[…] There is something about the sound of a Moog synthesizer. There are plenty of synths out there that do an admirable job of emulating the iconic sound of a Moog bass, but they can never quite stand toe-to-toe with the real deal.
I was reminded of this multiple times during my testing. I played the Moog Muse side by side with a number of different instruments, ranging from the Korg Monologue and Minilogue XD to the Novation BassStation II and the Arturia Polybrute 12. There is just something about the sound of a Moog oscillator and its iconic ladder filter that feels bigger and warmer than almost anything I’ve ever played.
Part of that is due to the particular characteristics of the oscillators here, which are based on the
Minimoog Voyager. They are not just analog, but aggressively so; where other modern analog polysynths do everything in their power to stay perfectly in tune, treating natural analog drift as something to be dialed in to taste, the Muse leans into its natural imperfections, giving it a lot of character and body.
It’s easy, with eight voices at your disposal, to assume you should be using the Muse to play chords and pads, but don’t ignore the bass on this thing. It is massive, putting basically every other polysynth I’ve played to shame. It’s especially absurd when you stack all eight voices in unison mode. This thing may be built with pads and key sounds in mind, but it’s every bit a beast on bass and leads as you’d expect a Moog to be.
Of course, you have plenty of other, cheaper options for beefy mono synths. To justify the price the Muse has to deliver on more complicated and wide-ranging sounds. Thankfully it excels at epic pads, cinematic strings, and plucky keys as well.
The sound-shaping options here are pretty robust. The dedicated mod oscillator can control pitch, the filter, or pulse width, or even be turned into a third audio rate oscillator. Its tuning isn’t quite as stable as the main oscillators though, which makes it great for getting queasy and dissonant.
There are also ring mod and FM (frequency modulation) circuits for turning that analog warmth into clanging and metallic bells and plucks and an overload circuit for adding even more grit. Plus, there are three LFOs and two envelopes, and all of these can be connected through the 16-slot modulation matrix to create complex sounds ranging from chaotic EDM bass to long-evolving soundscapes.
All of this and it is a bi-timbral synth, which means it can load two patches simultaneously. They can either be split, say a bass in the bottom two octaves and a lead in the upper registers, or stacked so you can layer a pluck and a pad on top of each other. The big restriction here is that, with only eight voices to work with, voice stealing becomes a serious issue in bi-timbral mode. […]