Moog’s Messenger has so much to show, standing beside legendary monosynths such because the Minimoog Mannequin D, Voyager, and Subsequent 37. Expectations on a Moog instrument like this may at all times be sky excessive.
However its arrival is notable for an additional motive: that is the primary synth Moog has developed, begin to end, since being acquired by music tech conglomerate InMusic in 2023. Since then, there was no scarcity of on-line handwringing and doomsaying about what would possibly develop into of the beloved American instrument maker. Now the outcomes are in, and we will all breathe a sigh of reduction as a result of the Messenger delivers.
“This seems like a watershed second for the model,” Joe Richardson, president of Moog Music and chief industrial officer at InMusic, tells MusicTech. “But it surely’s additionally been an anchor second. We’re doubling down on what Moog stands for, and never deviating from it.”
The Messenger boasts a basic sound palette, however its near-compact type issue additionally gambles on a bunch of new-gen options that we’ve by no means seen in a Moog earlier than. Steering this high-stakes launch was the corporate’s Director of Keyboard Product Improvement, Erik Norlander, a veteran designer whose contributions to synthesis embody IK Multimedia’s glorious UNO Synth line and the influential Alesis Andromeda.
Norlander says the crew’s imaginative and prescient for the Messenger was “a compact analogue synthesiser that has all of the mojo of Moog’s wonderful previous, together with some cutting-edge new options for the current”. “And we needed to place all this in an accessible package deal that’s inside attain for all musicians,” he provides.
Analogue & Accessible
At £725 ($799), the Messenger truly is a viable buy for common music-makers – one thing that hasn’t actually been true of Moog’s product lineup lately. “This can be a house that Moog had not performed in for a very long time,” Norlander concedes. “Having a sub-$1,000 synthesizer… You’d have to return to the 80s for this type of a product; the Rogue and Prodigy, these types of devices.”
Fortunately, this value discount has not resulted in lacklustre construct high quality – one thing that Moog-watchers have been notably anxious about for the reason that firm introduced its manufacturing would transfer from its North Carolina HQ to Taiwan. “For it to be a Moog, in my ebook, it’s obtained to have superb sound high quality and construct high quality,” Richardson says. “That might have been straightforward to desert; it could have been simpler to make a less expensive instrument, however we didn’t try this.”
“We needed this to be a visceral, hands-on expertise” – Erik Norlander
Accessibility can be entrance and centre within the instrument’s structure and studying curve. Adopting a well-known left-to-right sign path influenced by 1970’s Minimoog Mannequin D, the Messenger largely retains to a one-knob-per-function paradigm. There’s additionally loads of mod-cons for Twenty first-century gamers wanting a quick workflow. Recallable presets, some nifty generative options for the unit’s 64-step sequencer, and intensive I/O choices, together with six CV patch factors, exterior audio in, and high-resolution MIDI over USB-C, all make this really feel like an instrument prepared for immediately.
Display screen-Free Synthesis
However the Messenger notably lacks one ubiquitous characteristic of the trendy world all of us like to hate and hate to like: a display.
“That was very a lot a deliberate alternative,” Norlander explains. “We might have put a show on there – there was room for it and it wasn’t a value concern – however it could change the entire aesthetic of the instrument. We didn’t need you taking a look at a show. We needed you to have a look at the knobs and take into consideration the music. We needed this to be a visceral, hands-on expertise.”
The shortage of a show isn’t what’s gotten head turning; it’s the brand new analogue enhancements that the Messenger brings to the desk. There’s wavefolding and FM, two kinds of synthesis which Moog has traditionally uncared for, and a sub-oscillator enhanced with constantly variable waveshape. For noise lovers, there’s a deliciously crunchy suggestions circuit instantly impressed by a basic Minimoog Mannequin D hack, the place customers would take the headphone output and plug it again into the exterior audio enter.
“We gave it loads of achieve,” laughs Norlander. “In case you flip the suggestions up, it will get actually aggressive. On a number of the earlier prototypes, we had much more achieve, however we have been like, ‘Okay, okay, let’s pull this again, it’s getting a little bit uncontrolled.’”
“The Messenger is far more common than the opposite gear we’ve obtained. You must anticipate to see extra of that going ahead” – Joe Richardson
The sonic lynchpin of all that is the Messenger’s supercharged ladder filter. Using an progressive pole-matching design, it boasts a number of slopes, multimode performance, and a sought-after Res Bass characteristic, which preserves the low finish at the same time as you dial up the filter’s resonance. The outcomes are genuinely spectacular, however Norlander says the crew’s preliminary determination to tinker with perfection was not taken evenly.
“At Moog, there are issues which might be sacred,” he says. “The filter is considered one of them. We are able to add to the sound, however we will’t take something away. So, once we have been reimagining the filter on the Messenger, we had to verify it nonetheless had that basic sound. In case you flip off the Res Bass and you retain it in 4-pole low-pass mode, it nonetheless feels like a 904A from 1967.”
Norlander additionally makes clear that, it doesn’t matter what additions we’d see on future filters, some issues won’t ever change. “The filter is at all times going to be discrete,” he assures me. “I don’t suppose you’ll ever see one which’s chip-based. In a Sequential or an Oberheim, it’s completely positive to have a chip-based filter – these are stunning sounding synthesizers – however the Bob Moog transistor ladder filter is a discrete design. That’s one thing we will’t and received’t mess with.”
A Legacy of Innovation
The connection Moog Music has to its personal historical past is fascinating. No different synth maker has a founder who looms so giant, whose affect remains to be so instantly felt within the sound, options, and really feel of the devices. But, regardless of a palpable reverence for Bob Moog’s legacy, neither Richardson nor Norlander appears to have any curiosity in letting that previous slender the corporate’s future.
“Bob Moog was well-known for listening to artists and sound engineers,” Richardson factors out. “What he heard from them knowledgeable the subsequent factor. If we cease introducing innovation, then we’re not going to get these new messages from the artistic neighborhood to assist inform us on what occurs subsequent. So, it’s a gas to the innovation machine that exists inside Moog.
“The suggestions we’ve gotten earlier than, throughout, and after launch,” he provides, “will have an effect on this instrument via updates. But it surely’s already informing the subsequent devices which might be going to come back on-line within the subsequent 12 to 18 months.”
What can we anticipate from these in-development devices? Richardson hints that the digital aspect of synthesis might be “an necessary a part of the long run” and descriptions a broad concentrate on effectivity, artistic stream, and deep sound design. Greater than something, he merely factors to the brand new paradigms established by the arrival of the Messenger.
“The Messenger goes to be the start of a brand new class of devices,” he says. “It’s far more common than the opposite gear we’ve obtained. You must anticipate to see extra of that going ahead.”
In fact, the Messenger actually does ship a message – and a couple of at that. For longtime followers, it’s proof that the corporate remains to be in protected arms and nonetheless a power to be reckoned with. For the analogue-curious, it’s an open invitation to hitch the Moog social gathering, now with a considerably decrease door cost.
For the Moog crew, the Messenger seems like a press release of intent: a framework for a way the corporate plans to steadiness the realities of a extremely aggressive market with long-held, and deeply felt, beliefs.
“It was actually necessary to me, to the oldsters at Moog, to maintain the spirit alive and properly on this instrument,” displays Richardson. “To point out that new issues will be added to what Moog’s at all times been, that it may be reasonably priced and accessible, however, very importantly, to indicate that issues don’t should be cheapened to get there. I believe we’ve succeeded in doing that.”
The Moog Messenger appeared within the MusicTech Journal July/August 2025 concern.
Phrases: Clovis McEvoy
Images: Simon Vinall
