UADx Minimoog vs Moog Minimoog - A Sonic Showdown 

If you really wanna hear the differences best, you need to do fast switching with no long pauses between them and they have to be gain matched to the decimal point.

Great video and amazing comparisons !

Compare the plug-in to the real unit in a song mix and see if anyone can tell the difference. And if you can tell the difference does it really affect your song?

Where is Zack?

FYI: The "golden unit" that UADx Minimoog aka modeled after is late '70s (serial in the 7000s or so). There were two other Minis in the room for comparison of unit to unit variation, of which there was plenty. One was early '70s and the other was early '80s with the later oscillator design. There were no re-issues on the bench during development.

Helpful! Thanks!

The UADx Minimoog was modeled after the Model D reissue, so there may be some differences because of it.

As musicians and producers we can tell but what about the people listening to our music? Can they? I doubt it.

Think you’re all being unfair to poster. Gives me a good idea what a well serviced Minimoog sounds like compared to UAD plug in. They’re getting closer but as he says himself the real one just has that extra beef to the sound. Pity. As Id love to go completely in the box. They’re improving but still it not there. Thanks for demo. Cheers 👍

The difference in the spectrum of waveforms is very noticeable. The difference between hardware Moog and plug-in is especially striking in Pulse Width signals. In the Square waveform from the plugin, you can definitely hear the presence of even harmonics, which should not be the case.

Like someone already said: Useless to compare two sounds with lots of silence and talking in between. And not even playing the same thing on both units...

Like the other plugins you just are not getting that full Moog expierence. The raw sonic power just isn't there. And like you say the weight in the sound.

Great video! Doesn’t matter at all.

I like that plugin.

Hardware still win , and we are listening to a mp3 sound that kills many subtleties

Nice video But please edit the videos without long poses in between examples No need to say that you’re moving between the two Because it’s obvious

Hardware analog synths definitely aren’t necessary to produce music, but they still tend to bring more richness and life to a project. How useful that is to a creative person may depend on how they learned and approach music.

The actual thing sounds organic whilst the virtual thing just doesn't.

Wow. Same sound but different dynamics. The plugin doesn't have the low end frequency of the real thing or the high end screech. When it came to the filter the plugin was more balanced than the real Moog to my ears. The real Moog sound needs more taming to be musically usable for certain types of tracks. With the plugin all three oscillators sound more melodic where as the real Moog sounds more in unison and thicker. It all depends on what sound you are going for. Both are good. Personally I'm a real Moog fan so I don't mind taming the sound

The set up of your software can not be the same as the set up of your hardware to achieve the same exact sound. Perfection vs. imperfection. 😉

All these tonal comparisons are pointless as that is only part of what constitutes a musical instrument. Most modern attempts to recreate the tonal character of vintage instruments are good and convincing . So what do all these VSTs and midi hardware instruments give up? They cannot reproduce the note precisely when the player intends. Vintage Mini Moogs have a resistor ladder keyboard which which provides the control voltage without delay to the VCO as well as the triggers for the VCA and EVG. Single channel midi hardware synths have matrix scan and debounce delays which are random and then go through the 1-10ms midi communication pipeline plus mapping through the midi to digital to analog tables before the change in control voltage gets to the VCO and VCA . VST's have to deal with the random delays in audio buffers. These random delays distract the player and listener from the intent of the player; it's like like trying to have a phone conversation with random delays in the voice. It is fast enough to fool the majority of players and is good enough to conjure the memory of what is already a known riff in the listeners mind but lacks the realtime precision of a real instrument. It is this realtime connection between the player and the instrument that is interpreted as a better feel. Sequencers and DAWs can send quantized timed midi notes to the VST but this is more like a robotic musician and not a real time musician who can retard and speedup within a riff for musical intent. Polyphonic midi is even worse and you can see this in the thousands of press and wait for sound phasing demos on RU-vid . Midi is serial so all chords are fast arpeggios with random delays between the notes.

This dude kind of gets on one's last nerve.

This is like comparing a 1950s Ferrari sound with his awful modern Honda like sounding engines. R.A vs a pc is like a Ducati sound vs. a skate sound

Do these "comparisons" never come to an end? 🥱