Moog Animoog Overview (With Eigenharp Pico Controller)

Geert Bevin put together this interesting overview of the new Moog Animoog synthesizer, exploring the software synth’s capabilities and demonstrating its capability for polyphonic expression with an Eigenharp Pico.

Bevin’s video does a good job of demonstrating the expressive capability of Animoog, played through via the iPad’s touchscreen and the Eigenharp Pico. The video also offers an introduction to working with Moog’s software synth.

Animoog is currently available for $.99 in the App Store. If you’ve tried it out, let us know what you think of it and how you are using it – by itself, with other iPad apps, with desktop software or with hardware controllers.

Technical details on the demo video below.

via gbevin:

Moog released Animoog today as their first synthesizer on the iPad and I absolutely love it!

This video gives a brief overview of the Animoog’s features and also shows how expressive it is when played with an Eigenharp Pico over MIDI using poly-pressure.

The Eigenharp and Animoog seems like a match made in heaven since the Eigenharp is able to send three independent detailed per-note performance data streams and the Animoog is able to react to this on a per-note level. Also, the visualization of the sound on the Animoog is marvelous, it gives a great representation of what your sound is doing.

The iPad is hooked up to my MacBook Pro using USB MIDI from the Alesis iODock, the Eigenharp Pico is also hooked up to the laptop and sends MIDI from the EigenD application to the ‘dock’ MIDI port. This uses a small MIDI-only Eigenharp Pico setup that loads very quickly and provides 16 MIDI playing keys with poly-pressure and three independent data streams for each key (pressure, left/right, up/down), as well as two 3D controller keys that are somewhat similar to little joysticks and are sending each three independent streams of MIDI CC data also.

8 thoughts on “Moog Animoog Overview (With Eigenharp Pico Controller)

  1. The way this guy talks about the keys also acting as a Y controllers feels like he has never used another IOS music app before.. even Bebot could do this a few years ago.

    Fantastic app btw.

  2. Goode, I’ve used almost all other iOS instruments, including Bebot, MorphWiz, ThumbJam (the 3 that come closest). Yet, I never felt the same about how their control method works. Yes, it’s two dimensional and reorganizes in scales, etc etc. There’s something about how Moog implemented it in Animoog that just clicks for me to play for really on the iPad.

  3. I love Animoog too… but to provide a few corrections, there is a .pdf manual free to download on Moog’s site… for what it’s worth, I haven’t seen it crash though you do have to be careful with the “MUTE” button. The reviewer is really missing out with his iPad stuck in the Dock like that, however (even if it wasn’t the cause of his crashing)… Note Animoog Scales and Key Tunings are changeable, like Geo Synth and TNR-1 and the “keys” are resizable – and also can be mapped to be Velocity sensitive ie when you tap the red circle at top it sounds completely different… great sounds but the touch surface works great as a controller like the Voyager Touchpad. I agree Animoog has some lush sounds and can be quite worthwhile to use with a “real keyboard” (with aftertouch) too of course, though you miss out on the best part of animoogs touch surface technology…while at least gaining back the ability to flex your ‘Hanon’ muscles…can’t understand why anyone would prefer the Pico Buttons for anything… ๐Ÿ™‚
    Oh well… at least we agree on one point… I’m also looking forward to sending MIDI out…

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