Well I'm not usually one to start a thread just to complain about something, I usually prefer to focus on the gear that really does impress me but I thought this one would be a bit intresting to many.
Given the stellar repuation of the Moog pedals, and Bob Moog in general, the Moogerfooger line seems highly regarded, though not many have them.
Size and cost no doubt are a big part of this. At MF's recent 20% off sale I ordered the MURF and the Ring Mod for a nice savings. They finally shipped this past week and I've had a few days to mess around with them. (I've got the EV pedals for them as well)
Buildwise they are top notch, bit metal cases, solid pots and knobs, solid wood sides (I'm not a fan honestly but its still nice)
Soundwise ? They left me sort of flat after the fun of taking them out of the box and making some noises. I'm no stranger to spending heavily for a quality effect but I just felt these didn't really deliver much bang for the buck.
Ring Mod - I think this one came to $220 which isn't cheap but reasonable compared to their $600 delay lol. It can either get a bit of a stuttery tremolo sound or the typical ring mod clangs. One cool thing is the rate can get very high resulting in some rather high pitched sounds. Fun for 5 minutes but then not that musically useful for my taste.
MURF - This one has a number of preset patterns and some moveable filters but again, its a bit limited in the musically "useful" sounds it can do. Its got plenty of weird sounds but only a handful were that cool and overall worth the money. $330 or so for some crazy noise and pulsations is a bit much. Yes it can do some of those cool RHCP end of the night live jam stuff and thats cool at first but after just a few days, its like "I spent $330 for this" ?
One additional gripe I have is that they don't have a good bypass at all. Horrible in fact as the signal bleeds in and you've got to keep the input gains set high at all times to pass the signal even when the effect is not engaged.
Granted you can get a nice overdrive turning them up but they should have a better bypass.
Hearing the effect blend in is something we expect on a cheap $30 pedal, not a $300 one if you ask me. Doesn't even need to be true bypass (though you'd expect it) but at least have a quality buffer and bypass.
Overall they are huge tanks of pedals, that have a bad bypass system, require center negative power supplies and cost a lot of money for a few bleeps, blips and clangs.
I checked the clips on MF before ordering and wasn't exactly inspired but I figured maybe they had some better sounds in there. Can't trust demo's to really showcase what a pedal can do, you know ?
In this case though what they show is pretty much what you can expect. If you like those sounds, more power to you. For some styles I could see it as useful.
The Ring Mod with heavy distortion produces some cool industrail clangs and metal on metal noises for example.
I've never had a desire for my strat to sound like two pipes banging together though lol
Bottom line is that these pedals are quality products, save for a few issues such as bypass, but I can't see them as appealing to many guitarist usnless your into some stranger sounds, which I know some people are.
I used to be real into analog synths back in the 80's and had a full studio of stuff. I've made all the sweeps and farts and blips and squeals to tide me over for a lifetime lol.
Anyways, hope whats admittedly just one mans opinion might of helped give you some insight into one of those pedals I'm sure alot of people always looked at and wondered about but never got much experience with.
Given the stellar repuation of the Moog pedals, and Bob Moog in general, the Moogerfooger line seems highly regarded, though not many have them.
Size and cost no doubt are a big part of this. At MF's recent 20% off sale I ordered the MURF and the Ring Mod for a nice savings. They finally shipped this past week and I've had a few days to mess around with them. (I've got the EV pedals for them as well)
Buildwise they are top notch, bit metal cases, solid pots and knobs, solid wood sides (I'm not a fan honestly but its still nice)
Soundwise ? They left me sort of flat after the fun of taking them out of the box and making some noises. I'm no stranger to spending heavily for a quality effect but I just felt these didn't really deliver much bang for the buck.
Ring Mod - I think this one came to $220 which isn't cheap but reasonable compared to their $600 delay lol. It can either get a bit of a stuttery tremolo sound or the typical ring mod clangs. One cool thing is the rate can get very high resulting in some rather high pitched sounds. Fun for 5 minutes but then not that musically useful for my taste.
MURF - This one has a number of preset patterns and some moveable filters but again, its a bit limited in the musically "useful" sounds it can do. Its got plenty of weird sounds but only a handful were that cool and overall worth the money. $330 or so for some crazy noise and pulsations is a bit much. Yes it can do some of those cool RHCP end of the night live jam stuff and thats cool at first but after just a few days, its like "I spent $330 for this" ?
One additional gripe I have is that they don't have a good bypass at all. Horrible in fact as the signal bleeds in and you've got to keep the input gains set high at all times to pass the signal even when the effect is not engaged.
Granted you can get a nice overdrive turning them up but they should have a better bypass.
Hearing the effect blend in is something we expect on a cheap $30 pedal, not a $300 one if you ask me. Doesn't even need to be true bypass (though you'd expect it) but at least have a quality buffer and bypass.
Overall they are huge tanks of pedals, that have a bad bypass system, require center negative power supplies and cost a lot of money for a few bleeps, blips and clangs.
I checked the clips on MF before ordering and wasn't exactly inspired but I figured maybe they had some better sounds in there. Can't trust demo's to really showcase what a pedal can do, you know ?
In this case though what they show is pretty much what you can expect. If you like those sounds, more power to you. For some styles I could see it as useful.
The Ring Mod with heavy distortion produces some cool industrail clangs and metal on metal noises for example.
I've never had a desire for my strat to sound like two pipes banging together though lol
Bottom line is that these pedals are quality products, save for a few issues such as bypass, but I can't see them as appealing to many guitarist usnless your into some stranger sounds, which I know some people are.
I used to be real into analog synths back in the 80's and had a full studio of stuff. I've made all the sweeps and farts and blips and squeals to tide me over for a lifetime lol.
Anyways, hope whats admittedly just one mans opinion might of helped give you some insight into one of those pedals I'm sure alot of people always looked at and wondered about but never got much experience with.
