The title Moog is mainly synonymous with bass. The corporate has pumped out numerous synths through the years from the long-lasting Minimoog Model D, to foot-operated Taurus, to the modern-classic Sub Phatty that ship unbelievable low-end. Now its plumbing these depths even additional, however in plug-in kind, with the Mariana, which clearly will get its title from the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth.
The structure of Mariana is completely different from virtually every other Moog on the market, in bodily or digital kind. It's a dual-layer synth, with each layers characteristic two oscillators and a sub oscillator for some critically thick tones. Every layer additionally has two filters, a low-pass and a high-pass, plus a dedicate filter only for the sub. Along with these core sound-sculpting instruments, there's three LFOs, three envelops and two random turbines per layer, plus a saturation circuit, a compressor, refrain and delay results.
When mixed with the highly effective modulation system that permits you to management virtually any a part of the synth with every other half you get an extremely wealthy and sophisticated instrument — particularly contemplating the value. Mariana is $30 on iOS or $99 for Home windows or macOS, although it's 50-percent off as a part of an introductory supply ($15 and $49, respectively).
Mariana does stay as much as its title. I received to play with it for a few days and, boy howdy, is it bassy. It stacks up fairly properly in opposition to different bass-focused digital synths and Moog emulations from different firms. It could actually supply sufficient sub bass to actually rattle your cranium, with out getting tremendous muddy. Clearly that may fluctuate a bit from patch to patch, however for essentially the most half the sound engine delivers on its promise.
Whereas many of the roughly 200 presets are targeted on bass, there are a handful that discover different sonic territory. There are some significantly strong plucky leads that hit with all of the oomph of the bassier patches, they simply shine within the larger registers. Some presets showoff the wilder facet of Mariana that may benefit from the strong modulation options to spit out some wild-sounding results and decidedly un-Moog-like tones.
Mariana additionally has MPE assist. Whereas it's a pleasant characteristic, it's additionally of restricted use right here. Whilst you can change it to duophonic mode and play the 2 synth layers independently, it's primarily a monophonic instrument. And whereas having the ability to carry out slides just by operating my finger over the Push or Seaboard is good, it doesn't actually benefit from the polyphonic a part of MIDI Polyphonic Expression.
What Mariana does lack, is a sequencer, arpeggiator or a deep record of results. That's not essentially a nasty factor, although. Likelihood is, for those who're utilizing it in a DAW as a VST you then've received loads of choices for these issues. So, whereas a variety of different plugin makers are loading up their digital devices with all kinds of options, Moog stayed targeted on the synth itself.
It's not with out its quirks, nonetheless. Whereas the interface is straightforward to navigate when you've gotten used to it, I'm nonetheless not an enormous fan of skeuomorphic designs normally. And whereas I'm keen to chop Moog some slack on that entrance because it's attempting to take care of a constant aesthetic that capitalizes on its lengthy legacy of analog synths, there are some barely questionable decisions. For one, the 2 separate slide out panels on both facet for modulation controls appear to be they might simply be mixed. And the buttons to reveal them are separated from the remainder of the synth's controls — a devoted tab inside the primary UI alongside the synth and mixer sections would in all probability make extra sense.
It's additionally nigh unimaginable to learn a knob's place by default. The tiny dot that signifies what a parameter is about to all however disappears on smaller pocket book screens (and I can't even think about how exhausting it might be to make out on a telephone). There’s an choice known as "knob position highlight" within the settings that extends a line from the middle of the knob that's a lot simpler to see. However I encountered a bug the place, each time I'd reduce the window for Mariana in my DAW the strains would disappear. I'd have to return into the settings to disable, then reenable it to make them pop again up. Apart from, that ought to in all probability be on by default.
Lastly, it's price mentioning that Mariana is an absolute useful resource hog. Admittedly my studio laptop computer — a roughly five-year-old Dell XPS with an eighth gen Core i7 —isn't precisely prime of the road anymore, however I by no means noticed my CPU utilization dip under 50 % in Ableton whereas Mariana was loaded, and it routinely spiked to round 80 % whereas truly enjoying, resulting in plenty of audio artifacts. For comparability I can typically load six or seven situations of Arturia's Pigments or Analog Lab V with out even crossing the 25 % threshhold. And it's solely with all of these truly enjoying that I climb above 50 %.
Nonetheless, Mariana sounds nice. And there's a variety of energy underneath the hood. If Moog can get its useful resource utilization underneath management in a future replace it might be properly well worth the value.
This text initially appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/moog-mariana-is-a-virtual-synth-all-about-plumbing-the-depths-of-bass-151914123.html?src=rss
