My personal opinion on your three criticisms at 2:33 : 1. I actually really like the name. It's left-field and I find the overly macho names a bit silly really. I like how Grandmother (along with Mother and Matriarch) parallels with the renewed appreciation of early synth pioneers such as Delia Derbyshire and Suzanne Ciani. 2. I agree about the colour scheme. The Grandmother Dark is much more up my street. 3. I think if each module was removable the synth would probably cost three times more. I don't see it as a mere marketing ploy: for synth beginners, it is a fantastic learning opportunity and really helps with understanding how each patch point changes the sound and how.
This guy is a synth snob, though. - He has the money & ability to buy anything on the market, so (I believe) that he just thinks that all things Moog (Except MAYBE the Moog One), are just toys that he gets bored with too quickly.
1. Like the size. 2. Love the name. 3. Love the colors 4. They are modules, they're fixed, but they are modules. - but it would be great if we could switch them out. BUT you're talking about more than 2x the price for the synth... and I'm saving and scraping for the synth, and it will take me a few years to afford a second hand one. 5. Arturia's synths sound flat, maybe the osc, maybe the filter, could never really say, but I could get better sound out of VSTs, wasn't worth the hassle of going out midi, coming back audio, fixing midi delay and jitter, all with no patch recall, and in the end, a lifeless sound. If the sound was there, I'd of not sold the Arturia Minibrute. 6. There are likely a lot of people on the fence about eurocrack, they want to jump in, but they don't know where to start due to the overwhelming diversity of modules, as well as technical hurtles that need to be addressed up front - cases, power, expandability. But NEEDING another LFO or a ENV to achieve a particular sound on the Grandmother is the push that people may need to get over the barriers to entry. Also, this whole conundrum that you've delved into is because of your choice to use three OSCs! Just consider the Grandmother a 2 osc synth and you've got plenty of modulation to go around. Yes, a three OSC, two LFO, two ENV synth is more flexible, and also more than 2 times the price (it might be better to buy two Grandmothers - 6 OSC, two LFO, two ENV and still cheaper than the Matriarch). And so with all that said, and acknowledging that the Grandmother is constrained by cost considerations, the LIMITATIONS of the Grandmother is what generates the INSPIRATIONS, and that is invaluable. In my experience, having too much is a larger problem than having too little (potentially the largest problem facing first worlders, consider, briefly, food). With too little, you are forced to work within boundaries, something humans are innately designed to do. We have too little fur, too little claw, too little speed, too little smelling, too little hearing, on and on. But it is our lack in each of those capabilities (and many others) that has produced the innovation that IS civilization. So, our analysis constrained back to synthesis, working within bounds, we're limited to a single knob twist, but within that range, our full intentionality is brought to bear, opening our perception of sweet spots, a perception that would be underutilized, just by human nature, if we had 20 other knobs to twist to produce some type of modulation to the sound, we just move on to another knob rather than focusing all of the little particularities with in a knob's range. ALSO, within the bounds of limitations, we are forced to do things we wouldn't ordinarily do if we had limitless options. Those aberrant choices produce unique and unimagined sounds, and again, we find ourselves innovating! And the thing that really pulls this all together is the raw SOUND of the Grandmother. Because the sound is RICH and LIVELY, the simpler utility sounds sound great, AND THEN the out there sounds that are produced from experimentation, hacking and discovery, that richness and liveliness inherent in the instrument itself, explode outward. Working with Arturia's first Minibrute, the raw sound was not there (for me), so all those limitations just stacked up, no rich sound to burst forth from the constraints. AND with ALL THAT SAID! I don't think this synth is for you, or players like you. It is clear that you are a player, and you need a synth that can capture and utilize the nuance of your key playing (where you are invested). I don't think that is what the Grandmother is about, and I think that is what you are missing about the Grandmother, because you didn't speak about any of its real strengths, notably its arpeggiator and sequencer. When employing those modules, guess what, you've got TWO extra, more very nuanced modulators, far superior to a simple LFO or an ENV, yeah, the two that God gave you, your left and right HANDS! NOW you're playing the synth, but rather than playing the notes, you're playing the sound, and IMO, and in an opinion shared by many many musicians and producers, THAT is what synthesizers are all about. We are in a time of very little music/pitch innovation, instead this is a time of timbral innovation, and having your hands free to PLAY the timbre of the instrument is what it is all about. So, not saying your perception of the utility of the Grandmother is wrong in any way, and many synth players undoubtedly will benefit from your analysis and avoid the disappointment of not being able to do little trills and little wobbly vibratos on the tails of some notes. But I don't want novices or players/producers in general to think that you can't PLAY this instrument, you can, and it sounds fantastic, is highly extensible through its modularity, and is just an inspirational instrument for studio or live performance. AND it is relatively affordable considering the build quality, the brand, the sound, and the modularity. All the best.
Thanks very much for sharing your opinions, I don't disagree with anything you've said, likes and dislikes will always be a personal preference which is why you need to take my opinion with a grain of salt just as much as a Moog salesman's! The only difference is that I'm not biased, I have no motive to promote any product or the flipside which is to discourage you from buying one :) And yes, you are right about the affordability, the price is something I completely forgot to mention in the video.
@@nebula0697 I can! Let me say that I've had the Grandmother for 11 months now, or something like that. I LOVE this synth. My favorite synth of my entire life, by far, and I'm an old fogie (an old Moogie?) by today's standards. Like, I remember when the communists still ruled over much of the land on this planet, when they where shooting anyone who tried to escape their expansive open air prison states. I remember seeing sane people unable to live under the insanity of an all powerful state, a state fueled by the worst, the most evil and unrestrained human nature, the consuming passion of total control, a malignancy that is always there in all of us, just under the skin, scheming, cajoling, invoking the right political, or personal atmosphere where it can emerge and subjugate, dehumanize and ultimately kill all former humans for the wrongness of their thought, for their mere existence, for believing the wrong idea that they are humans created in the invaluable image of God, and not just animated meaningless matter, that they have an inborn right to live, a right that vested before they were born, a right that is as inherent as their unique, double binary digital code that forms them. These sane people would pull themselves through bundles of razor wire atop decaying stone walls, with maniacal unleashed german shepards barking, jumping and biting at their blood dripping, dangling feet, as the razor wire ensnared them. They'd hurl themselves over, only to land, slashed, in a literal mine field, through which they'd hobble-sprint before falling to the piercing rifle fire of their efficient, well groomed captors, men who had turned themselves into mindless AND soulless animated matter, being merely an extension of the all powerful state's malignancy. I remember those days, I'm that old. I've been making sound, and later, music and even later, electronic music for a long time, long enough for the young people of today to forget the despotic lessons of the near past, to allow that consuming passion to rise out of themselves, the desire to erect an all powerful state over themselves, to kill all who would think wrongly, who would wrongly value themselves, and wrongly value their useless, unnecessary carbon-dioxide spewing children. The Grandmother has the exact sound I've always been searching for - in old 80's analogs that I could finally afford through their decrepitude, in ever better, but never functionally there vst's for the past 20 years... never could I get "that" sound, no matter the post processing, recording to tape, hitting hot tube pres, sending through really hyped and edgy vca based modern pres that could be pushed into the crunchy, and compressors of those topologies, through amp heads, overdrive pedals, or software versions of tape, and tube, and solid state... nothing got THE sound out of any other synth. I've written a lot of music, moving forward with what I have had to work with, pretending that in the context of the mix, you couldn't really hear the difference, trying to deny that a song isn't about the mix, that it is about the core music/sound inspiration, the core double binary code of the song itself, and that despite all of my attempts at production chicanery, I couldn't fake that deep inspiration. I finally can, just let a single note line fill the mix, with no other elements. The raw sound of the Grandmother is that good, that nuanced, and vibrant in its subtle animation. It can stand alone, it can BE the mix. It can take center stage, solo, stomp and crash, before it's ensemble cast is re-revealed and re-enters the mix. It not only holds its own, it commands its own. It captivates when allowed to sound singly, prominently. That ability is not possessed by every or even most synths. This ability really enables powerful song writing, it enables a center focused musical event that is compelling, that morphs back into a fully fleshed out mix. That dynamic is, to me, to my taste, to my way of writing, essential. The tree, the forest, the tree; it keeps songs moving, it holds interest, it is like our experience of life, and time. It is so central to our experience. I can pull it off with the Grandmother. So, it turns out the Grandmother has "THAT" sound. It is just innate to the Grandmother, the sound is in it's core code. I love everything I do with the Grandmother, I start working/playing, working a patch, a sequence... and some sort of transformative magic happens. EVERY SINGLE TIME I work with it, I find something that I love, that just works, that is just right. Something to build a song around. It is amazing. It is the goose that ALWAYS lays golden eggs, every one is golden! I have a lot of hardware synths (according to my wife), and software as well (that hehe, my wife doesn't know about!), but the Grandmother ALWAYS inspires songs. I have it at 10-11 o'clock, right to the left of my master keyboard, it is always directly in front, within reach. I even write better lines on it because of the buttery keyboard, it just feels better than my (admittedly cheap) MPK49 keyboard, and better than any other synth keyboard in my studio (admittedly most synths are from the 80's without new keybeds, and some need it, they have a missing tooth here and there, need a trip to the dentist to be able to play in all keys in all octaves). But I write a line on the Grandmother, then switch to the MPK to record midi data, and the line just loses its bounce and slide, the keys lacking that right feel of the Moog. I always end up going back and just recording audio out of the Moog (I've been impatient and have only set up the Moog to receive midi, haven't even had the patience to set it up to transmit, I've been that captivated, that motivated to play and write!) If I recall, the author of this video wanted to do little hackneyed 70's bendy trills on the ends of notes and stuff, so didn't like this synth. And I'd agree with him, if that is your thing, this probably isn't the (main) synth for you. If you're a keyboard "player" I'm sure there is a Fantom, or some newer incarnation of digital synth or some such thing for you. But if you want to write thunderous basslines, or murky lead lines, or haunting progressions, or dusty, dim high lines, or lyrical, singing sequences, or mechanical, pounding arpeggios, and you want to PLAY THE SYNTH and not just the keyboard, as the Grandmother's sequencer and arpeggiator are excellent and instantly inspirational, freeing your hands to be additional LFO's, or additional ADSR's controlling a whole host of sound generators or shapers which already may be being modulated through the modularity of the synth itself... THIS IS FOR YOU! If you've always been touched, tickled like ASMR before ASMR was a thing and it just felt like your scalp tickling, inspired by the Boards of Canada sound, this is BoC in a box, sound/texturewise, at least. BoC is more a state of mind, and BoC is BoC, so let those classic albums stand firm, with the rush of time streaming past them, unmovable in their stature. But, if you've always sought that texture, the slight or extreme dusty, crumbly, WARM, drifty, enveloping dark velvet of memories of childhood dreams, THIS IS THE SYNTH FOR YOU! Honestly, for two months after I got this synth, I didn't really write any songs. I have ALL these project files, and they are just filled with stacks of 10 minute live recordings of me playing the Grandmother. I was so taken by the sound and functionality of this synth, I couldn't even get back to work writing and recording songs. I just jammed on the Grandmother over static looped breaks, or static drum machine lines. I just INDULGED, like some nymphomaniac who just had sex for the first time. I was lost in the synth, free diving with giant lungs, carelessly exploring psychedelic kaleidoscopic reefs of multicolored coral and floating through sanguine liquid, then bustling, then instantly darting schools of fish, the fullness of their colors beyond the seeing of human eyes, only mantis shrimp can see and appreciate the full spectra of their unimaginable neon intensity. Like diving Grand Cayman before the oceans and reefs were killed, a reality that is lost and will not, and cannot, be understood by subsequent generations of humans who cannot even conceive of what has been lost, never having experienced the explosive magnitude of beauty seen through crystal water that is more transmissive to light and perception than high alpine autumnal air. Intently swimming into the recesses of deep water caves, I'd go, not coming up for air, ever exploring further, deeper, being sustained by burning fascination and fulfilling desire and endless joy. I didn't, couldn't, make anything, I was just taken over. Every session I'd steel myself beforehand, "This time I'll knuckle down and actually build a song!", and 15 minutes in... I'm just drifting, no up or down, no origin, or destination, just endless progression in stasis. Grinning, occasionally drooling, I'd be late to dinner, or the sun would sneak back up around and over the eastern mountains, shining its unwelcome, antiseptic light through my dusty, neglected windows to burn my red rimmed eyes. My body destroyed and wearied, almost unable to climb the stairs out of our studio, the banister squeaking and creaking under my weight as I slowly pull my body up, being encumbered again by the once again omnipresent pull of gravity, a gravity I'd left and forgotten for an unknowable time in the feathery caress of the Grandmother's downy unreality.
And not just BoC, too, btw, all the greats, Aphex, Square... Chaos AD, Bochum, μ-Ziq, Global Goon, shoot, nearly the entire Rephlex label, early Warp label... This synth just has THE sound, The texture, The functionality... and the modularity is awesome, btw, it is semi-modular, so somewhat retrained in its modularity, but what it has is very well thought out, and therefore very extensible. Half of everything I write, I write with no, or one patch cable, because the sound is just authentic and right, right from the source, right through the filter, right through the vca, its all just right, and it lives and breaths all by itself, you don't need modulators to make it sound organic, it IS organic. But I also do end up with bird nests, doing things that shouldn't be done, creating wild sounds and rhythms through a mess of patch cables. And now, with Behringer democratizing modular land, you can add an additional lfo, env or two, or more oscillators, if you want... don't be fooled, though, an excellent sounding oscillator can stand by itself, it doesn't need stacks of other oscillators to sound full or compelling and sometimes a single oscillator functions/sounds better as a single oscillator, rather than a stack, try it. The Grandmother has quality, living breathing oscillators, I often use only a single oscillator. But you can add other oscs, and all kinds of other modules, sequencers, etc. to this synth. You can assemble a Matriarch for just a couple hundred dollars more than the Grandmother now, with affordable envlopes and lfos. I understand many people have extensive budgets, so they can pick up a Matriarch, an Oberheim, or two, a Dave Smith, whatever they want. But that isn't me. My life went off the rails, I became impoverished because of disability. I have no income, and my family survives off of a single private school teacher's salary (which is considerably less than a public school teacher, and hasn't received a raise in a decade, ah, our nation's descent). I cannot work with all of the tools that make the sounds I love. But with Sweetwater's 4 year interest free financing, its peanuts (which I do eat to survive) a month, and I'm now able to work with this amazing synth. And sometime, if I live long enough, and the world doesn't descend into deeper conflict (not looking good right now, end of October 2020) I will add more modules to the Grandmother, and really fill it out, make some crazier microrhythms. But even with crazy, interest free financing, I couldn't access the Matriarch, so I'd be nowhere closer to actually delving into THE sound I've been seeking my whole life. I'm head over heals with this synth. It is the realization of a sound I've sought my whole life, unconsciously at first, then consciously when I got into electronic music. It has been a painful process over that last few decades full of false starts, let downs, and unrealized deep desires. But the Grandmother is IT. When we were shopping for the Grandmother (new), a used Sub 37 hit the market for almost the same price. I really had to decide. Greater functionality of the Sub 37 through digital menus and patch recall, or the raw sound of the Grandmother. I chose the Grandmother, and it was the right choice for me. The Sub 37 is an amazing synth, but it is tighter, more modern sounding. I equate it to a modern, high end Ferrari. Full of power, and nimble, excellent handling/breaking. I equate the Grandmother to any Lamborghini, unbridled, out of control power you can barely keep on the road, drifting where it will, so overwhelmed by spirit, decadent, overwrought, unrestrained passion. I think the Sub 37 would be better for a modern dance producer who is really looking to craft floor pumping basslines, it is capable of really right control, capable of dialing in just the right motion into its modulators, getting just the right groove in a bass note to make a track stand out. Certainly you can make dance music on the Grandmother, but it instead *tends* to the spiritual, the astral, the metaphysical space of intellect and spirit, closer to that brain dance soundspace that beguiles the mind as well as moves the body. And finally, I'm not a keyboard player. I don't fly between 12 note color chords, I don't play little trilly lead lines. I do play intentional, hooky, personal, primary sounding lines, but I also play/write live with the Grandmother, using the sequencer for the note lines, but playing the entire synth, and other sound generators and sound processors in real time. I don't need an 88 note, weighted keyboard on the Grandmother. Taking the keyboard down to a low F, rather than a low C, is just one example of the EXCELLENT design that went into the Grandmother. I forget the product manager's name at Moog responsible for the Grandmother, but that dude needs more authority and space to create more uniquely valuable instruments. He is THOUGHTFUL. He designs well, and achieves substantial, maximal results, with minimal budget. This is such a rare skill! The human ear can't hear, and most even high end sound reproduction systems, whether live or personal, can't effectively reproduce low C, so why go down there, why waste valuable keys on a limited keybed? You can write in G or G#, and get that lower 7th modulation from the F that is so crucial, and that F is hearable, is reproducable. The design is efficient, and well thought out. I've heard complaints about the keyboard, and why it can't start at C like every other keyboard, but these people are just limited, or if I'm honest, stupid, I'm sorry. These people love convention above function. These are the people who will, or are, through their consent (rarely their ability, for that, you have to look to a prior generation who more generally knew how to do things), erecting the final total control state, or chanting/firebombing it into existence. Thoughtless, mindless, being motivated by false ideas that are enchanting in the virtual space of theory, but absolutely useless at best, but actually destructive in reality. The Grandmother is just very well designed, with just the right feature set, allowing a poor westerner like me to actually have access to a sound that is as meaningful as my life. I'm so thankful for Moog, and the project manager himself who made the Grandmother happen. Seeing Moog stamp out the vibrancy, the unique spirit of the Grandmother, and smother it in the generic, boring, lifeless, gaudy black and silver, is painful. I know Moog is a business, and businesses exist to make money, and I know the market is full of moneyed, tasteless idiots who want a synth that looks like every other synth they have, synths that sleep and gather dust in their black business suits... it is painful to see. But, it's just a small part of seeing this puppeted, mindless, soulless generation come into ascendancy, and have their inauthentic mimicry catered to. That enough? Keep it real!
I totally agree on your first impression as well. My first impressions when it came out was, "oh, an update on the Moog Prodigy" ... and I kept walking past it in the shop. One day I had to wait to buy guitar strings or whatever. So I put headphones on and played the GM. I felt pretty daft. Sound: stunning. Playability: accessible, instant joy. Navigation: easy, fast. Have since paired this with a Korg Odyssey desktop module. The two are now an inseparable duo that complement and contrast wonderfully. The GM is a continuation of the Minimoog, what the Minimoog could have morphed into. 95% of the time I used my Minimoogs as two-oscillator synths anyway. A keeper. An instrument unto itself. Incomparable. Much better (to me) than the Voyager or the Phatty series. And price point can't be beat.
I sold all of my stuff for this series, Volcas, all brutes, two Behringers and a few guitar pedals. The matriarch, grandmother and mother are absolutely amazing. The rich deep tones are exactly what I wanted to get out of all of the other cheaper stuff.
I did the same thing brother. I bought all the Behringer copies and the whole bit, they don't come close to Moog sound. I have a MiniBrute2 left and will be selling that soon. Primarily right now I'm going with several Moogs, Nord Leads and Eventide FX. I'm done buying cheap crap.
@@SunsetRC Looks like we are in the same boat. I run everything through the Eventide VST FX. amazing. I also had a Minibrute 2. I actually had all of them lol. Don't get me wrong I loved the sound of those synths also, especially the minibrute, but straight out the box, Behringer, Arturia, Korg, etc. don't compare. Now I haven't ventured into the more expensive stuff yet.
I've had my Moog Grandmother for just under a year. An absolutely amazing synth! Feels great, sounds great and to me, looks great! I love the fact that it has no memory for patching. This makes it to me, very creative. Does that make any sense?
The Grandmother's LFO doesn't track with the external LFO connected because you are joining two outputs to a single input. The source impedance of the LFO circuit attenuates the KB output voltage. It's the same with any oscillator. You need to merge critical signals with a CV mixer.
I only find myself agreeing with only some your reviews on synths, but I really enjoy how well thought out and presented your they are. Definitely appreciate your reviews.
A note on euro rack. I’ve been using my reasonably priced Behringer Model D as inputs for the Grandmother and it works fantastic. +2 LFO’s +2 ENV’s +1 (or mixed all 3) OSC/FM modulators +1 VCF (hi/lopass) Only trouble is ENV and 1 LFO require using GM’s one attenuator to be fully useful. If only it had one more attenuator it wouldn’t be an issue.
Awesome video and music! Always very Interesting to watch your videos. I also have a Moog Grandmother for over a year now and really like its`s sound. Regarding adding CV and LFO Vibrato to the Moog's LFO, i usually use a CV mixer (e.g. A-138 or a simple TL072/TL074 DIY mixer) which worked quite well so far for me and sometimes add, worst case an additional passive attenuator to the LFO signal as "replacement modwheel".
I love my Grandmother too. It's the coolest piece of gear i ever used in my life. All my friends love it too and they have no idea how to use it. Really says a lot about the design and ease of use
I haven’t had the luxury of being able to afford any other synths than my grandmother, that being said I feel like I’ve figured out workarounds to your problems via necessity. I personally don’t really like modwheel vibrato, so when patching the LFO as the third oscillator I use the wheel for an extra bit of pitch detune, filter control, and pulse modulation. Idk mate it seems like you really overthought the whole vibrato thing and blew it out of proportion.
i sorta love this guy. i've been watching his videos for awhile... when watching this i just paused it when he said my grandmother. it was great. thinking about this synth or the matriarch to compliment my prologue 16. the Matriarch sounds amazing.
I’m listening to him talk about this beautiful piece of equipment and then I read your comment and I’m like Leonardo DiCaprio in that one meme when he’s pointing at the tv.
So in retrospect, yes it would have been nice to get the extra flexibility on the Grandmother itself (you have these options on the Minibrute 2, along with a far more powerful arp and sequencer), but Moog wanted to provide a semi-modular traditional mono synth that would actually be a good substitute for a Minimoog or its clones in terms of sound and in terms of not having endless possibilities. An instrument that wouldn't be too baffling for beginners and provide for advanced a super quick way to dial lead or bass sounds forcing you to think with that no-presets approach that the Minibrute and Matriach also offer (and which Dave Smith thinks is plain stupid). GM does what it does superbly. The Matriarch is not so much an evolution of the Grandmother as a much higher-end synth in the same series, I'm sure there was simultaneous planning when they designed these, and the decisions to leave out certain capabilities in the Grandmother were made carefully. The Matriarch is over twice the price. I would have liked a version in between actually, with both delay and reverb onboard and the sequencer and arp improvements, and maybe an AR envelope you could turn into an LFO like on the Minibrute 2 or ridiculously inexpensive synths like Behringer Cat. It's true that with the Minibrute 2 you get a lot more options for considerably less money but in my experience of using and learning on both you don't get the endless sweet spots of the GM. Some of my favorites synth are famously limited, like the Minimoog, Juno 6, the Volca Keys, for instance. I even liked the Timbre Wolf, which everyone hated because it had so few features but then it had a killer sequencer, sounded far warmer and punchier than other analogs I've owned, and pioneered a multivoice paradigm that you can only find on the awesome but very high-end Vermona Perfourmer these days (I'm not sure but I'm thinking maybe the Matriarch has similar options for voice handling as does the Behringer Poly D). The notion that the Matriarch replaces the GM is true only if you have the money and are looking for the complexity.
When I saw that Moog announced the Grandmother and the Matriarch, after they already had the Mother-32 and the DFAM, I thought that somewhere down there Freud was smiling very satisfied.
The Grandmother is still one of the most important synths for the last decade if it is not The most important mono synth, because it really prove to me that Moog company is able to produce innovative products again after so many years. Many people even did not believed in the beginning of 2018 and they were saying: "Oh, no... another mono synth? Is it really necessary?" And rather I can't agree with most of your arguments, I can really understand the way you made your logical jump to the Matriarch, and the Matriarch is all thanks to what Granny started. In general, 800-900 euro Moog synth is always a good investment especially for people who cannot afford a bunch of synths per year. And of course it is about character and individuality - is the synth really fitting to your own inner world and the way you want to describe it with sound form. Matriarch is superior in many ways but I'd never give more than 2000 euros for a paraphony while I know there is some full poly Prophet 6 or Ob6 somewhere on the market for the same price. And yet, respect to what you're doing, Sir! It'd be curious if you got the chance to try the new reissue of the ARP 2600 by Korg (or may be you already have the classical one). How it stands next to the Matriarch? The two semi-modular beasts deserve some comparison. Very different characters, different prizes, but few similarities in the anatomy of both synths. Good luck!
Best overview and critique of this synth I’ve seen. The visual appearance has for me put me off buying one more than anything as well it’s size in comparison with the small number of ‘modules’ it contains. The Dark version is unfortunately very hard to obtain. It does sound great in it’s limited way and as you point out is more an instrument with a particular sound
I love my Grandmother. Compared to the Matriarch which is more than twice the price for a half synth more. You also loose the true spring reverb(which also has a much better color of red then the tacky purple that sticks out) on the Matriarch for a pretty common delay. Also washing this was modular is crazy...you loose half the functionality that a semi offers. A modular does nothing until everything is patched, & then 1 thing/path per patch. Semi-Modular the patches are for alternative paths or to add in multiple modulations to the same field. With out one patch every knob and switch work as they should, and you can still bring in anything else at any place on the synth.
I have noticed your videos from time to time, now I watched this one because I bought a grandmother yesterday. Thank you for your work, I really enjoy the way you explain your thoughts, the way you do it is perfect in my opinion. And your statement to the grandmother is absolutely mine also.I am using a mother 32 also, and even this small setup seems to be limited, but anyway think of the price. I paid a little less than 900 EUR and a quite small amount for the mother 32 and you are getting a wonderful sound for lets say 1.300 EUR! Real Moog Sound. I think that's fair and you cannot expect to get the deepest dive into modular for this litte money. But I have the Grandmother since 2 days and I am thinking of buying a matriarch soon :-) HAHA... but I will keep the grandmother, its a great peace of gear, love the dimensions also. But one question please: I am quite new to modular, not a beginner because I play synths since 1988, but I would like to improve my knowledge and It would be great to have a source, a knowledgebase maybe especially for the Moog semi modular gear? Is there anything out there you can recommend? Thank you! I just subscribed to your channel!
Why does the LFO seem to be an afterthought on most analog synths. The very basics of an LFO should also include a sine wave, and an attenable delay time to introduce the LFO.
Great video mate, much appreciated. I look forward to your Matriarch videos as I might be looking to buy one myself although I might need to sell my Sub37 first !
i own both the grandmother and the matriarch and while i understand the intent of your statement that "the matriarch replaces the grandmother in every way" (and forgive me if i haven't quoted you completely accurately) it is wrong to the extent that there is nothing on the matriarch which replaces the spring reverb. yes, the delay is remarkable but that is still not a substitute for the spring reverb. i realize that is a quibble. you've provided a great service in this video and in your matriarch videos but i did feel i had to call out that bit of hyperbole.
Agree. It doesn't replace. Both are unique. The Grandmother's sound is my favorite, and LOVE the spring reverb. the Matriarch has qualities I love too but different. The two together is a sublime.
Yeah aside from both being semi-modular, they have different focuses and different abilities and strengths. Grandmother is a legendary mono bass synth, Matriarch is super focused on stereo field, they compliment each other well, there isn't really any overlap.
I agree . I currently own a Moog Grandmother , and tomorrow my new Matriarch should arrive . It is very unlikely that I will part with Grandma simply because of the spring reverb . That will be what people remember most about it .
@@stanwray4070 I have both and find them both to cover different territory well, even with four oscillators, I still think the Grandmother is a better bass machine than Matriarch meaning I would rather make deep booming baselines on my Grandmother versus on the Matriarch, they're a great combo!
I really like your watch. Would you mind sharing the brand name? Also - why wouldn’t you just add in a eurorack Oscillator (rather than try to replace the LFO) to get your three OSCs and then use the built in LFO for mod wheel vibrato?
I am a total newcomer to synths (I've played guitar all my life) and was hoping someone had asked this! I assume that what you suggest is completely possible? I've had my Grandmother for 2 weeks and am looking at some eurorack stuff for the fun of it so it'd be great to know!
I am looking at getting a grandmother and I am glad I came across this video. Could this one problem you have been to use an external LFO as your additional voice instead of the built in one or better yet an external oscillator .
Bang on my thoughts are well. And there are no stupid reasons for not being keen on a synth, although I couldn't care less about how a synth is named, but I do care about what I look at, cause it puts me in a mood that affects the music that comes out. This could be the "SH-101" of our times, although I much prefer the (vintage) Roland sound over the (vintage and new) Moog sound. It doesn't sound "bad" obviously. It sounds ok, tastes and all that.
Yes it would, but you still have the issue of capturing the mod wheel and modulating your external VCO. I steered away from adding a VCO as, the more you use other core modules like VCO, VCA or VCF then the less appeal there is to use the grandmother over any other semi modular synth...
While I can see many of your points, the problem seems mostly that you are insisting on using a 2 oscillator synth as a 3 oscillator synth, in an attempt to create a particularly cliched sound. It is not THAT synthesizer. Depending on one's use, the limitations and simplicity of the GM can be quite inspring precisely because of what it is not.
I agree with this. Every synth has its limitations and that is what makes a particular synth feel like a different instrument. You have what you have and you have to work with it.
I see what you mean, but honestly having a 3rd osc, does make it even better. To me, instead of losing your Lfo or envelope, it’s better to just buy a used mother 32 and use it as the 3rd osc by inputting it in the noise circuit. That combo to me is amazing and extremely easy.
@@dazeja If you have another semi modular synth to patch an extra oscillator through, then yes. I'm waiting for Behringer to release their 2600 clone for that!
I've had both Minibrute 2 and minibrute 2S, which indeed have more options, but simply do not sound as good as the GMs. I'm still learning about synthesis and almost need limitations like a single envelope that I can apply to either or both filter and amp. I think you can patch the GM to itself just like you can the MB. And it will always sound better.
Thank you very much once again, Tim. You nailed it for me, I will have to save up for the Matriarch next year ;-) Interestingly enough my gas for the Grandmother was reduced quite a bit since 8Dio brought out the Prodigy sample pack for the Prophet X. I have been able to create fantastically beautiful fat Moog like sounds. Any news about your Prophet X adventures?
You're very welcome. Ah, the PX, well I am currently looking to get one again after having to return my last one. All depends if I can get a used one at a good price, I ran out of kidneys years ago! ;)
It only seems like it should be simple because with a non-modular synth, that stuff is internally wired - you never see what it actually takes. In other words, you can get away with having only a partial understanding of synth signal flow. On a fully modular synth, just getting a basic monophonic sound that involves 1 VCO, VCF, and 1 EG is a bit more involved than one would expect: pitch CV signal from keyboard to VCO 1V/oct input gate signal from keyboard to EG gate input envelope CVs ignal from EG to VCA CV input audio signal from VCO to VCF to VCA to output That's 6 patch cables before the audio signal even leaves the synth. If you want to involve a second VCO and filter EG, and add keyboard tracking to the VCF, it's even more complicated (assuming the keyboard only has one set of pitch/gate outputs): pitch CV signal from keyboard to multiple #1 (must be buffered); 3 copies to VCO 1, VCO 2, and VCF 1V/oct input gate signal from keyboard to multiple #2 (buffered or unbuffered); 2 copies to amp EG and filter EG gate inputs (or use a Stackcable plus another cable to send 2 copies straight from the keyboard) envelope CV signal from amp EG to VCA CV input envelope CV signal from filter EG to VCF FM input audio signal from VCO 1 & 2 to mixer to VCF to VCA to output That's 13 or 14 patch cables. Neither of these patches include an LFO, nor do they include keyboard velocity or mod wheel. Part of the difficulty with the Grandmother might be that some of its "modules" don't have all the patch points that would normally be present on a fully modular synth (the LFO being one of them), so you have to find workarounds that involve more patch cables and external modules.
@@jc3drums916 Yes indeed but, as I said ," on the face of it ". If you have a minute check out my channel you will understand I do have some partial knowledge of a synthesizer circuitry construction. By no means am I bragging to be an expert . Still thanks for your reply and the info :-)
I think that the point of the Grandmother is to get people into modular synthesis without going too deep and also on the affordable side of things. There is plenty to be getting on with in terms of 2 Oscillators and its clear that if you really look for them you could probably spend a lot of time (as I think you did) showing how you can't do this or that with the GM - I mean is vibrato on melodic playing THAT big a deal? It isnt for me personally..just add a pedal or a VST with an expression pedal etc). It does seem to be more of a keyboard players viewpoint more than a synthesists approach to a review. For the price, and the Spring reverb as well as richness of sound, surely its a winner on the whole, silly name/colour scheme or not?
Good video! I own the Grandmother and it is the hub of my setup that includes 2 Moog Mother 32's and a DFAM. I think it is one of the best mono synths I have ever used (this includes the iconic 1970's MiniMoog that I used to own). I don't think that the Grandmother package could be duplicated in Eurorack format (with case/power supply and FATAR keyboard controller) for $899. And yes, the Matriarch (which I really want) addresses your concerns about the Grandmother, but it costs $1,999. But all in all, this was a fair review of the Granny, as it (like all synths) has shortcomings.
@@SLRPS I agree about the Granny. It is so logically laid-out that it is a dream to use live (considering it lacks presets). The Matriarch certainly is a more complex synth, but I think spending some quality time with one would allow me to get comfortable with its programming quirks. Check out some of Lisa Bella Donna's live work with the Matriarch - She makes it talk.
Or, you could do the lead sound with just 2 VCOs being modulated… just kidding. Great video, I’m trying to decide between a gmother and matriarch. This helps loads! Thx. Off to watch the matriarch video. Cheers! 👍
For me the GM is the ultimate bass / lead machine. The main point for me in this synth is basic sounds which it does absolutely fantastic! For complex patches I would use another instrument (Matrixbrute maybe?). But the main complaint for me is quality! Yes, I have repeating issues with the quality of this wonderful instrument. I sent it twice for servicing already in the past 6 months. Each time it takes 1 month for a fix. :-(
@@TimShoebridge Same issue each time - the cutoff knob starts to produce rustling noise on tweaking, like on the old gear. I think the potentiometer is not of the best quality really. Its great I'm 3 years covered by Thomann warranty but I will probably sell it earlier if it happens again and buy Behringer instead :-P
It's a basic two oscillator synth in the classic Moog tradition that sounds really great as is If you want more buy something else or maybe even go work for Moog.
Wouldn't it make more sense to use an external VCO for the third (rather than the Modulation section) and send the LFO from the grandmother to the external VCO through an attenuator?
I agree about the color scheme. It's nice to visually separate the synth elements but I prefer my synths to wear tuxedos to the gig. Those colors really do parallel my human grandmother's kitchen paint evolution.
RUSTiK Inc I would love to do that for you but I no longer have a Sub37. The Sub37 was the first Moog I ever owned but I sold it quite a long time ago, I just did not really bond with it for some reason.
No synth is perfect but I appreciate this review. I have a Matriarch and was curious to see what the Grandmother is. I think Moog is thinking out of the box with their new line of synths from the DFAM to the Matriarch which is refreshing. They all have positives and negatives but I think its fair to say that Moog still remains very relevant when it comes to analog synths. Something about the sound that cannot be beat. Its also cool to have "cheaper" options if you're new to synthesis and want a Moog. This was not always a reality for most of us until recently.
The way you are using the Stackcable is incorrect. You can't use it to combine signals, only to split. What you actually did was split the keyboard tracking CV and (try to) send half of it to the Grandmother's mult (while at the same block the Doepfer LFO signal). The voltages received by the 3rd VCO were no longer the voltages needed to track the keyboard, since splitting the CV caused the voltages to drop. This video explains the Stackcable in greater detail: czcams.com/video/NpF5A3TFPTo/video.html Yes, a precision adder is what you need.
I'm using a fairly dated sample library by Spectrasonics called RMX Stylus. It has some cool loops and variations. On top of that I did a little manual drumming with the keyboard.
The lack of a second envelope is really annoying. Like the Mother32, the Grandmother feels incomplete while the Matriarch and Subseqent 37 are in a completely different price bracket.
I was always of the opinion that the components were arranged such that they encourage the user to patch them to each other. So then, not necessarily modular gear, but rather other moog semimodular gear. I see your point about wanting the instruments to not make you feel like you need to patch them to external gear to get the most out of them. But I think moog would prefer people buy more pieces of their gear, thus improving the functionality of individual components as more pieces are added and connected.
Hst, I agree with you, yet I think moog made a smart choice. People who buy one of these pieces will be, at least, tempted to buy at least one more...and not necessarily tempted to jump into the modular world (and also Behringer have aided in this too, and at a lower price point so people will less disposable income can also enjoy a bit of the modular experience).
I have all three and have analyzed them (thank my OCD for that). They are all quite different variations of the “Moog sound” particularly that of the Minimoog. I would generalize like this: PolyD. Open sounding, less gritty, very little prefilter mixer drive. Filter is less dark and almost sounds like 3-pole. Hgher FM modulation depth than ModelD, lower than GM. Like a Monopoly merged with Minimoog and a bit of Juno thrown in (Great chorus). ModelD. Super dark filter, but with snappy envelope owing to very hi frequency. Can drive mixer hard and get fatter than PolyD, but can sound harsher than GM owing to those high frequencies that GM naturally rolls off. Limited FM, but very useable. Grandmother. Closest of all to the classic Minimoog sound, and beyond. Mixer drives incredibly hard. Filter doesn’t sound as dark/deep as ModelD and so ENV seems less snappy, but has nice roll off on highs to hit a sweet spot. FM potential is almost absurdly high, so much you have to learn to tame it, but along with patching has greater potential palette. Will likely use my GM as the centrepiece among the three as it just has that special something and I feel like I will keep discovering new sound on top. If I didn’t want to change a patch however I would be happy to move on to the Behringers to get great sound as well. Funny, but worth mentioning the cheaper Behringers seem to have more solid build quality and warm up faster.
Aha, another pastel coloured instrument!! ;) I don't own one but I am told they sound fantastic. Perhaps a bit pricey for what they are? But then again they are supposed to be a limited edition. Moog really are the kings of the "limited edition" phenomenon......
Hahaha, poor grandmother... From the moment you placed her under the other modulars, she looked like lying down on a hospital bed under machines that are trying to make her a bit stronger...
I do love the organic sounds from the Grandmother and i love too the grunchy power analog sound from moog. I need to decide between a used Grandmother or a brand new B PolyD, can you give me your point of view Tim? i already saw your PolyD review and this let me more in the B side. Best Vibes
Yeah not having 4 or 5 octaves on any synth is kinda a drag, the name is kinda weird, and the colors really weird, but that was the charm of it for me. Love the channel 👍
ahhh, the dreaded LIMITED synth.. hehe. its a brilliant synth and perfectly designed for euro. forget about the competition. this is a completely different sounding synth from its counterparts. anyways, its nice that its not so cluttered in design.
Ive been reading a lot of people that like the gma better than the matriarch, and actually sold the matriarch and kept the gma. You still happy with decision?
So the Matriarch is more than double the price, still with Pastell colors, and the "modules" painted on ... but the Grand Mother is shite....? Nah, my dude!
Hate the name, love the sound. But I'm getting the Matriarch. Totally agree that "Grandmother" is an incredibly stupid name for a synthesizer. Colors are cool, though.
About the stupid name - Moog are KINGS of ascribing horrible names to their synths, the Little Phatty probably being the worst name of all time. Embarrassing.
The point of a synthesizer is produce dynamic sounds. Who cares if it even has a name if it’s giving you endless ways to explore sound and improve your music?
i love the colour scheme, helps compartmentalize different sections of the synth for me
100%, great synth for me to learn on!
My personal opinion on your three criticisms at 2:33 :
1. I actually really like the name. It's left-field and I find the overly macho names a bit silly really. I like how Grandmother (along with Mother and Matriarch) parallels with the renewed appreciation of early synth pioneers such as Delia Derbyshire and Suzanne Ciani.
2. I agree about the colour scheme. The Grandmother Dark is much more up my street.
3. I think if each module was removable the synth would probably cost three times more. I don't see it as a mere marketing ploy: for synth beginners, it is a fantastic learning opportunity and really helps with understanding how each patch point changes the sound and how.
Limitation forces you to think in different ways, there is a creative power derived within limitation.
This guy is a synth snob, though. - He has the money & ability to buy anything on the market, so (I believe) that he just thinks that all things Moog (Except MAYBE the Moog One), are just toys that he gets bored with too quickly.
1. Like the size. 2. Love the name. 3. Love the colors 4. They are modules, they're fixed, but they are modules. - but it would be great if we could switch them out. BUT you're talking about more than 2x the price for the synth... and I'm saving and scraping for the synth, and it will take me a few years to afford a second hand one. 5. Arturia's synths sound flat, maybe the osc, maybe the filter, could never really say, but I could get better sound out of VSTs, wasn't worth the hassle of going out midi, coming back audio, fixing midi delay and jitter, all with no patch recall, and in the end, a lifeless sound. If the sound was there, I'd of not sold the Arturia Minibrute. 6. There are likely a lot of people on the fence about eurocrack, they want to jump in, but they don't know where to start due to the overwhelming diversity of modules, as well as technical hurtles that need to be addressed up front - cases, power, expandability. But NEEDING another LFO or a ENV to achieve a particular sound on the Grandmother is the push that people may need to get over the barriers to entry. Also, this whole conundrum that you've delved into is because of your choice to use three OSCs! Just consider the Grandmother a 2 osc synth and you've got plenty of modulation to go around. Yes, a three OSC, two LFO, two ENV synth is more flexible, and also more than 2 times the price (it might be better to buy two Grandmothers - 6 OSC, two LFO, two ENV and still cheaper than the Matriarch).
And so with all that said, and acknowledging that the Grandmother is constrained by cost considerations, the LIMITATIONS of the Grandmother is what generates the INSPIRATIONS, and that is invaluable. In my experience, having too much is a larger problem than having too little (potentially the largest problem facing first worlders, consider, briefly, food). With too little, you are forced to work within boundaries, something humans are innately designed to do. We have too little fur, too little claw, too little speed, too little smelling, too little hearing, on and on. But it is our lack in each of those capabilities (and many others) that has produced the innovation that IS civilization. So, our analysis constrained back to synthesis, working within bounds, we're limited to a single knob twist, but within that range, our full intentionality is brought to bear, opening our perception of sweet spots, a perception that would be underutilized, just by human nature, if we had 20 other knobs to twist to produce some type of modulation to the sound, we just move on to another knob rather than focusing all of the little particularities with in a knob's range.
ALSO, within the bounds of limitations, we are forced to do things we wouldn't ordinarily do if we had limitless options. Those aberrant choices produce unique and unimagined sounds, and again, we find ourselves innovating!
And the thing that really pulls this all together is the raw SOUND of the Grandmother. Because the sound is RICH and LIVELY, the simpler utility sounds sound great, AND THEN the out there sounds that are produced from experimentation, hacking and discovery, that richness and liveliness inherent in the instrument itself, explode outward. Working with Arturia's first Minibrute, the raw sound was not there (for me), so all those limitations just stacked up, no rich sound to burst forth from the constraints.
AND with ALL THAT SAID! I don't think this synth is for you, or players like you. It is clear that you are a player, and you need a synth that can capture and utilize the nuance of your key playing (where you are invested). I don't think that is what the Grandmother is about, and I think that is what you are missing about the Grandmother, because you didn't speak about any of its real strengths, notably its arpeggiator and sequencer. When employing those modules, guess what, you've got TWO extra, more very nuanced modulators, far superior to a simple LFO or an ENV, yeah, the two that God gave you, your left and right HANDS! NOW you're playing the synth, but rather than playing the notes, you're playing the sound, and IMO, and in an opinion shared by many many musicians and producers, THAT is what synthesizers are all about. We are in a time of very little music/pitch innovation, instead this is a time of timbral innovation, and having your hands free to PLAY the timbre of the instrument is what it is all about.
So, not saying your perception of the utility of the Grandmother is wrong in any way, and many synth players undoubtedly will benefit from your analysis and avoid the disappointment of not being able to do little trills and little wobbly vibratos on the tails of some notes. But I don't want novices or players/producers in general to think that you can't PLAY this instrument, you can, and it sounds fantastic, is highly extensible through its modularity, and is just an inspirational instrument for studio or live performance. AND it is relatively affordable considering the build quality, the brand, the sound, and the modularity.
All the best.
Thanks very much for sharing your opinions, I don't disagree with anything you've said, likes and dislikes will always be a personal preference which is why you need to take my opinion with a grain of salt just as much as a Moog salesman's! The only difference is that I'm not biased, I have no motive to promote any product or the flipside which is to discourage you from buying one :) And yes, you are right about the affordability, the price is something I completely forgot to mention in the video.
alpha numeric daaaaaam right!!!🔥🔥🔥🔥🇨🇦👏🏿🎶👊🏿
Dude, could you elaborate on that?
@@nebula0697 I can! Let me say that I've had the Grandmother for 11 months now, or something like that. I LOVE this synth. My favorite synth of my entire life, by far, and I'm an old fogie (an old Moogie?) by today's standards. Like, I remember when the communists still ruled over much of the land on this planet, when they where shooting anyone who tried to escape their expansive open air prison states. I remember seeing sane people unable to live under the insanity of an all powerful state, a state fueled by the worst, the most evil and unrestrained human nature, the consuming passion of total control, a malignancy that is always there in all of us, just under the skin, scheming, cajoling, invoking the right political, or personal atmosphere where it can emerge and subjugate, dehumanize and ultimately kill all former humans for the wrongness of their thought, for their mere existence, for believing the wrong idea that they are humans created in the invaluable image of God, and not just animated meaningless matter, that they have an inborn right to live, a right that vested before they were born, a right that is as inherent as their unique, double binary digital code that forms them.
These sane people would pull themselves through bundles of razor wire atop decaying stone walls, with maniacal unleashed german shepards barking, jumping and biting at their blood dripping, dangling feet, as the razor wire ensnared them. They'd hurl themselves over, only to land, slashed, in a literal mine field, through which they'd hobble-sprint before falling to the piercing rifle fire of their efficient, well groomed captors, men who had turned themselves into mindless AND soulless animated matter, being merely an extension of the all powerful state's malignancy.
I remember those days, I'm that old. I've been making sound, and later, music and even later, electronic music for a long time, long enough for the young people of today to forget the despotic lessons of the near past, to allow that consuming passion to rise out of themselves, the desire to erect an all powerful state over themselves, to kill all who would think wrongly, who would wrongly value themselves, and wrongly value their useless, unnecessary carbon-dioxide spewing children.
The Grandmother has the exact sound I've always been searching for - in old 80's analogs that I could finally afford through their decrepitude, in ever better, but never functionally there vst's for the past 20 years... never could I get "that" sound, no matter the post processing, recording to tape, hitting hot tube pres, sending through really hyped and edgy vca based modern pres that could be pushed into the crunchy, and compressors of those topologies, through amp heads, overdrive pedals, or software versions of tape, and tube, and solid state... nothing got THE sound out of any other synth. I've written a lot of music, moving forward with what I have had to work with, pretending that in the context of the mix, you couldn't really hear the difference, trying to deny that a song isn't about the mix, that it is about the core music/sound inspiration, the core double binary code of the song itself, and that despite all of my attempts at production chicanery, I couldn't fake that deep inspiration. I finally can, just let a single note line fill the mix, with no other elements. The raw sound of the Grandmother is that good, that nuanced, and vibrant in its subtle animation. It can stand alone, it can BE the mix. It can take center stage, solo, stomp and crash, before it's ensemble cast is re-revealed and re-enters the mix. It not only holds its own, it commands its own. It captivates when allowed to sound singly, prominently. That ability is not possessed by every or even most synths. This ability really enables powerful song writing, it enables a center focused musical event that is compelling, that morphs back into a fully fleshed out mix. That dynamic is, to me, to my taste, to my way of writing, essential. The tree, the forest, the tree; it keeps songs moving, it holds interest, it is like our experience of life, and time. It is so central to our experience. I can pull it off with the Grandmother.
So, it turns out the Grandmother has "THAT" sound. It is just innate to the Grandmother, the sound is in it's core code. I love everything I do with the Grandmother, I start working/playing, working a patch, a sequence... and some sort of transformative magic happens. EVERY SINGLE TIME I work with it, I find something that I love, that just works, that is just right. Something to build a song around. It is amazing. It is the goose that ALWAYS lays golden eggs, every one is golden!
I have a lot of hardware synths (according to my wife), and software as well (that hehe, my wife doesn't know about!), but the Grandmother ALWAYS inspires songs. I have it at 10-11 o'clock, right to the left of my master keyboard, it is always directly in front, within reach. I even write better lines on it because of the buttery keyboard, it just feels better than my (admittedly cheap) MPK49 keyboard, and better than any other synth keyboard in my studio (admittedly most synths are from the 80's without new keybeds, and some need it, they have a missing tooth here and there, need a trip to the dentist to be able to play in all keys in all octaves). But I write a line on the Grandmother, then switch to the MPK to record midi data, and the line just loses its bounce and slide, the keys lacking that right feel of the Moog. I always end up going back and just recording audio out of the Moog (I've been impatient and have only set up the Moog to receive midi, haven't even had the patience to set it up to transmit, I've been that captivated, that motivated to play and write!)
If I recall, the author of this video wanted to do little hackneyed 70's bendy trills on the ends of notes and stuff, so didn't like this synth. And I'd agree with him, if that is your thing, this probably isn't the (main) synth for you. If you're a keyboard "player" I'm sure there is a Fantom, or some newer incarnation of digital synth or some such thing for you.
But if you want to write thunderous basslines, or murky lead lines, or haunting progressions, or dusty, dim high lines, or lyrical, singing sequences, or mechanical, pounding arpeggios, and you want to PLAY THE SYNTH and not just the keyboard, as the Grandmother's sequencer and arpeggiator are excellent and instantly inspirational, freeing your hands to be additional LFO's, or additional ADSR's controlling a whole host of sound generators or shapers which already may be being modulated through the modularity of the synth itself... THIS IS FOR YOU!
If you've always been touched, tickled like ASMR before ASMR was a thing and it just felt like your scalp tickling, inspired by the Boards of Canada sound, this is BoC in a box, sound/texturewise, at least. BoC is more a state of mind, and BoC is BoC, so let those classic albums stand firm, with the rush of time streaming past them, unmovable in their stature. But, if you've always sought that texture, the slight or extreme dusty, crumbly, WARM, drifty, enveloping dark velvet of memories of childhood dreams, THIS IS THE SYNTH FOR YOU!
Honestly, for two months after I got this synth, I didn't really write any songs. I have ALL these project files, and they are just filled with stacks of 10 minute live recordings of me playing the Grandmother. I was so taken by the sound and functionality of this synth, I couldn't even get back to work writing and recording songs. I just jammed on the Grandmother over static looped breaks, or static drum machine lines.
I just INDULGED, like some nymphomaniac who just had sex for the first time. I was lost in the synth, free diving with giant lungs, carelessly exploring psychedelic kaleidoscopic reefs of multicolored coral and floating through sanguine liquid, then bustling, then instantly darting schools of fish, the fullness of their colors beyond the seeing of human eyes, only mantis shrimp can see and appreciate the full spectra of their unimaginable neon intensity. Like diving Grand Cayman before the oceans and reefs were killed, a reality that is lost and will not, and cannot, be understood by subsequent generations of humans who cannot even conceive of what has been lost, never having experienced the explosive magnitude of beauty seen through crystal water that is more transmissive to light and perception than high alpine autumnal air. Intently swimming into the recesses of deep water caves, I'd go, not coming up for air, ever exploring further, deeper, being sustained by burning fascination and fulfilling desire and endless joy.
I didn't, couldn't, make anything, I was just taken over. Every session I'd steel myself beforehand, "This time I'll knuckle down and actually build a song!", and 15 minutes in... I'm just drifting, no up or down, no origin, or destination, just endless progression in stasis.
Grinning, occasionally drooling, I'd be late to dinner, or the sun would sneak back up around and over the eastern mountains, shining its unwelcome, antiseptic light through my dusty, neglected windows to burn my red rimmed eyes. My body destroyed and wearied, almost unable to climb the stairs out of our studio, the banister squeaking and creaking under my weight as I slowly pull my body up, being encumbered again by the once again omnipresent pull of gravity, a gravity I'd left and forgotten for an unknowable time in the feathery caress of the Grandmother's downy unreality.
And not just BoC, too, btw, all the greats, Aphex, Square... Chaos AD, Bochum, μ-Ziq, Global Goon, shoot, nearly the entire Rephlex label, early Warp label... This synth just has THE sound, The texture, The functionality... and the modularity is awesome, btw, it is semi-modular, so somewhat retrained in its modularity, but what it has is very well thought out, and therefore very extensible. Half of everything I write, I write with no, or one patch cable, because the sound is just authentic and right, right from the source, right through the filter, right through the vca, its all just right, and it lives and breaths all by itself, you don't need modulators to make it sound organic, it IS organic. But I also do end up with bird nests, doing things that shouldn't be done, creating wild sounds and rhythms through a mess of patch cables.
And now, with Behringer democratizing modular land, you can add an additional lfo, env or two, or more oscillators, if you want... don't be fooled, though, an excellent sounding oscillator can stand by itself, it doesn't need stacks of other oscillators to sound full or compelling and sometimes a single oscillator functions/sounds better as a single oscillator, rather than a stack, try it.
The Grandmother has quality, living breathing oscillators, I often use only a single oscillator. But you can add other oscs, and all kinds of other modules, sequencers, etc. to this synth. You can assemble a Matriarch for just a couple hundred dollars more than the Grandmother now, with affordable envlopes and lfos.
I understand many people have extensive budgets, so they can pick up a Matriarch, an Oberheim, or two, a Dave Smith, whatever they want. But that isn't me. My life went off the rails, I became impoverished because of disability. I have no income, and my family survives off of a single private school teacher's salary (which is considerably less than a public school teacher, and hasn't received a raise in a decade, ah, our nation's descent). I cannot work with all of the tools that make the sounds I love. But with Sweetwater's 4 year interest free financing, its peanuts (which I do eat to survive) a month, and I'm now able to work with this amazing synth. And sometime, if I live long enough, and the world doesn't descend into deeper conflict (not looking good right now, end of October 2020) I will add more modules to the Grandmother, and really fill it out, make some crazier microrhythms. But even with crazy, interest free financing, I couldn't access the Matriarch, so I'd be nowhere closer to actually delving into THE sound I've been seeking my whole life.
I'm head over heals with this synth. It is the realization of a sound I've sought my whole life, unconsciously at first, then consciously when I got into electronic music. It has been a painful process over that last few decades full of false starts, let downs, and unrealized deep desires. But the Grandmother is IT.
When we were shopping for the Grandmother (new), a used Sub 37 hit the market for almost the same price. I really had to decide. Greater functionality of the Sub 37 through digital menus and patch recall, or the raw sound of the Grandmother. I chose the Grandmother, and it was the right choice for me.
The Sub 37 is an amazing synth, but it is tighter, more modern sounding. I equate it to a modern, high end Ferrari. Full of power, and nimble, excellent handling/breaking. I equate the Grandmother to any Lamborghini, unbridled, out of control power you can barely keep on the road, drifting where it will, so overwhelmed by spirit, decadent, overwrought, unrestrained passion.
I think the Sub 37 would be better for a modern dance producer who is really looking to craft floor pumping basslines, it is capable of really right control, capable of dialing in just the right motion into its modulators, getting just the right groove in a bass note to make a track stand out. Certainly you can make dance music on the Grandmother, but it instead *tends* to the spiritual, the astral, the metaphysical space of intellect and spirit, closer to that brain dance soundspace that beguiles the mind as well as moves the body.
And finally, I'm not a keyboard player. I don't fly between 12 note color chords, I don't play little trilly lead lines. I do play intentional, hooky, personal, primary sounding lines, but I also play/write live with the Grandmother, using the sequencer for the note lines, but playing the entire synth, and other sound generators and sound processors in real time. I don't need an 88 note, weighted keyboard on the Grandmother.
Taking the keyboard down to a low F, rather than a low C, is just one example of the EXCELLENT design that went into the Grandmother. I forget the product manager's name at Moog responsible for the Grandmother, but that dude needs more authority and space to create more uniquely valuable instruments. He is THOUGHTFUL. He designs well, and achieves substantial, maximal results, with minimal budget. This is such a rare skill!
The human ear can't hear, and most even high end sound reproduction systems, whether live or personal, can't effectively reproduce low C, so why go down there, why waste valuable keys on a limited keybed? You can write in G or G#, and get that lower 7th modulation from the F that is so crucial, and that F is hearable, is reproducable. The design is efficient, and well thought out.
I've heard complaints about the keyboard, and why it can't start at C like every other keyboard, but these people are just limited, or if I'm honest, stupid, I'm sorry. These people love convention above function. These are the people who will, or are, through their consent (rarely their ability, for that, you have to look to a prior generation who more generally knew how to do things), erecting the final total control state, or chanting/firebombing it into existence. Thoughtless, mindless, being motivated by false ideas that are enchanting in the virtual space of theory, but absolutely useless at best, but actually destructive in reality.
The Grandmother is just very well designed, with just the right feature set, allowing a poor westerner like me to actually have access to a sound that is as meaningful as my life. I'm so thankful for Moog, and the project manager himself who made the Grandmother happen.
Seeing Moog stamp out the vibrancy, the unique spirit of the Grandmother, and smother it in the generic, boring, lifeless, gaudy black and silver, is painful. I know Moog is a business, and businesses exist to make money, and I know the market is full of moneyed, tasteless idiots who want a synth that looks like every other synth they have, synths that sleep and gather dust in their black business suits... it is painful to see. But, it's just a small part of seeing this puppeted, mindless, soulless generation come into ascendancy, and have their inauthentic mimicry catered to.
That enough? Keep it real!
I totally agree on your first impression as well. My first impressions when it came out was, "oh, an update on the Moog Prodigy" ... and I kept walking past it in the shop. One day I had to wait to buy guitar strings or whatever. So I put headphones on and played the GM. I felt pretty daft. Sound: stunning. Playability: accessible, instant joy. Navigation: easy, fast.
Have since paired this with a Korg Odyssey desktop module. The two are now an inseparable duo that complement and contrast wonderfully.
The GM is a continuation of the Minimoog, what the Minimoog could have morphed into. 95% of the time I used my Minimoogs as two-oscillator synths anyway.
A keeper. An instrument unto itself. Incomparable.
Much better (to me) than the Voyager or the Phatty series. And price point can't be beat.
I sold all of my stuff for this series, Volcas, all brutes, two Behringers and a few guitar pedals. The matriarch, grandmother and mother are absolutely amazing. The rich deep tones are exactly what I wanted to get out of all of the other cheaper stuff.
I did the same thing brother. I bought all the Behringer copies and the whole bit, they don't come close to Moog sound. I have a MiniBrute2 left and will be selling that soon. Primarily right now I'm going with several Moogs, Nord Leads and Eventide FX. I'm done buying cheap crap.
@@SunsetRC Looks like we are in the same boat. I run everything through the Eventide VST FX. amazing. I also had a Minibrute 2. I actually had all of them lol. Don't get me wrong I loved the sound of those synths also, especially the minibrute, but straight out the box, Behringer, Arturia, Korg, etc. don't compare. Now I haven't ventured into the more expensive stuff yet.
Well done, I say. I’m well on my way in doing the same. Cheers!
I just bought 2 Dark Editions!!! Moog will never be the same again after today''s announcement..... : )
Your videos are so thoughtful and intelligent - I really appreciate your thoughts.
I love my Grandmother. It's the center piece of my set. I use it with my 9700 modular. Furthermore, I love the color scheme.
I agree. Great Synth, especially for the price.
Love the color too, just miss the purple, of matriarch 💕🎵😎
"I've got my grandmother here in my arms" ...love it
I've had my Moog Grandmother for just under a year. An absolutely amazing synth! Feels great, sounds great and to me, looks great! I love the fact that it has no memory for patching. This makes it to me, very creative. Does that make any sense?
The Grandmother's LFO doesn't track with the external LFO connected because you are joining two outputs to a single input. The source impedance of the LFO circuit attenuates the KB output voltage. It's the same with any oscillator. You need to merge critical signals with a CV mixer.
I only find myself agreeing with only some your reviews on synths, but I really enjoy how well thought out and presented your they are. Definitely appreciate your reviews.
Thanks Tim, great thoughts on the Grandmother and looking forward to thoughts on the Matriarch. 👍
A note on euro rack. I’ve been using my reasonably priced Behringer Model D as inputs for the Grandmother and it works fantastic.
+2 LFO’s
+2 ENV’s
+1 (or mixed all 3) OSC/FM modulators
+1 VCF (hi/lopass)
Only trouble is ENV and 1 LFO require using GM’s one attenuator to be fully useful. If only it had one more attenuator it wouldn’t be an issue.
Love my Grandmother! Wouldn't sell her for anything. She sounds great, works hard and never gives up on me. :)
got my Grandmother coming in the next few days, dark edition of course. thank you for the great vid!
Awesome video and music! Always very Interesting to watch your videos.
I also have a Moog Grandmother for over a year now and really like its`s sound.
Regarding adding CV and LFO Vibrato to the Moog's LFO, i usually use a CV mixer (e.g. A-138 or a simple TL072/TL074 DIY mixer) which worked quite well so far for me and sometimes add, worst case an additional passive attenuator to the LFO signal as "replacement modwheel".
I love my Grandmother too. It's the coolest piece of gear i ever used in my life. All my friends love it too and they have no idea how to use it. Really says a lot about the design and ease of use
I haven’t had the luxury of being able to afford any other synths than my grandmother, that being said I feel like I’ve figured out workarounds to your problems via necessity. I personally don’t really like modwheel vibrato, so when patching the LFO as the third oscillator I use the wheel for an extra bit of pitch detune, filter control, and pulse modulation. Idk mate it seems like you really overthought the whole vibrato thing and blew it out of proportion.
i sorta love this guy. i've been watching his videos for awhile... when watching this i just paused it when he said my grandmother. it was great. thinking about this synth or the matriarch to compliment my prologue 16. the Matriarch sounds amazing.
... and a nice introduction to modular. Attenuverters .. midi to Voltage.. VCAs.. love it!
Tim, you are the Simon Cowell of synths....
That’s meant to be a compliment btw ❤️
Haha!
I’m listening to him talk about this beautiful piece of equipment and then I read your comment and I’m like Leonardo DiCaprio in that one meme when he’s pointing at the tv.
So in retrospect, yes it would have been nice to get the extra flexibility on the Grandmother itself (you have these options on the Minibrute 2, along with a far more powerful arp and sequencer), but Moog wanted to provide a semi-modular traditional mono synth that would actually be a good substitute for a Minimoog or its clones in terms of sound and in terms of not having endless possibilities. An instrument that wouldn't be too baffling for beginners and provide for advanced a super quick way to dial lead or bass sounds forcing you to think with that no-presets approach that the Minibrute and Matriach also offer (and which Dave Smith thinks is plain stupid). GM does what it does superbly. The Matriarch is not so much an evolution of the Grandmother as a much higher-end synth in the same series, I'm sure there was simultaneous planning when they designed these, and the decisions to leave out certain capabilities in the Grandmother were made carefully. The Matriarch is over twice the price. I would have liked a version in between actually, with both delay and reverb onboard and the sequencer and arp improvements, and maybe an AR envelope you could turn into an LFO like on the Minibrute 2 or ridiculously inexpensive synths like Behringer Cat. It's true that with the Minibrute 2 you get a lot more options for considerably less money but in my experience of using and learning on both you don't get the endless sweet spots of the GM. Some of my favorites synth are famously limited, like the Minimoog, Juno 6, the Volca Keys, for instance. I even liked the Timbre Wolf, which everyone hated because it had so few features but then it had a killer sequencer, sounded far warmer and punchier than other analogs I've owned, and pioneered a multivoice paradigm that you can only find on the awesome but very high-end Vermona Perfourmer these days (I'm not sure but I'm thinking maybe the Matriarch has similar options for voice handling as does the Behringer Poly D). The notion that the Matriarch replaces the GM is true only if you have the money and are looking for the complexity.
Grandma 101, awesome 👏 love it
When I saw that Moog announced the Grandmother and the Matriarch, after they already had the Mother-32 and the DFAM, I thought that somewhere down there Freud was smiling very satisfied.
The Grandmother is still one of the most important synths for the last decade if it is not The most important mono synth, because it really prove to me that Moog company is able to produce innovative products again after so many years. Many people even did not believed in the beginning of 2018 and they were saying: "Oh, no... another mono synth? Is it really necessary?" And rather I can't agree with most of your arguments, I can really understand the way you made your logical jump to the Matriarch, and the Matriarch is all thanks to what Granny started. In general, 800-900 euro Moog synth is always a good investment especially for people who cannot afford a bunch of synths per year. And of course it is about character and individuality - is the synth really fitting to your own inner world and the way you want to describe it with sound form. Matriarch is superior in many ways but I'd never give more than 2000 euros for a paraphony while I know there is some full poly Prophet 6 or Ob6 somewhere on the market for the same price.
And yet, respect to what you're doing, Sir!
It'd be curious if you got the chance to try the new reissue of the ARP 2600 by Korg (or may be you already have the classical one). How it stands next to the Matriarch? The two semi-modular beasts deserve some comparison. Very different characters, different prizes, but few similarities in the anatomy of both synths. Good luck!
Best overview and critique of this synth I’ve seen. The visual appearance has for me put me off buying one more than anything as well it’s size in comparison with the small number of ‘modules’ it contains. The Dark version is unfortunately very hard to obtain. It does sound great in it’s limited way and as you point out is more an instrument with a particular sound
I love my Grandmother. Compared to the Matriarch which is more than twice the price for a half synth more. You also loose the true spring reverb(which also has a much better color of red then the tacky purple that sticks out) on the Matriarch for a pretty common delay.
Also washing this was modular is crazy...you loose half the functionality that a semi offers. A modular does nothing until everything is patched, & then 1 thing/path per patch. Semi-Modular the patches are for alternative paths or to add in multiple modulations to the same field. With out one patch every knob and switch work as they should, and you can still bring in anything else at any place on the synth.
Why do you love your Grandmother more? I was actually thinking about selling my matriarch for a Grandmother.
Excellent
I have noticed your videos from time to time, now I watched this one because I bought a grandmother yesterday. Thank you for your work, I really enjoy the way you explain your thoughts, the way you do it is perfect in my opinion. And your statement to the grandmother is absolutely mine also.I am using a mother 32 also, and even this small setup seems to be limited, but anyway think of the price. I paid a little less than 900 EUR and a quite small amount for the mother 32 and you are getting a wonderful sound for lets say 1.300 EUR! Real Moog Sound. I think that's fair and you cannot expect to get the deepest dive into modular for this litte money. But I have the Grandmother since 2 days and I am thinking of buying a matriarch soon :-) HAHA... but I will keep the grandmother, its a great peace of gear, love the dimensions also. But one question please: I am quite new to modular, not a beginner because I play synths since 1988, but I would like to improve my knowledge and It would be great to have a source, a knowledgebase maybe especially for the Moog semi modular gear? Is there anything out there you can recommend? Thank you! I just subscribed to your channel!
Why does the LFO seem to be an afterthought on most analog synths. The very basics of an LFO should also include a sine wave, and an attenable delay time to introduce the LFO.
what do you think about Arturia Matrix brute vs Pro 3 .. Great videos
Great video mate, much appreciated. I look forward to your Matriarch videos as I might be looking to buy one myself although I might need to sell my Sub37 first !
I love how you describe patches, would love to see a patch tutorial on the matriarch in the same pace, for example an akkordeon sound ;-)
What is that ‘stand’ (shelving unit/set-up) behind the Grandmother / under your eurorack boxes & Mr Moog, please, Tim … ?! 🧐🤔🙏🏼
It's just a shelf
i own both the grandmother and the matriarch and while i understand the intent of your statement that "the matriarch replaces the grandmother in every way" (and forgive me if i haven't quoted you completely accurately) it is wrong to the extent that there is nothing on the matriarch which replaces the spring reverb. yes, the delay is remarkable but that is still not a substitute for the spring reverb.
i realize that is a quibble. you've provided a great service in this video and in your matriarch videos but i did feel i had to call out that bit of hyperbole.
Agree. It doesn't replace. Both are unique. The Grandmother's sound is my favorite, and LOVE the spring reverb. the Matriarch has qualities I love too but different. The two together is a sublime.
Yeah aside from both being semi-modular, they have different focuses and different abilities and strengths. Grandmother is a legendary mono bass synth, Matriarch is super focused on stereo field, they compliment each other well, there isn't really any overlap.
I agree . I currently own a Moog Grandmother , and tomorrow my new Matriarch should arrive . It is very unlikely that I will part with Grandma simply because of the spring reverb . That will be what people remember most about it .
@@stanwray4070 I have both and find them both to cover different territory well, even with four oscillators, I still think the Grandmother is a better bass machine than Matriarch meaning I would rather make deep booming baselines on my Grandmother versus on the Matriarch, they're a great combo!
I really like your watch. Would you mind sharing the brand name?
Also - why wouldn’t you just add in a eurorack Oscillator (rather than try to replace the LFO) to get your three OSCs and then use the built in LFO for mod wheel vibrato?
I am a total newcomer to synths (I've played guitar all my life) and was hoping someone had asked this! I assume that what you suggest is completely possible? I've had my Grandmother for 2 weeks and am looking at some eurorack stuff for the fun of it so it'd be great to know!
I like powerful but simple synths. You create complexity by layering through multi tracking, not by trying to do everything in one patch.
I am looking at getting a grandmother and I am glad I came across this video. Could this one problem you have been to use an external LFO as your additional voice instead of the built in one or better yet an external oscillator .
Bang on my thoughts are well.
And there are no stupid reasons for not being keen on a synth, although I couldn't care less about how a synth is named, but I do care about what I look at, cause it puts me in a mood that affects the music that comes out.
This could be the "SH-101" of our times, although I much prefer the (vintage) Roland sound over the (vintage and new) Moog sound. It doesn't sound "bad" obviously. It sounds ok, tastes and all that.
Wouldn't it be easier to just add an external VCO and use the Grandma's LFO for vibrato?
Yes it would, but you still have the issue of capturing the mod wheel and modulating your external VCO. I steered away from adding a VCO as, the more you use other core modules like VCO, VCA or VCF then the less appeal there is to use the grandmother over any other semi modular synth...
While I can see many of your points, the problem seems mostly that you are insisting on using a 2 oscillator synth as a 3 oscillator synth, in an attempt to create a particularly cliched sound. It is not THAT synthesizer. Depending on one's use, the limitations and simplicity of the GM can be quite inspring precisely because of what it is not.
I agree with this. Every synth has its limitations and that is what makes a particular synth feel like a different instrument. You have what you have and you have to work with it.
I see what you mean, but honestly having a 3rd osc, does make it even better. To me, instead of losing your Lfo or envelope, it’s better to just buy a used mother 32 and use it as the 3rd osc by inputting it in the noise circuit. That combo to me is amazing and extremely easy.
@@dazeja If you have another semi modular synth to patch an extra oscillator through, then yes. I'm waiting for Behringer to release their 2600 clone for that!
I've had both Minibrute 2 and minibrute 2S, which indeed have more options, but simply do not sound as good as the GMs. I'm still learning about synthesis and almost need limitations like a single envelope that I can apply to either or both filter and amp. I think you can patch the GM to itself just like you can the MB. And it will always sound better.
Thank you very much once again, Tim. You nailed it for me, I will have to save up for the Matriarch next year ;-) Interestingly enough my gas for the Grandmother was reduced quite a bit since 8Dio brought out the Prodigy sample pack for the Prophet X. I have been able to create fantastically beautiful fat Moog like sounds.
Any news about your Prophet X adventures?
You're very welcome. Ah, the PX, well I am currently looking to get one again after having to return my last one. All depends if I can get a used one at a good price, I ran out of kidneys years ago! ;)
Love the name Grandmother and Matriarch. Sounds cool to me.
colours are really pretty too. looks like a piece of art among the plants in my house.
Lovely
Wow. That seemed alot of work to achieve something on the face of it , quite simple.
It only seems like it should be simple because with a non-modular synth, that stuff is internally wired - you never see what it actually takes. In other words, you can get away with having only a partial understanding of synth signal flow. On a fully modular synth, just getting a basic monophonic sound that involves 1 VCO, VCF, and 1 EG is a bit more involved than one would expect:
pitch CV signal from keyboard to VCO 1V/oct input
gate signal from keyboard to EG gate input
envelope CVs ignal from EG to VCA CV input
audio signal from VCO to VCF to VCA to output
That's 6 patch cables before the audio signal even leaves the synth. If you want to involve a second VCO and filter EG, and add keyboard tracking to the VCF, it's even more complicated (assuming the keyboard only has one set of pitch/gate outputs):
pitch CV signal from keyboard to multiple #1 (must be buffered); 3 copies to VCO 1, VCO 2, and VCF 1V/oct input
gate signal from keyboard to multiple #2 (buffered or unbuffered); 2 copies to amp EG and filter EG gate inputs (or use a Stackcable plus another cable to send 2 copies straight from the keyboard)
envelope CV signal from amp EG to VCA CV input
envelope CV signal from filter EG to VCF FM input
audio signal from VCO 1 & 2 to mixer to VCF to VCA to output
That's 13 or 14 patch cables. Neither of these patches include an LFO, nor do they include keyboard velocity or mod wheel.
Part of the difficulty with the Grandmother might be that some of its "modules" don't have all the patch points that would normally be present on a fully modular synth (the LFO being one of them), so you have to find workarounds that involve more patch cables and external modules.
@@jc3drums916 Yes indeed but, as I said ," on the face of it ". If you have a minute check out my channel you will understand I do have some partial knowledge of a synthesizer circuitry construction. By no means am I bragging to be an expert .
Still thanks for your reply and the info :-)
I think that the point of the Grandmother is to get people into modular synthesis without going too deep and also on the affordable side of things. There is plenty to be getting on with in terms of 2 Oscillators and its clear that if you really look for them you could probably spend a lot of time (as I think you did) showing how you can't do this or that with the GM - I mean is vibrato on melodic playing THAT big a deal? It isnt for me personally..just add a pedal or a VST with an expression pedal etc). It does seem to be more of a keyboard players viewpoint more than a synthesists approach to a review. For the price, and the Spring reverb as well as richness of sound, surely its a winner on the whole, silly name/colour scheme or not?
My thoughts exactly!
Good video! I own the Grandmother and it is the hub of my setup that includes 2 Moog Mother 32's and a DFAM. I think it is one of the best mono synths I have ever used (this includes the iconic 1970's MiniMoog that I used to own). I don't think that the Grandmother package could be duplicated in Eurorack format (with case/power supply and FATAR keyboard controller) for $899. And yes, the Matriarch (which I really want) addresses your concerns about the Grandmother, but it costs $1,999. But all in all, this was a fair review of the Granny, as it (like all synths) has shortcomings.
Individual Two good info thank you
Yes I absolutely agree regarding the price, this is something I forgot to mention but price is another compelling reason to buy the Grandmother.
@@SLRPS I agree about the Granny. It is so logically laid-out that it is a dream to use live (considering it lacks presets). The Matriarch certainly is a more complex synth, but I think spending some quality time with one would allow me to get comfortable with its programming quirks. Check out some of Lisa Bella Donna's live work with the Matriarch - She makes it talk.
Or, you could do the lead sound with just 2 VCOs being modulated… just kidding. Great video, I’m trying to decide between a gmother and matriarch. This helps loads! Thx. Off to watch the matriarch video. Cheers! 👍
For me the GM is the ultimate bass / lead machine. The main point for me in this synth is basic sounds which it does absolutely fantastic! For complex patches I would use another instrument (Matrixbrute maybe?). But the main complaint for me is quality! Yes, I have repeating issues with the quality of this wonderful instrument. I sent it twice for servicing already in the past 6 months. Each time it takes 1 month for a fix. :-(
That does not sound good :( Was it the same issue each time or different issues?
@@TimShoebridge Same issue each time - the cutoff knob starts to produce rustling noise on tweaking, like on the old gear. I think the potentiometer is not of the best quality really. Its great I'm 3 years covered by Thomann warranty but I will probably sell it earlier if it happens again and buy Behringer instead :-P
I love my Grandmother but so far it's been in the shop twice mainly for power and usb connectors failing on me.
It's a basic two oscillator synth in the classic Moog tradition that sounds really great as is If you want more buy something else or maybe even go work for Moog.
Wouldn't it make more sense to use an external VCO for the third (rather than the Modulation section) and send the LFO from the grandmother to the external VCO through an attenuator?
That’s a lot of work to add an extra LFO. The sound is great, but I can think of a lot of great sounding synths that can do this with minimum effort.
I agree about the color scheme. It's nice to visually separate the synth elements but I prefer my synths to wear tuxedos to the gig. Those colors really do parallel my human grandmother's kitchen paint evolution.
Can you please give your comparison for the Granny vs the Sub37 for sounds and uses?
RUSTiK Inc I would love to do that for you but I no longer have a Sub37. The Sub37 was the first Moog I ever owned but I sold it quite a long time ago, I just did not really bond with it for some reason.
I heard a rumour that the initial working name for this synth was Wayne Rooney.
Haha!
No synth is perfect but I appreciate this review. I have a Matriarch and was curious to see what the Grandmother is. I think Moog is thinking out of the box with their new line of synths from the DFAM to the Matriarch which is refreshing. They all have positives and negatives but I think its fair to say that Moog still remains very relevant when it comes to analog synths. Something about the sound that cannot be beat. Its also cool to have "cheaper" options if you're new to synthesis and want a Moog. This was not always a reality for most of us until recently.
The way you are using the Stackcable is incorrect. You can't use it to combine signals, only to split. What you actually did was split the keyboard tracking CV and (try to) send half of it to the Grandmother's mult (while at the same block the Doepfer LFO signal). The voltages received by the 3rd VCO were no longer the voltages needed to track the keyboard, since splitting the CV caused the voltages to drop.
This video explains the Stackcable in greater detail: czcams.com/video/NpF5A3TFPTo/video.html
Yes, a precision adder is what you need.
Thanks a lot for that explanation, really appreciate it.
Looking forward to your actual on the matriarch.
What were you using for drums? It had a bit of a natural sound to it.
I'm using a fairly dated sample library by Spectrasonics called RMX Stylus. It has some cool loops and variations. On top of that I did a little manual drumming with the keyboard.
The 3.5mm CV connections always seem so scratchy, do they last? Why can't they just be like the butter of a normal 3.5mm socket.
You really should start a matrixbrute series, a truely underrated synth
The lack of a second envelope is really annoying. Like the Mother32, the Grandmother feels incomplete while the Matriarch and Subseqent 37 are in a completely different price bracket.
I was always of the opinion that the components were arranged such that they encourage the user to patch them to each other. So then, not necessarily modular gear, but rather other moog semimodular gear. I see your point about wanting the instruments to not make you feel like you need to patch them to external gear to get the most out of them. But I think moog would prefer people buy more pieces of their gear, thus improving the functionality of individual components as more pieces are added and connected.
Hst, I agree with you, yet I think moog made a smart choice. People who buy one of these pieces will be, at least, tempted to buy at least one more...and not necessarily tempted to jump into the modular world (and also Behringer have aided in this too, and at a lower price point so people will less disposable income can also enjoy a bit of the modular experience).
Soundwise...Grandmother, Poly D or Model D? Which is best in your opinion? Much appreciated.
I have all three and have analyzed them (thank my OCD for that). They are all quite different variations of the “Moog sound” particularly that of the Minimoog. I would generalize like this:
PolyD. Open sounding, less gritty, very little prefilter mixer drive. Filter is less dark and almost sounds like 3-pole. Hgher FM modulation depth than ModelD, lower than GM. Like a Monopoly merged with Minimoog and a bit of Juno thrown in (Great chorus).
ModelD. Super dark filter, but with snappy envelope owing to very hi frequency. Can drive mixer hard and get fatter than PolyD, but can sound harsher than GM owing to those high frequencies that GM naturally rolls off. Limited FM, but very useable.
Grandmother. Closest of all to the classic Minimoog sound, and beyond. Mixer drives incredibly hard. Filter doesn’t sound as dark/deep as ModelD and so ENV seems less snappy, but has nice roll off on highs to hit a sweet spot. FM potential is almost absurdly high, so much you have to learn to tame it, but along with patching has greater potential palette.
Will likely use my GM as the centrepiece among the three as it just has that special something and I feel like I will keep discovering new sound on top. If I didn’t want to change a patch however I would be happy to move on to the Behringers to get great sound as well. Funny, but worth mentioning the cheaper Behringers seem to have more solid build quality and warm up faster.
Thank you so much.
Would like to hear your opinion on the Sirin as well :P
Aha, another pastel coloured instrument!! ;) I don't own one but I am told they sound fantastic. Perhaps a bit pricey for what they are? But then again they are supposed to be a limited edition. Moog really are the kings of the "limited edition" phenomenon......
Hahaha, poor grandmother... From the moment you placed her under the other modulars, she looked like lying down on a hospital bed under machines that are trying to make her a bit stronger...
@Stephen Laws Clifford it's just visual... in 22:59 is like watching Grey's Anatomy
I do love the organic sounds from the Grandmother and i love too the grunchy power analog sound from moog. I need to decide between a used Grandmother or a brand new B PolyD, can you give me your point of view Tim? i already saw your PolyD review and this let me more in the B side. Best Vibes
Yeah not having 4 or 5 octaves on any synth is kinda a drag, the name is kinda weird, and the colors really weird, but that was the charm of it for me. Love the channel 👍
Scandal! Tim Shoebridge sold his Grandmother for a new synth! 😯🤣
If the price wasn’t a factor, which would you all choose? Grandmother or Matriarch?
+1 for a lot of my grandma jokes.
-1 for not a single your momma jokes
ahhh, the dreaded LIMITED synth.. hehe. its a brilliant synth and perfectly designed for euro. forget about the competition. this is a completely different sounding synth from its counterparts. anyways, its nice that its not so cluttered in design.
Tim's view of what is cool has to be referenced to that cardigan
‘ the Val Doonican context ! ‘
Why has Moog named their synths with mothers? Anybody know?
I'd love it too if I'd gotten it for free
The matriarch doesn’t have a spring reverb, false equivalency...
Plus it’s double the price 😅 If we’re going to compare the GM to any more expensive synth why not just choose the One? Kinda pointless…
Grandmooger
Those are fine reasons to not be keen on it.
9:05 that sounds rather weird without context.
Ive been reading a lot of people that like the gma better than the matriarch, and actually sold the matriarch and kept the gma. You still happy with decision?
So the Matriarch is more than double the price, still with Pastell colors, and the "modules" painted on ... but the Grand Mother is shite....?
Nah, my dude!
I never said it was shite did I?
I cant believe you hate your grandmother
Haha :) I actually loved her to bits, but then someone better came along... ;)
3:32 loool
To much Monos, we need Polys 🤔
just buy an A4 mk2 and be happy that there is nothing you cannot do :-)
Talk, play for 2 seconds, repeat.
Hate the name, love the sound. But I'm getting the Matriarch. Totally agree that "Grandmother" is an incredibly stupid name for a synthesizer. Colors are cool, though.
Too many commercials. Had to skip this review. Too bad.
About the stupid name - Moog are KINGS of ascribing horrible names to their synths, the Little Phatty probably being the worst name of all time. Embarrassing.
Dumbest name ever for a synth. Insult to injury is it looks like a child’s toy. I won’t ever buy one or a Matriarch.
You’re like some kind of rebel.
The point of a synthesizer is produce dynamic sounds. Who cares if it even has a name if it’s giving you endless ways to explore sound and improve your music?