The moog werkstatt is an analog semi-modular desktop synthesizer created as an educational tool and presented in 2014 during Moogfest as a limited edition non-soldering Kit.
Following the educational principle, I decided to recreate this fun, versatile and good sounding synth during a very nice and intense Puredata workshop in La Paz (Bolivia).
It took me one morning to make it "from the scratch" while my pupils were copying it and understanding how it works and also getting slowly into the rules and also the many different ways of programming with puredata.
While we were "assembling" it, I was giving them ideas about possible "hacks" and improvements such the possibility of having both Square and tri waves working at the same time in the oscillator(s), adding a suboscillator, adding more wavefors, adding a wavetable oscillator, making this synth polifonic, distorting a bit the filter like in the original minimoog, etc..
What I share here is a nice and still unhacked set of screenshots that will allow anyone familiar with the very basics of puredata to recreate this nice synth.
In future workshops, we will clone another synthesizers, and we will get and hack the patches of synths that had been done before.
hear the clone here: https://soundcloud.com/servando/droon
and https://soundcloud.com/servando-barreiro/mooguish
Gui:
This graphic interface have been done entirely in puredata. the only ¨extended ¨ object is [knob]
And the only thing you have to know about the interface is that all the knobs are scaled from 0 to 1. All the ¨radio¨ switches output 0 or 1. Puredata allows always more combinations (0 and 1 for instance.. which would enable extra features which the original moog can´t do )
Main Patch:
This is the main patch, just the oscillators, the lfo and the filter are encapsulated in subpatches (showed below), for aesthetical, and practical reasons.
Attack and decay times (on top of ead~) as well as maximum glide time, are a personal choice, feel free to modify..
Pulse oscillator:
the blosc~ oscillators (band limited) are awesome, simple and "ready to use". most of the extra objects here make the function of managing the pwm options. (pulse width modulation).
sawtooth oscillator:
Phasor~ it's a multi purpose ramp oscillator in pd, correcting it's Dc offset can be used to produce sound.
I definitely don't recommend to use a phasor oscillator connected to a dac~ without the [-~ 0.5] object underneath it.. you could f%ck some speakers with it..
Lfo:
no much to say here... Suggested hacks are to add more waves, like sine and random and also add Lfo depth control.
Low pass filter:
clean minimal implementation of the moog~ external, created by Gunter Geiger, there are other options, I definitely haven't tried all (or even half of em...)
It sounds quite good and unlike other nice sounding filters I have tried, here it's possible to modulate the filter frequency parameter at audio rate.