[A6] Moog Filter use

[mellot at aol.com]

 Here's an interesting viewpoint, something I've found from doing synthesis and mixing tracks for over 20 years: Maximum bass (even on bass tracks) is rarely desirable. Maybe it's time to start thinking about many sounds interacting. Usually, you have a kick drum with some subsonics. Sometimes you even have string, pad, or lead sounds with subsonics. When doing Moog Cokbook, we found many of the coolest bass tones were THINNER - they use one oscillator, not two or three. They were tight and midrangey. When mixing, I often find that bass tracks (or anything with lots of low end) quickly muddies up the mix - especially if you are using 3 or more LowPass Filter synth sounds. 
 
If you study classic records (Led Zeppelin, Motown, etc) that are known for "good bass", you will see that the bass size is often an illusion, made by strong harmonic content in the lower bass regions. What I mean is that - you can filter out, lose, attenuate things below 100Hz and still have a strong and powerful bass part. 
 
Yes, the Moog filter loses some low end - you also have the UNfiltered osc. inputs on the mixer, and the OB-style filter to add under the Moog - so why worry? Add it back in there if you need it. To get "the Moog sound" - you use that filter as it is. I find all the ones that don't lose bass don't have the power of the resonant Moog filter. Don't forget - the resonance can also ADD subsonic lows in, depending on how the filter is tuned...
 
BrianK
 
-----Original Message-----
From: wasubot <wasubot at gmail.com>
To: cgould11 at tampabay.rr.com <cgould11 at tampabay.rr.com>
CC: a6 at code404.com
Sent: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 00:22:54 +1000
Subject: Re: [A6] Moog Filter use


If you read through the A6 FAQ and such it explains about 24 db in great 
detail, from what i understand it is a design issue as mentioned below and 
the a6 filter works the same as the original moog one. It can be worked 
around (like roland did) but at the expense of loosing that famous moog 
resonance sound. Seems like you can either/or but not both, it stated it was 
impossible to have both from an engineering perspective. 
 
Wasubot. 
 
On 6/20/06, cgould11 at tampabay.rr.com <cgould11 at tampabay.rr.com> wrote: 
> 
> > Using the 24 db slope filter a lot got me thinking about the whole 
> > resonancebass loss thing. I like the filter, I like it a lot 
> > actually, but I somewhat fail to see the benefit of the bass loss. 
> > Having used other filters that somehow must compensate for this 
> > because resonance doesn't drop the bass or the volume, I wonder 
> > if anyone actually prefers the Bass drop, and if so why? I can 
> > understand that it can be used for a pseudo band pass response, 
> > but is there anything else? 
> 
> If you sweep the resonance with an envelope, you might be able to 
> get a good snap at the beginning of a bass sound. Apart from that, 
> I can't see great use for it. 
> 
> But I understand that this is pretty typical for how resonance 
> works by default: it's supposed to emphasize frequencies around the 
> cutoff, after all. In some designs, when you emphasize higher 
> frequencies, the bass decreases noticeably, and the Moog is one of 
> those designs. I guess other filters like the Roland ones, and the 
> OBX, work around this design issue somehow, as the decrease is less 
> noticeable. 
> 
> Basically, when you program bass using Moog filters, you tend to 
> keep bass at a minimum. On the A6, you could compensate by using 
> either the direct sine outputs or the 12dB output. 
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