The Stunning Synth That Moog Did Not Want
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- This is the story of the Moog Sonic Six, an American synthesizer from 1972. While branded Moog, Bob Moog had little design involvement and was even opposed to it. Through a series of both unfortunate and fortunate events, Engineer Eugene Zumchak still did get to realize the Sonic Six. Though never as popular as the Minimoog and mostly used for education, this synthesizer is one of the few I dare to call "beast", and try to do my best to prove so in the sound examples. It has numerous outstanding features, which make it special even 50 years afters its creation.
Buy SYNTH GEMS 1 here: bjooks.com/affiliate/hainbach
SUPPORT THE CHANNEL & SOUNDPACKS: / hainbach
CHANNEL MEMBERSHIP: / @hainbach
MY MUSIC: hainbach.bandcamp.com
FASHION: teespring.com/de/stores/hainbach
CONNECT: / hainbach
MY SIGNATURE SOFTWARE:
GONG AMP www.audiothing.net/effects/go...
WIRES www.audiothing.net/effects/wi...
MORPHING ROTOR www.audiothing.net/effects/th...
TEST EQUIPMENT LIBRARY www.spitfireaudio.com/shop/a-...
LOOPER apps.apple.com/us/app/gauss-f...
BUY THE GEAR I USE (EU):
redir.love/thocf/n2lm9oo2ym
BUY THE GEAR I USE (US):
bit.ly/3nsnE9Q
BUY THE GEAR I USE (UK):
www.gear4music.com/blog/what-...
(affiliate links, I get a few % if you buy through them)
00:00 Unboxing
00:45 Sound Demos (lots)
07:30 What Makes It Special
11:46 Feedback Patching
12:59 External Processing
14:16 External Sequencing
14:54 Ladder Bass
15:34 Use In A Track
16:54 The Story Of The Un-Moog Moog
19:15 Internal Speaker
19:46 Opinion and Cost
20:55 Outro
Soundpacks of the Sonic Six + Music: patreon.com/hainbach
Order Synth Gems, the book I reference (affiliate link): bjooks.com/affiliate/hainbach
Stell dir vor wie sie dich einfach alle "HÄINBÄKH" nennen die kein Deutsch können 😂🤣😂🤣
Hainbach always has the comfiest looking jumpers.
Indeed! He should come up with his own clothing line ;)
His knitwear is particularly on point in this video.
He has another channel dedicated to vintage sweaters
I feel conflicted about these sweaters because of their obvious Cosby associations.
@@paulmayerpiano sometimes a sweater is just a sweater
Along with the sound, I think the design is phenomenal. The way it's built into a case and that blue colour scheme. It's a work of art
Agree. It combines function and form beautifully
@@Hainbach But how backbreaking is it to carry it like a suitcase? XD
@@robertsyrett1992 Less back-breaking than a Rhodes, Hammond & Leslie, Farfisa, or even, I’d wager, an ARP.
It is faily heavy - I can lug it for two blocks that is it.
I would like to thank you so much for the quote from my book SYNTH GEMS 1. I am glad that I could help to educate your audience about this contentious and often misunderstood, but wonderfully unique, synthesizer. The section of SYNTH GEMS 1 on the Sonic Six has detailed photos of the synth's layout, some interesting trivia (on some units, the front panel schematic didn't match the internal signal routing!), and also a direct comparison with the similar and even rarer Sonic V, which we also photographed for the book. Best wishes from all of us at Bjooks!
Thank you for making this book! It is so informed and beautiful, true joy.
This book is a gem too...
I bought your book for a friend who's a fellow synth geek and had to read it before I gave it to him. Such a beautiful thing!
It sounds like a synth slowly dying - but in the best of ways. It's so gnarly and gritty. I love it!
Actually, rather coarse than wild? Is it pulsed? I appreate the bundled knowledge and experience on this channel, might get back on this.
Beautiful video, thank you. I was feeling sad that the Sonic VI I borrowed never fired up and was given a fatal diagnosis, but this answered many questions I had about its sound and architecture. I suspected odd rhythms were possible from the two LFOs and they are!
It's an interesting quirk that Gene Zumchak (aka "Zummy") left Moog only to wind up working there again by happenstance, and so left again!
Also, there are Moog branded Sonic Vs too, so some of those must have carried over from the take over.
Another mystery is the design of a duophonic analogue keyboard. ARP patented it for the Odyssey and later 2600s, but it existed on the MuSonics synths and the EML synths too.
When I asked Dave Friend of ARP about it, he couldn't recall who discovered it, but remembered kicking himself that it had been staring them in the face the whole time. So that's another interesting one, who actually figured that out?
Oh that is intriguing! I would never thought a duophonic keyboard to be special until I played the Sonic Six and realized from when it came and what it allows.
@@Hainbach Yes, it allows for great shenanigans on triple oscillator synths like the 2600 and System 700 main cab as you can tune two oscillators to a fifth and then play the third oscillator separately for some quirky triads. Works great if you slap it in the spring reverb.
The only down side is that the Odyssey is always duophonic and you sometimes get odd behaviour if your playing overlaps by a tiny amount. Or it can jump to a voltage in between the two, which can be serendipitous, but more often than not leads to a bum note that you didn't play!
@@AlexBallMusic why are you not President of the World?
Not only that, the Sonic VI was the first Moog synth with an ashtray built into the keyboard.
@@T.H.W.O.T.H 😂
My first synth was the predecessor of this one: The Sonic V by Musonics. It was nearly identical in every way except that it had an "Art Deco" walnut cabinet instead of the folding cabinet of the Sonic VI. It was an amazing instrument and the perfect synth to cut one's teeth on. I have a whole bunch of synths today, but I kind of miss the Sonic V. It will always have a special place in my heart.
One of my bandmates back in the early 80's had one. It was thunderous through a PA system! Nice portability with the case built in.
I had a chance to play with it at home and tried creating a multitrack by bouncing between two cassette recorders. It worked, but of course the noise kept multiplying. Nobody thought that was desirable back then. Come to think of it, there was a certain "Hainbach" vibe to it!
2:35 The control panel, with a flat clean blue background, framed by the casing around it, makes it look like a wide screen monitor that you can 'reach into'.
Aesthetically delightful, to the eyes and the ears. Thanks!
Nice demonstration!
As much as I love the sound of these I have to say these were the worst built moog synths, circuit boards are held in with clips and components all face the interface panel so makes them tough to service. Most of the units I have had through my shop struggle with circuit board contamination causing internal shorts between tracings or calibration failures.
What is really cool is this is the only moog synth I know of to use a fully discrete ladder filter like the minimoog, (no 3046 transistor array chips for upper/lower sections of the filter).
This was a repackaged Musonics Sonic 5 but since Musonics bought moog out, they had the rights to the transistor ladder filter where as the earlier sonic 5 had a diode ladder filter.
Ugh, calibrating these things.... lol
@@daphnelightner6531 I especially love the part in the calibration about temp adjust on the exponential current converter, lol
we had 2 sonic six's in university back in 75. really fun to see this again! cheers
When you talked about it being well suited to, Bob, taking it around to teach synthesis, you forgot to mention the generous tray for the students' crayons. 🤣
That’s a really nice one. The design and layout looks great, and it’s more versatile than I would have thought. Well, the creativity of the player is the important part. Yours, as so often proved!
Wow that sounds gritty and deep in the most nice of ways. Behringher should be remaking this kind of weird synths instead of the classics everybody knows and have heard before.
Nice job as always!
HAINBACH, I'm a guitar player. However I find your videos fascinating, thanks for finding all the crazy stuff you do!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is incredible. Thank you for this. I've wanted one of these since the mid 90s. I've had a few Minimoogs and the Source, etc. This is one I never got my hands on. Enjoy it.
Really, really nice. I remember seeing this in a video by the Moog Foundation at NAMM a few years ago. Duophonic synths need more exposure. You really pushed it to its limits, and it sounded great.
I'm really impressed at the microtonal textures you found in it - that seems really unique to my limited experience/understanding of vintage synths. Very cool!
i am deeply impressed by the great variety of sounds you've created with this machine of a synth! love it
I've always loved the way these looked! Sounds so unique. Happy for you.
Excellent video! I was lucky enough to spend some quality time with the Sonic 6 many years ago and really liked it. It was a brilliant design for educational purposes. Your demo brought back good memories!
The funniest part is that "What makes it special" caption after six minutes of majestic sound demos
Enjoyed the video a lot, as always.
Something I found particularly interesting is how much it reminds me of the tone and quality of the grandmother.
Both beautiful instruments, if you enjoy the sound of the Sonic Six, she is highly recommended.
Much love.
been following this channel for some years now, nice to see someone who shares all those rarities never tired of it my man, go little rockstar
I love your Black & White striped sweater when you used it in a song! Great pattern!
Also great video, have a good day Hainbach!
We had one of these in my high school and I used to sign it out on the weekends to bring home and play around with...
One of my eternal regrets: missed buying one sometimes in 76, so polarized I was then on the model D... (missed a IIP the following year... ) Lucky me, at least I fared much better with Korg and Roland...
I overlooked so many excellent synths in my younger days by being obsessed with high-end synths instead of looking at what I could afford!
Beautiful synth and plenty of creativity. Keep up the great work!
Great video, thank you. I have a Sonic Six with a label inside dated 1974. I bought it in the 1980s. I love it and use it often. I spent 3 hours today recording with it. It's always fun.
All Moog synths remind me of Boards Of Canada; Futuristic Nostalgia.
You have to try the Crumar DS-2, that gives that in spades at a fraction of a vintage Moog.
@@Hainbach the Crumar DS-2 is on my list to own, they crop up now and again around 2000EUR-ish and the demo with Riccardo Pietroni in your Marche Region video is haunting, wonderful tones - I keep going back for that and the CRB Computer Band (looks like you really enjoyed that)
I have the crumar and can confirm that is very true!
Great catch!!! Sounds amazing!
Thank you Hainbach for another excellent video! A little added info on the Sonic Six - it received an update at some point during its life. The original Zumchak diode ladder filter was replaced by a Moog filter. This first version is distinguishable from the later by a couple of changes to the case; grey plastic versus the later black, and fewer slots in the keyboard panel (probably added to make it more rigid/stable). I used to own one from the first generation, and the filter was decidedly different from a Moog filter. More akin to a Roland System-100 filter I would say. In any form, the Sonic Six is a lovely example of an early "off the wall" synthesizer design in the same way as the SH-5 or DV800. Later instruments usually have a less wild and more «conform» architecture.
Wow the sonic textures! I didn’t know that this existed. Controlling the oscillators separately is truly a charm. And the look on your face like a young child opening a well anticipated treat on Christmas? Priceless! So retro.
Sound pack? Wow! Thanks!
You know I replayed that intro for those immaculate vibes.
@5:20 & the outro great sound's. I'll have to look for the patreon soundpack once I have some appropriate equipment. Thanks again
Amazing! You can get a lot of this kind of sound out of a Sub/Subsequent 37. The synced duophonic behavior is something that works well today.
I really like your sweater!
Some of the sounds you're getting out of that remind me of my old Korg consumer keyboard. I can't remember the model. But it has a little 'synthesis' section on it that was fun to adjust rhythmically while playing. It made some pretty great noisy sounds.
Excellent video on one of the lesser known classic moogs! Famously used in Bill Holt's Dreamies album, which is an excellent dive into what someone with a passion to make an album can do with a tape drive, a synth, a guitar and a crate of records.
Oh gosh that FILTER. Every time you show off a vintage synth I end up saying "I NEED IT" but this is the first time I felt that way about a specific component of a prepatched synth
Thanks for this! The first synth I ever played! I took an electronic music class in high school and the instructor had a brand new Sonic Six for us to use in the lab. I probably still have my patch notes in the basement somewhere :)
I love how coarse and chunky the sound is 👍
Its like a big fat meat pie !
Thank you so much for sharing it with us 😆
Great demo, with a great musical use of this rare instrument. I would have been curious to hear OSC2 alone at 8:50, the FM sounds quite weird to my ears, but I'm not sure it doesn't come from the overloading of the output. Anyway, thanks again for this great video !
Sounds massive!! Awesome video as usual ❤
Amazing. I own Sub 37 and Matriarch, but now you got me craving the Sonic Six. Wild ass filter! Thanks dear friend. Your videos (and music) are so interesting!
The synthesizer world is so lucky to have you Hainbach. Thankyou.
My dad had one of these. All I remember is that it looked like a suitcase and when you open it, it had a keyboard and the knobs of the top part. It was the 70s and synth was the new craze and it sounded futuristic !
Thank you for showing us another great sweater!!! (The synth is nice too, of course.)
I think we had one at our school. Sadly, I don't think we were given much time to play. Still, it was a wonderful memory. Thanks for reminding me of that.
This one have a beautiful French fried tray on top of the keyboard!
wow! thanks, ha! from back in the days when bob m. was my next-door neighbor --- out in the country, where our houses were approx. 1.5k from each other, lol.
I didn’t think that there was a moog that I’d never seen. Great synth. Great sweater. Great video
I love the "livery" of the front panel - the "look" of the font, the block colors, etc. It looks VERY Kubrick / 2001: A Space Odyssey or maybe early "IBM mainframe" in appearance. So cool to see rare / oddities like these. The keyboard "deck" reminds me of the dashboard from something like a Pontiac Catalina or AMC Pacer LOL! I feel like this thing should also have a pop-out cigarette lighter over on the right side or something. Thanks for sharing - it's super cool! :)
It has a very late 60s/1970s graphic design to it, which is a cool aesthetic.
I would’ve liked to seen some fast zoom-in shots on the text.
I need to upgrade my camera equipment to do fast zooms. But that would mean less money for synths. A conundrum!
Worked in a studio that had one of these. Was an absolute joy to play with - it was pure chaos.
Living in modern times, looking at pictures of this synth I never realised it was this big, haha. But thanks for the detailed tour, lovely device!
Great Video. Respect! How did you connect the Sequencer? Neither my Arp 1601, nor my SQ 10 are willing to sequence the sonic....
Mine has ins, don't know if was modified.
Mine has no cv/gate. There is an "accessory"plug, that should be connected to the seq-gate. But i dont have the adapter. How did you connect the seq gate out to sonic?? And the Seq cv out to sonic??
when i visited moog shop last time, there was one of these right down the street, at Heyday music store. it wasn't powered up but it had a wicked look to it and i wondered why it wasn't in the museum downtown.
4:30 that is such a good sound plz tell me that patch
We had one of those in my college. I am sure I was the only one who ever checked it out. I hope they still have it. That was 20 years ago. Amazing and fun.
When I saw the first ad for this synth back then I thought: “Wow, that looks very slim and portable!“ 😆
I really like your “odd“ sounds; they still sound like a Moog (or maybe an ARP).
It is soooo heavy. Definitely not something I could lug around for more than two blocks.
I love the control panel design. It looks like it was made on purpose for educational situations.
Hast du irgendwie einen Overdrive oder Saturator hinter das Signal geschaltet? Oder hat das Teil von Natur aus so einen "saturated", ja fast schon "overdrive"-artigen Sound?
Direkt ins Interface, alles nur Sonic Six. Der letzte cm auf dem ausgangsverstärker macht die zerre.
Curious about the feedback patching, could you do that with any synth ? Would it work as long as it has an ext in ? (Wondering if it could harm some machine before I try it on the Minilogue and grandmother)
Great synth and great video as always thought 😊
Yes, works on anything! Never heard of an analog that did not like it.
My high school music department had a Sonic Six in the early 1970s that students could sign out to take home!
15:40 , Amazing per usual Hainbach! Thank you
Amazing video, hearing the very beginnings of sample hold, fm, etc…. Does it have oscillator sync?
No OSC sync sadly.
One of my first memories is of this synth! My dad is a music teacher and dug one out of a closet in the 90's and brought it home to try. I remember making some wild helicopter sounds before it went 'pop' and stopped working and I got in trouble. Never knew what it was until today!
Love the bass/drum combo you got at 14:15 - that's a track right there...
That's pretty neat it just carries around in it's own little suit case
Interesting synth that hides a lot of features behind its minimalist face and features that would do well to be put into modern synths. For what it is missing, in common functions, it certainly makes up for.
we dream of wires. . . you wear them. Great demo, great synth, great jumper.
Where did you get that jumper?
Man, those sounds are 'nasty'.
I mean that as the highest compliment possible.
Gritty and jarring; I love this.
Thx! Yeah that was the side of the synth was underrepresented in all demos, so I explored it. Plus its where I live anyway :-)
Where do you get your sweaters?
Hey Hainbach, thank you for unique video, could you provide me more details about the patch around 1:16 timemark. It sounds great I would love to do something similar with modular.
that is based around the ring modulator, which is run both through the filter and then back clean again. But basically take two osc, run them to a ring, find a good ratio, split to a modulated filter with high resonance (2 LFO at least for modulation) and run the ring mod sound in parallel past the filter to output mixer.
@@Hainbach thank you, I will try this :)
I had one of these in High School and learned synth on it. It's great for random noises, but the pitch stability is terrible, so it's marginal for any kind of regular music. This also makes the duophonic capability relatively useless for chords. The biggest flaw is the single AR envelope, which is shared by the filter and VCA. This makes it very difficult to produce any kind of complex sound, like a convincing brass. If you're into atonal, esoteric noises, than this is great--the Moog equivalent of a VCS3. The two LFOs let you set up complex patterns, including a fairly convincing Sample and Hold emulation. The Ring Mod does clangorous noises and even "robot" vocoder emulations from the Extermal Input. There are lots of unusual routings, such as envelope to LFO rate. And the "Direct Output" section lets you do unfiltered drones with the turn of a knob.
The overall sound isn't nearly as fat as a MiniMoog, and the pitch problems make it a poor choice for conventional leads and basses. But if you want weird noises that a Mini can't make, than it's an interesting avant-garde choice. On the plus side, it's very portable, and the built-in speaker lets you demo and play it anywhere.
It brings back a lot of memories for me, but I don't miss it. It's not terribly useful for most musicians.
Hmm. I'm sitting here and listening to the sounds Hainbach is generating and thinking about a million different ways I could use this in a musical context.
Maybe the better description would be that it wasn't the instrument for you?
I think it's super fat sounding, has bass deeper than the Mariana Trench and the leads scream at you like an electric guitar. I'm listening on studio monitors too. It kind of reminds me of the MS-20 in a way in terms of its vulgarity.
If you're looking for that traditional Moog sound, I agree that this synth isn't it. This is much more gritty and distorted sounding.
@@JayKaufman Again, you have to realize that playing regular music on it has issues. The overall pitch drifts. More problematic, the oscillator scaling isn't perfect, so the oscillators will be in tune in the middle and wildly beating at the ends of the keyboard. It's just not a great instrument for conventional playing. I admit that I would have preferred a polysynth back then, but even as a mono lead synth, it isn't ideal. Of course, I still had a lot of fun with it, and if you find one at a good price, than you'll probably enjoy it too. But a Behrenger Model D or Poly D would be a better choice for lead or bass playing.
@@geoffk777 I think you and I are approaching this from different views.
The quirks of it are what make it enjoyable for me. I have plenty of things in my studio that struggle with tuning, but that adds to their charm.
Heck, Rhodes are infamous for drifting out of tune and they're a mainstay in how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of tunes?
Besides, what is 'conventional music' really? Just because it didn't work for your style of playing and the music you play or like to play, doesn't mean it doesn't work for people like myself or Hainbach.
I think you're being a tad uppity here. You prefer the MiniMoog (which also has its own tuning issues) - and that's totally fine. I own the Behringer Model D and enjoy it, but I would love to have one of these much more because the sound is that much more unique to my ears.
I tend to love instruments that are quirky and stand out instead of fitting in. :)
One of your best sweaters yet.
Very Cool, thanks for this. I wish I never sold my old synths. Yamaha CS15, TX81z, TX16w, DX100, G10 and G10c, Roland Juno 106, JX3P and SH 101, MOOG Rogue, Realistic Concertmate MG-1, Ensoniq ESQ1 and the list goes on.
Being the 70s I assume the space above the keyboard was for an ashtray.
What an amazing and electric sound. I don't know how to explain it, but how can I make my modular moog clone sound like it has electricity going through it like this one?
when you push this it sounds like a death grips machine, what a cool synth
Played in a late-70s Danish punk band where the keyboard player picked one of these up from New York….. very aggressive synth!
Welcome to the club! I bought mine in 1979 for 100 bucks. Still going strong. It will track midi with a Hz Volt midi CV interface like a Kenton.
Looking to part with it?
@@Hackified No, this one has been with me too long. I still use it once in a while and it has a lot of nostalgic value.
Sounds great. Always loved the look of this over any Moog.
It sounds phenomenal - very haunting.
So sweet to see your daughter rocking out on the Sonic! No fart sounds! 😻
I've owned a Sonic 6 since around 1978 and it's on a lot of my early album releases. More recently since it needs tuning up I've used it for abstract sounds and even recorded some of those to play back from samplers. The oscillator and filter sound are both weaker than other Moogs, and duophonic (paraphonic) playing never sounds very strong, but I made a useful mod for pulse width modulation which thickens the sound up a lot. And the dual LFO with speed controllable from envelopes, plus ring modulator, makes it an endless source of abstract noises. I wouldn't part with mine - its most recent appearance was on my CD "Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells for the Moog Synthesizer" which is on Amazon UK.
I just recorded my new LP on a Moog Musonics, fantastic machine.
I absolutely love this synth, it sounds just like I want to hear a synth sound in my mind..
Yeah it has a such a "synth" sound, real proper.
Wow those sounds at 4:25 or so are reminiscent of the Meng Qi Wing Pinger... Love it!
Recording this via Cubase into HALion as I type, thank you very much. That thang is phatter than a frying pan of bacon!!! :D
Also a patreon now, but I wanted to chop my own noises. I'll check the pack later.
The 606 section was giving me Throbbing Gristle and other 70s/80s Industrial vibes.
HAINBACH, YOUR DAUGHTER IS VERY LUCKY TO HAVE THE POSSIBILITIES TO CHOOSE WHICH WILL BE HER FUTURE LIKE MUSICIAN, YOU'VE GIVEN HER TOO MANY OPTIONS ABOUT EVERY KIND OF MUSIC SHE WOULD PLAY IN THE FUTURE, AND I AM SURE THAT SHE WILL BE A VERY NICE MUSICIAN, I HOPE FOR HER LIKE I THINK THAT HOPE YOU TOO.... THX AGAIN
Ha, the keyboard player in the band I was in in '76 bought a Sonic Six because he couldn't swing the cost of a Mini-Moog. I think we called it the McMoog because of it's case. He could get the sounds he needed for our "top 40 with progressive conceits" cover band, but I remember that the thing struggled to stay in tune during the first sets of the night. It's fun to see this video that brought back a flood of pleasant memories. Edit: One of the other keyboards that we hauled around in that band was a Hammond Model "A" in it's beautifully maintained original wood cabinet. No roadies.
Wow. This thing has a big bite! I first heard this video through my phone. My ears were like "WTF". Just got home to see the video again and hook it up to my system and my house was buzzy. Uh oh, Uli is about to remake this one in the future.
Thank you for sharing ❤
Hainbach, what on earth is the Digitimer 4030 doing with your setup??
Thank you for the beautiful video! Your work brings me and many others so much joy. At 18:49 when you say "I can hardly recommend it" you mean to say "I can hardly recommend it ENOUGH". Otherwise it sounds like you disapprove of the book. No disrespect meant; you're as eloquent in your second language as I am in my first.
H e a r t i l y. I have been mumbling this since I started this channel.
Already super wild from 1:17 hahaha. Nice find !
quite a rough and heavy sound, but so evocative
some of these sounds remind me of sounds from early game consoles in the best way possible. what a beast of a machine!
2:36 oh my god. This thing is incredible.