This review takes a look at the Moog Guitar, Moog Music’s guitar that incorporates elements of Bob Moog’s pioneering synthesizer designs.

via SoulisEchoes1984:

A review from the guitarist magazine for the new Moog guitar. It’s great but really expensive!!

Moog Music has released the production model of the Moog Guitar, the Moog Guitar E1.

The video above offers an overview of the Moog E1. It offers the same technology as the original Paul Vo Collector Edition of the Moog Guitar, but for $3,000 less.

That puts it at about $3,500, though, so it’s still out of the price range of most.

If you’re not familiar with the Moog Guitar, it combines a classic Moog synth filter with several new guitar technologies to open up new styles and sounds for guitarists. It’s not a true guitar synthesizer, but a hybrid that offers its own sonic palette.

Detail on the Moog Guitar below.

If you’ve used the Moog Guitar, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Here’s what Moog has to say about the unique electronics in the Moog Guitar:

• FULL SUSTAIN MODE – like no other sustainer; infinite sustain on every string, at every fret position and at any volume. You may have heard sustain before but not with this power (we call it “Vo Power”) and clarity.
• CONTROLLED SUSTAIN MODE – allows you to play sustained single or polyphonic lines without muting technique. The Moog Guitar sustains the notes you are playing while actively muting the strings you are not playing.
• MUTE MODE – removes energy from the strings, resulting in a variety of staccato articulations. The mute mode has never been heard on any other guitar; the Vo Power stops the strings with the same intensity that it sustains them. You feel the instrument transform in your hands.
• HARMONIC BLENDS – use the included foot pedal to shift the positive energy of Vo Power in Sustain mode and the subtractive force of Vo Power in Mute mode between the bridge and neck pick-ups to pull both subtle and dramatic harmonics from the strings.
• MOOG FILTER – control the frequency of the built-in, resonant Moog ladder filter using the foot pedal or a CV Input.

Moog Guitar Controls

There are five knobs:

• Vo Power Knob – Controls intensity of sustain and mute. The knob turned fully CW is full Vo Power and fully CCW is no Vo Power.
• Piezo Blend Blends the piezo bridge pick-up signal into the guitar’s output signal.
• Harmonic Balance Knob – Controls the balance of Vo Power between neck and bridge pick-ups. (When the Filter Toggle is in “Tone Control” position, this function is moved to the foot pedal and the Harmonic Balance knob does nothing.)
• Master Volume Knob – Controls overall volume (Moog and piezo pick-ups).
• Tone/Filter Knob- Adjusts the guitar tone when the Filter Toggle is in Tone Control position; adjusts the resonance of the Moog filters in the two Moog Filter Toggle positions.

There are three switches:

• Mode Selector Switch – Switches between Mute Mode, Controlled Sustain Mode and Full Sustain Mode
• Filter Toggle Switch Switches the Moog Filter between a standard guitar Tone Control – (toggle away from strings), a Moog Articulated Filter – (toggle centered), and a Moog Ladder Filter – (toggle towards strings).
• Five Position Pick-up Selector Switch: Neck, In-phase, Out of phase, Bridge, and Piezo. only. (The piezo signal accessed via the Piezo Blend knob passes through the Moog filter; “piezo only” does not.)

Floor Pedal- Function depends on the setting of the Filter Toggle switch.
- When the Filter Toggle is in “Tone Control” position, the floor pedal controls the harmonic balance. (Forward = high harmonics, Middle = full harmonics, Back = lower harmonics.)
- When the Filter Toggle is in “Moog Articulated Filter” position, the floor pedal controls the filter cutoff frequency that the articulated filter starts with.
- When the Filter Toggle is in “Moog Ladder Filter” position, the foot pedal controls the filter cutoff frequency.

Note about Harmonic Balance: Maximum Vo Power requires both pickups to act together. This only happens when the Harmonic Balace is set to the mid-point because then both pickups are fully active. (Harmonic Balance knob on the center detent and/or the floor pedal set to the mid-position.) If the Vo Power is fully CW and you sense less than full Vo Power, check the Harmonic Balance function at the knob or the pedal.

What is the difference between The Moog Guitar and sustainers?

1.) The Moog Guitar Technology is not a sustainer technology but a Harmonic Control System.

2.) In Sustain Mode, The Moog Guitar is like a sustainer on steroids. Previous sustainer technologies are limited both in their power and responsiveness.

3.) Unlike sustainer technologies, the Moog Guitar has the ability to simultaneously “listen” and “control” each individual string at exactly the same point. This allows the control system to affect the string coherently. For each pickup and string, there is a unique control system that is optimized for those harmonics happening at that point in time.

4.) This “coherency” gives the Moog Guitar a sustain capability that is un-paralleled both in power and responsiveness. There are no frustrating lags, or drop offs. And the sustain from the Moog Guitar is DIRECTLY related to what is happening on the string at that point, so it is very organic sounding and gives a feeling of connection to the instrument that has never before been felt.

5.) Sustaining is just the stepping-off point for the Moog Guitar. The same ability to coherently give energy to the string can take energy away. This is revolutionary: the ability to MUTE a string (or strings) changes the very way the string reacts to the wood and acoustics of the instrument. It feels like a different instrument in your hands when in Mute Mode.

6.) Combining the Sustain and Mute modes gives us the never-before achieved Controlled Sustain Mode. Players can sustain single-note lines while the Harmonic Control System actively removes energy from strings that aren’t being played. This allows fluid violin-like lines and counter-point that are not achievable with sustainers.

7.) The Harmonic Control System allows the player to affect different harmonics that are being occurring on the strings in real-time.

8.) Because of the direct action of the Harmonic Control System on the string at the same point in space and time, the Moog Guitar fits perfectly into your playing technique, it responds naturally to the way you play – it becomes part of the acoustic nature of the actual instrument.

9.) The Moog Guitar expands the soundscape of the guitar in ways that no sustainer technology can approach. Like all Moog instruments, the only limit is the imagination and inspiration of the musician.

Julian Lage and Brett Comeaux stopped by the Moog Factory and checked out The Moog Guitar.

This was right next to the Voyager production line. You can hear Voyagers being built in the background.

This demo video, from Moog Music, shows how the Moog Guitar’s CV input can be used in combination with the new Etherwave Plus, which has CV outputs.

Guitarist are probably going to freak out about this – but the Etherwave’s CV outputs are especially cool.

Only a few businesses inspire such fierce loyalty that their customers tattoo the name of the company on their bodies. Harley-Davidson comes to mind as one. Another is Moog Music, local manufacturers of legendary keyboard synthesizers and effects pedals for various instruments.

“We have photos that people send us of their Moog tattoos,” said company president Mike Adams, who doesn’t have one. Yet.

Founded by inventor and sound engineer Bob Moog more than 50 years ago, the company’s influence on the worlds of music and sound are part of what inspires customer loyalty. Moog was an early pioneer of electronic music, and his name has become synonymous with the field. He lived and worked in Asheville for more than 30 years.

Every piece of equipment carrying the Grammy-award-winning Moog name is produced at the company’s warehouse on Riverside Road.

The company moved to this location in 2005, the same week that Bob Moog died. Since then, the business has expanded by adding employees and creating new products. When Adams started working at Moog six years ago, the company had only eight employees. Now there are 40.

Adams said he’s been cautious and produces only products that customers want. For example, he’s reissuing a bass pedal synthesizer first built in the 70s. He put the specifics out on the Moog Web site, which includes an active forum of music enthusiasts. Within 10 days, he had 300 orders for the synthesizer, each of which included a $500 deposit. Now he’s got to build the synthesizers, which probably won’t be delivered until late 2009. Every piece of Moog equipment is made to order, so there’s no back stock.

“That’s the kind of confidence in this company our customers have. They’ll put down a deposit on something we haven’t even built because they know it will be great,” Adams said.

Full article here.

Is it worth the nearly six grand asking price?

Levin says:

Overall, I found the Moog Guitar to be an inspirational instrument. It opened up exciting new worlds of playing technique for me like no guitar I’ve ever played. Especially when I used external effects, like distortion, delay, and modulation, I found myself getting lost in the guitar and playing and improvising for long stretches without even realizing that time had passed. It was kind of like discovering a whole new side to my guitar skills.

 

That said, the Moog Guitar is quite expensive and at this point in its development is a luxury item that will be affordable only to some. I hope that in the not-too-distant future, Moog will release a lower-priced line, bringing the Moog Guitar’s exciting combination of sustain, mute, and filter effects to a wider range of potential buyers. I can already tell that I’m going to miss having this guitar around when I have to return it after this review is over. There’s simply nothing else out there like it.

In other words – if you got the 6K to drop, there’s nothing else like it.

Otherwise, you may have to wait for the Behringer version like the rest of us.

Jake Cinninger of Umphrey’s McGee takes the Moog Guitar for a spin.

Includes a great example of using the on-board Moog Ladder Filter with distortion.

Moog Music is now shipping the Moog Guitar to five continents. Moog already has a backlog of orders, though – to the tune of $1.3 million.

Early adopters include Lou Reed, Trent Reznor, James Valentine of Maroon 5, Joe Don Rooney of Rascal Flatts, Joe Walsh, Hans Zimmer Studios, Chris Stein of Blondie and Fareed Haque of Garaj Mahal.

The Moog Guitar shipping is the limited Paul Vo Collector Edition. Each $6495 guitar is individually signed by Moog associate and guitar inventor Paul Vo and carries a sealed Certificate of Authenticity identifying it as the first ever Moog Guitar.

The patented Moog Guitar brings five unique innovations to the fingertips of the guitarist:

• Full Sustain – like no other sustainer; enables infinite sustain on every string, at every fret position and at any volume.
• Controlled Sustain – plays sustained single or polyphonic lines while intelligently muting un-played strings.
• Mute Mode stops the vibrating string, resulting in a variety of staccato articulations.
• Harmonic Blends – uses the included control pedal to shift energy between the bridge and neck pick-ups to pull both subtle and dramatic harmonics from the strings.
• Moog Filter – controls the frequency of the built-in, resonant Moog ladder filter using the control pedal or a control voltage input.

The Moog Guitar will be showcased at Moogfest 2008, October 13 at the Hammerstein Grand Ballroom in New York City.

Moog is known for its analog synthesizers. What made the company decide to venture into the guitar market?

[Paul Vo] From my perspective, I’m just very glad they did. The people at Moog have been wonderful to work with. Moog’s culture is very receptive to innovation, yet also quite down to earth and realistic – just the right environment to develop the Moog Guitar.

[Mike Adams] We have been in the guitar market for years with our Moogerfooger line of analog stomp boxes. Introducing a guitar with innovations this guitar brings to the player is really the culture here at Moog. We have a criterion for any product that Moog introduces and this guitar met every element.

In lay terms, what are the advantages of the guitar’s capacity to sustain and mute notes at the same time?

[Paul Vo] Imagine trying to play a clean single-note line on one string when all the other strings start to vibrate loudly all by themselves. You’ve got to spend more care keeping the strings quiet than playing your melody.

In Controlled Sustain Mode, the internal circuit is able to distinguish between un-played strings and played strings: how is it possible?

[Paul Vo] Several tests are applied to bias a string either towards being muted or being driven. Deliberately played strings cross an amplitude threshold that varies according to a proprietary algorithm. Please understand: The strings are not either “on” or “off”; it does not work like that. Everything is gradual. A tendency towards sounding louder is “rewarded” with more energy; a tendency towards being muted is encouraged with active muting, etc.

The muting is not absolute; we still allow sympathetic vibrations when they are strongly related to the basic pitch of the played string or strings. With ‘Controlled Sustain’, the player finds it about as easy to govern the strings in the presence of strong sustain as it is to play an ordinary guitar that doesn’t have sustain.

Sonically, what is different or unique for listeners when they hear guitarists simultaneously employ this mute and sustain?

[Paul Vo] Listeners will hear a cleaner, more musical performance, and maybe of material that wouldn‘t often be attempted on the guitar – perhaps some challenging music written for the cello or transposed from the violin, or something entirely new.

Once again, using terms that a layperson can understand, how does the guitar’s harmonic blend control work and what does it mean, in terms of sonics, for listeners?

[Paul Vo] The harmonic blend is a way of favoring some harmonics over others in a note. It changes the color, the tone or timbre of the instrument. This is a difficult question to answer in words. Listeners are going to hear some sounds they have not heard before.

[Mike Adams] In laymen terms, the harmonic blend works by using the foot pedal to shift the sustain and mute power (we call it Vo Power) between the neck and bridge pickups.

What makes the Moog Guitar different from other guitars?

[Mike Adams} Only a very few guitars have the capability of sustaining notes indefinitely and none at all have the ability to electronically mute the strings. The Moog Guitar is completely unique: It makes new sounds by acting on the strings themselves, changing the way they vibrate or stopping vibration altogether. It's not some subtle difference; it's beyond obvious, when you play it.

How is the technology adopted in The Moog Guitar different from other guitar sustain technologies?

[Mike Adams] Our technology differs in several important ways. First, the energy applied to the strings is “coherent” energy. Coherent energy is energy that is applied in an intelligent way. When applied positively, the string sustain is very powerful and very responsive. When applied negatively (reverse power – which is not possible with existing technology), the string stops very quickly giving a staccato effect to guitar (similar to a banjo or koto). Additionally, the guitar has circuitry which senses which string the player is playing and sustains those strings while actively muting the strings that are not being played.

Can you tell me something about the Moog Guitar Strings? Why are they special?

[Mike Adams] The Moog guitar technology works using the physics of electro-magnetic energy. The Moog Guitar strings have a higher metallic content than most strings and is more responsive to the elector-magnetism than most other strings. In an emergency situation, most metallic guitar strings will still work they just will not be as responsive.

Is the Moog Filter used into the Moog Guitar the classic 24dB/LowPass?

[Mike Adams] The Moog ladder filter is a vintage 24dB/oct filter built with individual transistors in the classic way.

via Moog Music

An extended cut from one of Fareed Haque’s great solos at The Moog Guitar Showcase at Summer NAMM 2008. Note the massive sustain.

This video, via SOS, is a demo of Moog Musics new Moog Guitar:

The Moog Guitar has two outputs: one conventional quarter-inch jack that’s fed by piezo saddle pickups, and one five-pin XLR, which connects to a special active pedal. Power is fed up the cable to the components in the guitar body, and audio signals are sent back down to the pedal, where the second output, another quarter-inch jack socket, is located. 

At the heart of the guitar are two Moog-designed pickups, which can be set to excite or mute the strings of the guitar. This means, in practice, that the guitar is capable of producing a vast array of sounds, from infinite sustain to muted plucking, using nothing but electromagnetic power, which Moog call ‘Vo Power’, after co-designer Paul Vo. The Moog Guitar also has the much-loved Moog ladder filter built-in, giving the player that unmistakable Moog sound. 

There are three modes of operation: Full Sustain applies infinite sustain on every string; Controlled Sustain analyses which strings that you’re playing and sustains those in use, while muting others; and Mute mode saps the energy from the strings, creating a muted sound. 

The Paul Vo Collector Edition of the Moog Guitar will retail for $6495 in the USA. 

I’ve been checking out the info and videos on the Moog Guitar, and it looks like keyboardists are probably dismiss this as an expensive guitar that can sustain notes, but guitarists are going to freak out and drool over it. 

It’s not really a guitar synth, but what it does is offer really expressive sustain, which could open up new worlds for the guitar.

This is something that keyboardist & synthesists may not immediately get, because most keyboards are pretty limited in what they can do, in terms of polyphonic expressive sustain. One exception is the CS-80, sought after for its polyphonic analog aftertouch, which lets you bring out individual notes in a chord in interesting ways. Few keyboards offer this. 

The Moog Guitar is getting criticized by many for its styling; the best thing for Moog to do might be to license the technology to a few known guitar makers. 

What do you think about the Moog Guitar? Anyone interested in getting one?

“It’s not a guitar synthesizer; not a MIDI guitar; not an effects processor,” according to Moog Music President Mike Adams. “The guitarist is intimately connected to The Moog Guitar because it works its magic on the strings themselves.”

The Moog Guitar offers three unique modes…Sustain, Mute and Controlled Sustain. In the Sustain mode, it provides infinite, powerful sustain on every string and at every fret position; Mute removes energy from the strings, resulting in a variety of staccato effects; Controlled Sustain allows the musician to play sustained, single-note or even polyphonic lines with strong sustain and effortless clarity. In this mode, the Moog Guitar sustains the notes being played while actively muting the notes not being played.

The Moog Guitar will be demonstrated to media at NAMM at a press conference at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 21 in Moog Music’s NAMM Booth 2030.

The first ever Moog Guitar will be the limited edition Paul Vo Collector Edition Guitar ($6495). The AAAAA maple top guitar with a mahogany body and ebony finger board will be a much sought-after axe even without the addition of the patented Moog electronics. Each guitar will be individually signed by Moog associate and guitar inventor Paul Vo and will carry a sealed Certificate of Authenticity identifying it as the first ever Moog Guitar.

Details:

FULL SUSTAIN MODE – like no other sustainer; infinite sustain on every string, at every fret position and at any volume. You may have heard sustain before but not with this power (we call it “Vo Power”) and clarity.

CONTROLLED SUSTAIN MODE – allows you to play sustained single or polyphonic lines without muting technique. The Moog Guitar sustains the notes you are playing while actively muting the strings you are not playing.

MUTE MODE – removes energy from the strings, resulting in a variety of staccato articulations. The mute mode has never been heard on any other guitar; the Vo Power stops the strings with the same intensity that it sustains them. You feel the instrument transform in your hands.

HARMONIC BLENDS – use the included foot pedal to shift the positive energy of Vo Power in Sustain mode and the subtractive force of Vo Power in Mute mode between the bridge and neck pick-ups to pull both subtle and dramatic harmonics from the strings.

MOOG FILTER – control the frequency of the built-in, resonant Moog ladder filter using the foot pedal or a CV Input.

Moog Guitar Controls

There are five knobs:

Vo Power this is the amount of coherent power that is applied to the strings to either sustain or mute them.

Piezo Blend blends the piezo output with the Moog pick-ups.

Harmonic Balance shifts the Vo Power (sustain/mute) power between the neck and bridge pick-up. In the center position the power is balanced between the neck and bridge.

Master Volume controls overall volume including both the Moog Pick-up output as well as the piezos.

Tone/Filter controls both tone and the resonance of the Moog ladder filter dependent upon the position of the Filter Mode Toggle switch.

There are three switches:

Moog Guitar Mode determines the application of the Vo Power. There are three positions: Sustain, Controlled Sustain, and Mute

Filter Mode Toggle with three positions: Standard Guitar Tone, an articulated Moog filter (e.g similar to an auto-wah), and classic Moog Ladder filter

Five Position Pick-up Selector Switch: Piezo, Bridge only, Out of Phase, In Phase, Neck only.

At the Ethermusic Festival in Asheville, NC,  Moog’s Jason Danillo demo’d the Moog Guitar. Here’s a first-hand take on the demo:

My first impression of this instrument is that it was an electric guitar with built in (software driven) fx in the body of the guitar. And I would add, super CLEAN fx. And the infinite sustain, for example, was INFINITE with no noise, glitches, etc. However, my guess about the theory of operation was mistaken.

The guitar utilizes built-in ebows — I’m not sure how many are built into the guitar however there is a least one per string. As many readers here know, the ebow imparts energy to a string to set it into vibration and keep it vibrating forever. The engineers at Moog took things to another level — for ebow technology can do the opposite: it can be used to remove energy from a string, too.

Each string is independently settable — some can sustain, others can sound in the normal (unsustained manner), others can produce a staccatto pluck — in fact, on [sic] of the sounds is a strum followed by a bow. This is all user-settable. Jason strummed a chord and as the chord died down a “bowed string chorus” came up — as if an entire string section was doubling Jason’s guitar part.

My first thought was: Ohhh… my looping friends would LOVE this.
And the tone was really clean. During Jason’s demo, he mentioned that some people can’t believe that this is all being done on the strings until he unplugs the guitar and folks listen to the strings themselves.

Moog looks to be building on its strong line of Moogerfooger pedals and expanding into the guitar market.

Cikira via Matrix