Good video! I have owned the colored Matriarch for a couple of years and it is my "desert island synth. I agree with both your likes and dislikes. But I will add a few more likes and dislikes of my own. Extra likes: The arpeggiator and sequencer are powerful, very musical, but most importantly, easy to use, especially in a live situation. The FATAR keyboard plays like a dream and sends both velocity and (channel) aftertouch over MIDI, which makes it a great master keyboard for a small studio. The stereo filter is an absolutely amazing sound design tool. The utility sections, with 2 mults, 3 attenuators, and a bonus LFO are great features. You can do some very cool live performance tricks with the paraphony switch that can take a single patch and drastically change the sounds. The classic "wheels" are well-calibrated and add even more performance tricks. The ability to sync all 4 oscillators in a cascading fashion is unique and cool. The ability to address and isolate individual modules takes the Matriarch into Eurorack land. The modulation section has a trackable LFO that can serve as a 5th oscillator. Extra dislikes: I wish there were separate transpose buttons. I also wish Moog would come out with a software utility that replaces the need for clumsy button switching needed to make/change global settings. Lastly, for the price, Moog should have offered Audio over USB capability so I could play directly into a DAW. BTW, I'm "Individual Two" on Instagram and my brief bits of Matriarch action are posted up there.
Thanks Flying Fish for this thorough additional likes and dislikes! Some that you mentioned I will need to explore! I left some out too for LIKES as my list was too long. To piggy back off of what you were saying as an additional like, i really enjoy the audio in input. I use that almost every time. Also, I love your page and the stuff you post is great. Thanks always for your support man!
Thing is though if they had included audio over USB you'd be paying even more for it and I'm not sure if this is the best thing for what's essentially meant to be a vintage style analogue synth (no DACs onboard etc etc). I wouldn't object to it but it seems to me this is kind of an awkward feature that isn't commensurate with the concept of this synth.
I have gone through many a synth in my day, and the Matriarch is hands-down the best instrument I've ever owned. Whenever someone tries playing it for the first time they have a look of pure amazement on their face like "holy sh*t this sounds amazing". Moog is pure class.
This is the holy grail of synthesizers in my opinion. It’s got the best of a stand-alone synth with the ability to modulate and use in conjunction with any other synth including modular. I absolutely love it. Great video!!
I think one of the main differences in a paraphonic synth is how the oscillators must share the same filter and envelopes, which ultimately affects the way that you play notes on the keyboard, like you may need to re-trigger a note in order for it to sustain along with the other keys. Pressing a key in paraphonic mode opens a gate that lets you hear the oscillator, but if you want it to shaped by the envelope you need to release all of the keys first to reset the envelope or use the multi-trig. On a poly, each note gets its own envelope and will make sound until it finishes its release or if you run out of voices and play a new note it steals the voice. The paraphonic synth technically only has 1 voice so it only takes a single key press to steal the others. As a trade off though, you get more control over the individual oscillators. I just got my Matriarch a few weeks ago and I really like being able to spread the oscillators over different octaves, so that you can invert a chord just by changing the order that you press down on the keys. It definitely inspires creativity that you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Just thinking about this comment as I played my Matriarch for the last hour, I would also add that paraphony as a limitation is most noticeable when playing pads that span across the keyboard, and that the built in stereo delay does a lot to help compensate for it.
ive been using the online matriarch editor to get around the global settings issue. not perfect but 100x better than the super obtuse key combination fiddling
Another Matriarch owner here. I got the dark edition when it went on sale/closeout last spring. It's a great synth, I think its best feature is that lovely analog stereo delay. It just takes the synth into other realms. All effects should sound as good. On the patch cables, it's funny, I never even unbagged the ones that came with mine. I bought various lengths of patch cables and use those instead. No problem reaching things that way, and I can cross patch to my other synths as well (something else the shorty cables that come with synths make difficult). Paraphony is an interesting and quirky feature that takes a bit of getting used to. I like running sequences or arpeggiator in round robin mode with the oscillators on different settings. Changing octaves or turning sync on/off on different oscs changes up the sequence without actually changing the sequence. Turning down oscillators in the mixer adds "rests" on the fly, and especially if your arp/sequence is not a multiple of 4, you'll get a sequence that evolves as each note hits different oscillators on each cycle. The stereo filters are a delight too. In addition to the preset routings (HP/LP serial, LP/LP stereo or HP/LP parallel), you can patch them in just about any way imaginable. Patch the LP in front of the HP, or play HP/LP in stereo, or just use the HP by bypassing the LP, etc. Running one with resonance and one without gives you resonance without losing bass. And of course, being a Moog, the filters sound great. One cool feature on the arpeggiator, when in hold mode, you can input entire sequences into it including repeated notes, by playing legato or holding at least one note while playing in the others. As long as you keep holding a note, you can add more notes to the sequence on the fly. And of course, with other modular/semi modular gear, you can really go crazy cross patching things.
Thanks a lot for this helpful list, Tiger - I just purchased the Matriarch and I am very happy… Here's my list: LIKE 1 - The SOUND (I sounds like a Moog, and I am instantly taken back to my first synth which was a Moog Prodigy. On top of that, it can also sound incredibly lush, especially playing chords with the beautiful analog BBD delay) 2 - The PRICE (I actually think we get a lot for what we pay here) 3 - The PATCH BAY (I'm totally in love with this unique, inspiring, hands-on feature) 4 - The PARAPHONY (I see it more like a glass half full instead of empty: We get a Moog with 4 oscillators - if not 5 with the keyboard trackable LFO - and we can also split them for chords) 5 - NO PATCH MEMORY (what a relief from all those gazillions of presets I have auditioned over decades - just come up with the sound you want to play, like a guitar player with a simple rig, a stereo amp and a couple of stereo fx like delay, chorus, tremolo, vibrato, etc.) 6 - The SEQUENCER/ARPEGGIATOR (easy to use, musical & inspiring) 7 - STEREO FILTER/DELAY/AMP (the stereo possibilities of the Matriarch are so mesmerizing, this is the way it should be in 2024 - and wouldn't it have been nice to have sth like that on the Prophet 10 rev4?) 7 - The UTILITY SECTIONS: one Bonus LFO, two MULTS, three ATTENUATORS/ATTENUVERTERS 8 - The SYNC OF ALL 4 OSCILLATORS 9 - The OVERDRIVE (the oscillators via the mixer, the filter via feedback patching, and the delay via feedback, can all work together to add that lovely analog crunch I dig so much) 10 - The 2 LFOs (they allow so many ways to make your patches shine, and you can even create a feedback-loop between the 2 LFOs to ignite random delirium…) 11. The AUDIO IN (so great to be able to use that Moog Filter and that BBD Delay on my other gear) X Y Z - etc. etc. etc. DISLIKE 1 - The PROVIDED PATCH CABLES (why does Moog shock their new customer with too few and too short cables?) 2 - The HIDDEN GLOBALS MENU (with an UI like this, there should be included a free software) 3 - The DISCONTINUATION OF THE DARK SERIES (what the heck!?) 4 - The CONNECTORS ON THE BACK (come on, are you serious, Moog?! It's ok to plug the expression pedal into the back, but not all those lovely patch points you want to use all the time, like KEYBOARD CV, AFTERTOUCH CV, VELOCITY CV…)
@@Tiger.Arcade Exactly - it just sounds great plus the possibility to use 4 Moog Oscillators! I actually prefer it to my Voyager because its so much more "what you see is what you get". Come to think of it, I'll probably sell the Voyager now that I have the Matriarch…
It sounds great. It seems like it would be great for sound design and creating sound effects. No patch memory makes it difficult to use in commercial projects in which you would need to recall a patch on subsequent revisions. You'd need a few of these, one per project, if you work on multiple projects at a time! So each Matriarch is 1 memory location!
I had a grandmother before and think the gm is more raw, and can very psychedelic. The matriarch is in therms of compexity a big step forward. Obviously there are some electronic helpers inside (?) to keep the sound pleasing and sitting in the mix vs to complete break true like gm. I ♥THE MATRIARCH. A very outstanding synth. But... Twiddling with HW-Synthesizers for 15 years now, also many Software-Synthes. Thought i knew what I do. Nope - have to sit down and learn again. It's my challenge.💪
I bought the colored Matriarch. It was my first real synth so the learning curve was steep. But I believe I would never have learned so much about basic music engenering from a synth with presets or sitting in a DAW. Its a great synth for beginners that know they are gonna give it the time and love it deserves, because it will sound great and fun even if you are shit at using it.
Mine is so finnicky, but I love it when it works right. It definitely has that "premium" sound that helps justify the price. and i love the cv out for the expression pedal, i use it all the time to control all sorts of other gear.
Totally agree! Very finicky and then when you find that sweet spot, it is pure magic. Interesting about the expression pedal. I should try that. I also failed to mention the audio in feature which i too use a lot with my other gear.
@@Tiger.Arcade for sure, even if its something as simple as hooking that CV up to a filter cutoff or decay, being able to control that with my feet frees up a hand for more knob turning!
Oooh that’s a great idea… like if you went to the velocity input on a dfam you could quickly bring a kick in and out, or with an attenuator go to the vco cv and you could tune it to go between 2 different frequencies. I guess I need an expression pedal now 😅.
@@CeeJay5s for sure! And the Moog one are actually pretty cheap and WELL built! I wish they made a sustain pedal too but I had to settle with a Korg one.
As much as people love big analogue poly synths (like the P10 or OB etc), and they are lovely by the way, if you make electronic music you can do it all with just the matriarch. The only other thing you'd need is a digital synth for pads and maybe some supersaw type stuff or FM/wavetable type sounds. As far as the matriarch goes the only thing I'd like to add is a 5 octave keybed because the keybed on it is pretty awesome.
Couldn’t agree more with all your points. Here are a few of mine: + Even at $2k still cheaper than a Eurorack build with the same features and can actually be musical (shots fired) + Many near mint examples are starting to show up on used market for a reasonable price + Four oscillators can be used for way more than just added fatness, round robin oscillator triggering in sequences probably being the best example - Paraphony note triggering is a bit awkward at first if you’re used to polysynths +/- Global settings are a bit silly to adjust but personally I just set and forget? Maybe that’s just proof that I’ve only just scratched surface of mine +/- Way heavier than it looks… Feels vintage? Or built like a tank? Not sure, but this could be an inconvenience for some
I paid $1250 (free shipping/no sales tax!) for mine back in April - a random find one morning on the Sweetwater Used Gear Exchange (I've sold a few things on there so that particular morning I decided to have a look at what was available in the synth category!). I made an offer and it was accepted immediately. I was stunned - it arrived in absolute mint condition in the factory box with all the original packaging and swag. If you had told me it was shipped straight from Moog I would have believed you! I've had extremely good fortune in my Moog journey concerning expenditures. My wife calls me a Moog Magnet!
Yeah you never get patch cords that are long enough. When I got into modular I just bought a ton of patch cords of various sizes because I knew I wasn't going to get enough of them or enough that would be long or short enough.
My like/dislike are the two sides of one feature- i like how its this limited sound palette of basic passive analog modules that harken back to the dawn of the analog synthesizer gives you a very basic tone to find ways by patching and programming to expand The dislike is how much more limited the sonic footprint is vs modern synth designs by korg and sequential for example, many w a hybrid design w digital and analog oscillators. .. also liked how this synth invites exploration by design rather than preset recall
I think this is oversimplified. I mean, if you had a two operator synth with only sine waves you might say “wow that is absurdly limited!” but then modulating one sine against another mathematically gets you almost any other possible wave shape. Now, here you have analog FM, but many possible combinations of layering and modulating. The palette is definitely considerable if you know what you’re doing. However of course it won’t have those “whizz bang” digital modulations and FX you hear a lot today. Of course most of that’s usually done in DAW anyways.
Here in Canada it costs $3,199. The Grandmother is 2 grand. Then we get to the $7,199 for a Mini Moog. WTF? I love my Moog Grandmother but yes, all the patch points should be on the front. But, you get THAT sound! Nothing else gets that sound.
I love the Grandmother and I just wish it had an extra attenuator, with their own CV inputs and maybe PWM + LINFM on both OSCs like you have on the Matriarch. Also maybe the FM tracking could be a bit more stable across the keyboard. I probably get less than 2 octaves before the sound becomes less dialed-in. Quite sure these instruments will just go up in price over the coming years. Way up. PS> about patch cable length, they may have figured you could just use the mult as a temporary extension to be able to replicate the patch book stuff. I had tiny cables with the Grandmother and that’s what I ended up doing.
Paraphonic simply means not all voice elements are duplicated. If multiple oscillators that can be tuned differently go thru the same filter and/or amp section, bam: paraphony.
Very nice overall demo, and very nice sounds! i'd just like to add something about paraphonic: In the 80s companies, like Korg with the mono/poly, went out of their way to state: "Paraphonic is identical to Polyphonic", and the term paraphonic wasn't even used. Like they desperately tried to hide something, and actually, they did. They should have been more open about it instead of ashamed and afraid for their sales. What paraphonic essentially is, is 1. The start of the signal chain is polyphonic. Like in the Matriarch's case you can play chords of up to 4 notes simultaneously on the keyboard and the oscillators will follow that. 2. The end of the signal chain, usually the filters and the amplifiers, is monophonic. So the oscillator outputs are mixed and fed into a single filter, with a single envelope, and then fed into a single amplifier, with a single envelope. For simple organ sounds, this will result in very similar soundings of paraphonic and true polyphonic. But obviously, for complex enveloped synth sounds the paraphonic mode will sound essentially different from a true polyphonic synth. That's it! You earned my like and subscription for bringing such a pleasant video to youtube.
No patch memory, a dislike? It is a feature and/or a limitation of a semi-modular synth,... Patch points on the back of the synth could have been more a dislike.
Coming from someone who doesn’t have a background in modular/ semi modular, it is a dislike for sure. Something to be aware of. Always got to explain as if viewers potentially have zero experience with the semi-modular world to understand limitations. I agree with the patch points on the back.
Great video! I recently found a fantastic deal on a Matriarch Dark and I think it is truly a sexy beast - it sits very uniquely in the Moog pantheon. This makes my fifth Moog instrument. My first (back in the 1980s) was The Source, then a few years ago I was blessed with a Memorymoog Plus (non-working but I had it fully restored by Jareth Lackey), then another friend gave me a Moog Rogue (fully working) and shortly after that I rescued a beautiful Minimoog Voyager Performer Edition from a local pawnshop! You would think with owning The Source I would have been all about the harlequin colored Matriarch but it really didn't appeal to me as much as the Dark Model. Maybe their discontinuing the Dark version will add to the value of this synth - though I'd be hard pressed to ever part with this one!
Nice video, helped me decided. I’ve had it for 2 weeks and I love it. Even the limitations are great, makes me approach it differently. Patch memory. I think it’s good as it makes you play it. My OB-6 is amazing, but I never really play with it now as I have hundreds of patches. So… I dunno 😂 Would I have memory on my Matriarch if offered….
7:55 I'm just getting into synths, and at the stage where I'm just messing around with puredata and a cheap AKAI midi controller. I'm looking at buying a hardware synth at some point, and have come to the conclusion that this type of cable-patched modular synth might be very good for learning synths: it's tactile, all the settings are visible right in front of you, so you're really cementing all the concepts in your brain as you're "painting" a new patch, and nothing is hidden behind a tiny LCD screen 5 levels deep. I know folks get the Moog for its signature sound, so I'm interested to know how professionals use it. Mostly as a recording/studio tool, or also for performance? If the latter, do you re-patch between songs? Is it a pain? In a few years, maybe I'll graduate onto something like a Polybrute, but for now, modular cable-patched synths seems like a natural next step in my learning process.
I really wish everything was on the front too! Definitely one of my top dislikes. It doesn't even have the Keystep Pro nicety of labeling on the top the back patches. I never have to turn on a light and stop my music flow with the KSP. Matriarch? Watchu thinking!?!
I’ll preface my remarks by saying I own a Matriarch and think it’s a beautiful sounding synth. My dislikes: The sliders were a boneheaded move and resulted in a lot of wasted space on the front panel. The filter cutoff knob is totally lame compared to those on the Subsequent 37 and 25. The patch points in the back of the synth. The overall build quality especially when compared to the Sub series or even the Mother series. And the name-it’s better than the Grandmother. With all that said, it sounds amazing and the stereo delay is magnificent.
I pretty much agree with everything especially the cables. One main thing that you didn’t include is there’s no actual touch sensitivity on the actual board as you play it! it’s Touch Sensitive as a controller but on the sounds you’re playing there’s no touch sensitivity which is crazy in this day and age. that’s the biggest let down to me. You can patch limited sensitivity but it has to always be patched.
Well, as long as it is patchable it shouldn't be a problem, should it? On my Korg MS20, which i played over 25 years, i always had a small patch to extend the range of the pitch wheel to 4 octaves up and down. Always kept the involved cables in the synth, even during transport. People always used to ask me: "how do you do that with the pitch wheel", not realizing it was patchable. Nowadays the ASM Hydrasynth does that for me again, with the modulation strip, and i don't need to patch it.
Not being able to store patches is a deal breaker for me. I have a Minilogue XD module. It's a pretty cool unit at a fraction of the price of this thing. It is a nice sounding instrument though.
@@Tiger.Arcadehaha yes way different. I went to my XD from working with the Grandmother for a couple months straight and it was shocking! But then I spent some time again with the XD and realized it’s all good, just doesn’t do that … MOOG sound, if you know what I mean 😅
sadly it's not really a main synth with only paraphonic, w/o any intention for modular gear. and for downgrading setups not really a must have, only nice to have. but the sound of matriarch triggers (G.A.S.) me, always.
These patch code combinations… do you have those memorized? Can you tell me everything there is to know about that unit? My point is moog makes their stuff so complex and complicated to use, and having these “hidden features” and passcode combinations for every little thing… what were those people thinking? To me, “hidden parameters” means “you really shouldn’t be fucking around with this deep under the hood”. You could still be locked in a hidden parameter and not even be aware of it Next thing you know, the envelope attack and LFO are working together causing you unwanted issues with your volume fading in and out and you can’t get it to stop. I have a SUB 25 by the way, and it’s have biggest heap of shit on the market. I should have gotten the radio shack Realistic. FAR superior to the 25 MIDI and DAW should never be used. It’s cheating. What’s the point in even having a sybthesizer if you’re just going to basically turn it into a plug in?
My top dislike with this instrument is trying to sync midi clock via midi cables with any other instrument. It seems impossible. Yes the midi light flashes in time at the back of the Matriarch but has nothing to do with it actually syncing. Don’t believe me how bad MIDISynth is on this instrument- go try find a video on how to do this or anyone even discussing it. SILENCE. MIDI clock Sync just doesn’t seem to work…
the thing about the cable length, lol its funny but you think the effort Moog put in with the little extras like you said patch book and the like that a silly little over sight like that wouldn't happen, most likely they buy in the patch cables and maybe they have got shorter over time and no one at moog spotted it, thats why i think, its likely China, yeah fuck it blame China.... sound pretty good i like mad sounds you was getting with holding notes,, i wanted to say after touch but i think thats after you lift off init, im no keys player lol yeah cool good machine..
If I had a choice I’d go ahead and do a few carjackings and buy the Moog One. Matriarch is a sweet sounding instrument but the lack of preset recall is too big a production limitation. I’ve come to realize that the tonality differences between, let’s say Novation Summit or Korg Prologue and a matriarch is not enough to justify such an expensive instrument without preset recall. Once you put these instrument in a mix, nobody, except maybe the rare synth Snobs, will hear that awesome Moog fidelity. And once you get to mixing the arrangement, All gets lost. Now if you make very experimental electronic music, (very small audience) and you do this for the self satisfaction…..the matriarch is pretty much custom made! I’m not knocking anything it….truly a fine instrument.
