to play on two Moog's last Saturday and will again this coming weekend! ☺️

Nothing except noise, wonderful noise, will be produced, but I'm completely ok with that! ?

 

[shameful plug]

I fondly remember the night I got to hang out with Bob Moog!  Probably my favorite "celebrity" that I've been able to hang out with during my life (which includes Eddie VanHalen, Joe Montana, and several others!).  Such a chill guy.  My friend that worked in a studio in the Hollywood area (another Line 6 beta tester) arranged it where we all met to watch mutual friends play a gig.  He said he had a big surprise and, boy, he wasn't kidding!  First time the band wasn't getting most of my attention.  LOL.  ☺️

[/shameful plug]

Edited April 13, 2023 by craigb

[57Gregy]

1 hour ago, Vernon Barnes said:

I am trying to remember how much the Odyssey in the 1973 music shop was

I bought the Axxe from Coliseum Sound in Raleigh for $650 in 1976. With inflation over 47 years, converted to GBP, that's uh... 32 billion pounds.

[bitflipper]

You certainly don't want to be adding up the current value of all the gear you've gotten rid of over the years. It never occurred to me back in the day that synths would actually appreciate in value. I pretty much gave away my Jupiter, Juno, MicroMoog, TG-33, 3340-S, EP-30, RE-201, stands, mics, drum machines and PA. Almost everything went to one guy for a lump sum of $1,000. I assumed that in a few years it would all become worthless.

[57Gregy]

5 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

You certainly don't want to be adding up the current value of all the gear you've gotten rid of over the years. It never occurred to me back in the day that synths would actually appreciate in value. I pretty much gave away my Jupiter, Juno, MicroMoog, TG-33, 3340-S, EP-30, RE-201, stands, mics, drum machines and PA. Almost everything went to one guy for a lump sum of $1,000. I assumed that in a few years it would all become worthless.

Can I get on your waiting list?

[57Gregy]

On 4/13/2023 at 7:44 AM, bitflipper said:

Like Greg, my band had no bass player. Not to emulate The Doors, but to make the money split better.

Sorry. We weren't emulating the Doors, we just had no bass player like the Doors. I think I've never played a Doors song in my life.
Money? Ha. For us it was getting 3 eggs instead of 2 at Denny's after the show.

[Gswitz]

I went to moog fest a few years ago in North Carolina. I honestly mostly use pads under guitar. I love some of them. 

https://www.galbanum.com/products/piscis/

I enjoyed going through the syntorial lessons.

https://www.syntorial.com/

I don't think I've finished all of them. 

My gr 20 has a decay midi value you can use to control synth things like a filter. 

It is kinda cool but I don't spend a lot of time with it. 

I'm ashamed to say, I use a lot of presets.

Except when I don't.