Moog Intros Dark Series Matriarch & Grandmother Synths With Classic Black Panels

Moog Music today announced new versions of its Matriarch and Grandmother keyboards, featuring classic black panels that the company says are inspired by the look of early Moog modular systems.

To introduce the new versions, Moog shared a new performance from synthesist Lisa Bella Donna, The Mothership II: Night Flight, embedded above. The performance features the new ‘Dark Series‘ Matriarch and Grandmother synthesizers, alongside Mother-32, DFAM, and Subharmonicon.

In addition to the new style options for the Matriarch and Grandmother, Moog today made several other announcements:

New Patches & Firmware Update

New exploratory patches are now available to download for Matriarch and Grandmother registered owners.

In addition, firmware v1.2.0 for Matriarch and v1.1.0 for Grandmother are now available for both versions of the instruments (original edition and Dark Series). The updates feature a new sync engine that keeps the internal arp/sequencer, analog clock, and MIDI all tightly locked in phase; a new easy method to reset global settings to defaults; a new Envelope Multi-Trig mode for Grandmother; and many other firmware enhancements, new features, and bug fixes based on customer feedback for both instruments.

Matriarch & Grandmother Protective SR Series Cases

Along with the new look for Matriarch and Grandmother, the company has introduced Moog SR Series Cases, which are now available to pre-order for both instruments. The cases feature padding around a semi-rigid ABS shell, water-resistant zippers, non-slip straps, and ample storage.

Moog SR Series Cases will begin shipping in October 2020.

See the Moog site for more info.

43 thoughts on “Moog Intros Dark Series Matriarch & Grandmother Synths With Classic Black Panels

  1. I know a lot of folks complained about the color when the Grandmother first came out, but I actually kinda like the original color scheme better. Granted, I’ve owned one for about a year and love everything about it. It’s cool that these are available though. Probably gonna jump on one of those soft cases for sure. Way to get it, Moog.

      1. I’m with you. The Black one is elegant but The color version remember me the beatiful woodstok 68 summer, jannis joplin, and the big brothers band! The young people who ask for a better world, john lenon, yoko, Hendrix! Against the system ! Love and Peace!!

  2. i prefer the flat back but the crazy colors arent too bad.. its more of a vintage look rather than some overdesigned hipster shit ………………….

  3. Gotta start by saying ‘Wow’ about Lisa Bella Donna’s musical demo. THAT is the way to make people drool over these synths.

    I didn’t like the GrandMother’s original colorful panel at first. It seemed pretty ‘out there’, even if it was echoing some classic 70’s synth designs. The colorful panels have grown on me, though. Credit to Moog for being willing to do something adventurous with both their synth design and styling.

    The black versions aren’t as adventurous, but I like the traditional look. Lisa Bella Donna’s ‘Mothership’ looks and sounds amazing!

      1. Right, so maybe someone spent a couple of days soldering up all those shift registers and lights, which seems a bit excessive, unless it is a permanent part of the studio, which would be a bit nutty. Or maybe Moog provided about 20 DFAMs, as BobToroid suggests, and which also seems excessive. Or maybe it’s just a green screen.

  4. I will never understand why the envelope’s fader controls sustain rather than decay or release. just doesn’t make any sense to me. anyone have insights?

      1. sure, but in terms of hands-on utility, sustain strikes me as the one least likely to be consistently and actively manipulated while playing, so i think it’s weird to give it a longer and more “tweakable” control than other parameters

        1. Try it, you might like it. I thought it was a nice touch personally. Giving four identical knobs when only three of them control time has always seemed quite strange.

        2. it’s super useful for that kind of pluck to sustained effect that happens in a lot of dance music, you can access both with one hand, fade up to a transition and quickly pull back down to a pluck sound, really thoughtful implementation.

  5. Lisa Bella Donna is a fantastic synthesist and keyboardist, and I’m so happy that she has become one of the “faces” of the company. To be perfectly honest, though, she’s done more exciting pieces (I know it’s mainly a gear demo) and I only really liked the very end of the piece (8:00 onwards).

    The synths themselves with the black makeover though – stunning.

  6. finally they fixed the midi cv issues, now granny and matriarch can act as madterkeyboards and do transitions from midi to cv and vice versa. this took way too long.

  7. The colors are not a vintage look as some have said. Moog never, ever had Fisher Price color blocks on its synths in the past and neither did any other tasteful design. It appealed to people who never left the Fisher Price aesthetic. And now the rest of us can buy the synth.

    1. You need to expand your design references. Both looks are good. It was great to see some different thinking in design for the originals. That’s what should be moving things forward……

    2. The previous comment about ‘vintage’ look was talking about the new black panels, not the original colorful ones.

      The original panel designs, though, do recall some of the more colorful vintage synth designs (Google ‘Moog Source’, ‘Arp Quadra’ or ‘Realistic MG-1’, or ‘Buchla red panel’). They’re using the color blocks to give the panel the look of a row of retro-styled Eurorack modules.

      The new panels will certainly make people with more conservative tastes happy.

  8. I don’t care what colors Moog uses for those stick on panel overlays as long as they stick, the ones on my Voyager starting popping off after only a year of home only use.

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