In the uk, due to the strength of the pound, the voyager comes in at 1800 pounds from one sole distributor. The phatty at 749 ( or 700 if you know someone in the dealership). Now ive been told by a little bird that here, this will hit the streets at 1500 pounds. Thats o.t.t. AND A no-brainer in terms of choice for many people int he market for moog gear.

Ive owned TWO voyagers – the keyboard and the RME, and sold both for more or less what i paid for them cause id used them to the hilt in soundtrack work. Not only that, but in my humble opinion, my roland system 100 can wipe the the floor with it in terms of sound creativity and scope. However, i think the price point is too close to the “full fat” voyager” to merit popularity in the same scale.

The whole ethos of moog, is liek someone else stated here…they are boutique like instruments, but much sought after for that brand “halo effect”. I was even fortunate enough to own a model d in the 1990’s, which if
my memory serves me correctly, is far more powerful in terms of sonic power, due to its trully inherant analog nature. Bob said it himself years back, that even the “new minimoog” will not be able to replicate “that” sound, due to the stability of new technology and so on.

My jaw will only really drop as and when moog unleash their (Whisper it) poly synth, which is apparently supposed to be a polyphonic little phatty?!

As long as compromises keep being made somewhere along the line, the market for second hand mini’s, memorymoogs and EVEN voyagers (there’s shedloads of them on ebay at any given moment), will always be alive.

Pity…i remember a memorymoog destroying a set of monitors AND the channel strip in a studio, before bursting into flames internally, many moons ago. And all because of one button which switched it into UNISON MODE..

Its not paying thru the nose to artificially limit; its paying for a BETTER SOUND when it comes to moog.
AND the enhancement to creativity will be creating your own sounds and not becoming complacent with trendy presets or being thrown-off by them.

‘make do with what they can get..’ -er, hunting till kingdom-come in flea markets for acceptable (lets be real) instruments is as artificial as saving for a synth with LIMITED, YET INSPIRING functions.

Do you think Brian Eno was saying dont spend money? No, he said limits are good for creativity, period.

( remove the log from your eye first..)

you also need second-nature subtractive skills for this. -something that presets dont help to cultivate. – I personally wish the technology hadn’t gone so far and i wish it would slow down. that way, maybe music would be as consistently good as it was up to the 70s and i wouldnt waste as much money on music with NO shelf life.