Hey thanks for taking the time to reply. I tried all those things of course. Key tracking works but doesn’t fix the issue. Can you (or anyone else with a matriarch) do a simple test for me? With both resonances down, spacing set at noon, keytracking at noon, env amount at noon, filter set to stereo lp/lp, mod wheel completely off, if you do a manual filter sweep where does your cutoff knob fully cut off the signal? Are you getting full range on the knob? I swear it wasn’t always like this where the cutoff is fully closed at 200 hz.


I feel like I’m losing my mind…

Mine's the same way. At about 200Hz on the knob the cutoff is closer to 50Hz and as you sweep it lower it goes into subsonic territory (easy to tell if you turn down the oscs and max out the resonance). I'm guessing when you had it patched up you were offsetting the cutoff so the low range of the knob was actually usable, and you got used to that. But without patch cables the cutoff goes way down lower than the indications on the knob reflect.

If you apply a voltage offset to the CV in (by using an attenuator--it puts out a voltage if nothing is plugged into the input) and turn it clockwise you can raise the cutoff and confirm the knob does work down to the minimum.

Hey thanks for your reply. Everything you're saying makes sense. I had my complex patch up for about two months, so maybe my brain just got used to the response of that specific patch. It does feel like something is off though... I've used the matriarch almost every day for the past three years and I've never previously felt like "wait a minute, something is wrong with the filter cutoff." Like I said, I feel like I'm losing my mind a bit hah. Maybe it's just me.

I guess after 2 months you forgot, and then unpatched it was “new” to you again and you then noticed. What did you have cutoff patched to, if I may ask?

I seem to recall “noticing” when I first got mine that the cutoff knob seemed to respond differently than my other synths, well my Moog Sirin anyway, but I just chalked it up to being, well, a different synth. But I never tried comparing the actual cutoff frequency to what’s marked on the knob. It seems to actually go from 20Hz-20Khz more or less (self oscillation seems to die at very low cutoff points), but the curve doesn’t match the scale on the knob, leading to the cutoff being around 50-60Hz at the 200Hz point on the knob.

But, at least your synth isn’t faulty, unless mine has the exact same fault.

Don't know if this will help at all but the key tracking knob should be fully counterclockwise to be all the way "off."

When set at the center position it's halfway on.

Hi all,

So, I just received a used Matriarch Dark with case on Monday..

After a number of startup hiccups.. as in.. it was on drone mode, delay feedback was max, mod wheel was up, and LFO mod amounts were maxed and other weird stuff making a crazy sound (quite a surprise at power on, believe me..lol..)

Anyway, i updated the firmware to 1.3, did a global reset and started naffing about.. it so far, all seems ok, but i have a question about the delay..

As a BBD i was expecting a limited frequency response however the repeats from the delay both L&R have a distinct noise component over the top of the repeats.. almost like a heavy breathing.. very noticeable at volume with (say ) a triangle pluck..

Is it me, or do i have something here to investigate?

thx

If this is at longer delay times and it is like a whining noise, it’s normal. It seems to be a little bit more forgiving if sync is off.

I have same problem as you. And I never did the patching , just tried some patches, but 95% of time I use it as is.

And I can swear that it behaved diferently, I have a feeling that now I have ordinary boring synth, and I had a beast....

Are we losing our minds in matrix ? 😔 😆

Hey everyone,

I don't know if this is a known issue with Matriarch but I can hear a clicking noise seemingly originating from the envelope generator that only goes away once I push the attack to ~ 9 o'clock. I tried to capture the issue with the rubber bass patch found in the patch book - the clicking noise is noticeable with the original patch but becomes very apparent once I turn attack, decay, sustain and release to zero. I would have expected there to be no sound with adsr set to zero but all I get is clicking.

Does this mean that my unit is faulty or is it a known issue and are there any remedies other than patching in another envelope generator or always turning the attack up.

Cheers and thanks in advance.

I can reproduce it. Replacing the envelope generator won't help. The shorter the env time and higher the env amount the more noticeable clicking you'll get. Lowering the envelope amount and/or increasing the attack/decay will tame the clicking.

Envelope clicks are common on analog synths. When attack is all the way down, the envelope is going to open to full amount nearly instantly, and if decay is all the way down and sustain all the way down, it will then decay instantly back to zero, leading to a click sound.

An easy way to illustrate this is to create a pluck sound (0 attack, some decay, 0 sustain, release at 0 or same as decay). Play it and play with the decay, turning it down toward zero. The pluck will get faster and faster until it’s just a click when decay is at zero.

If you don’t want a click, you’ll have to turn attack up slightly.

AKA - Snappy Envelopes

The problem, the big big problem with the Matriarch is the envelopes.

Someone said "add a little bit of attack to get rid of the click".

Well, the problem with that is the horrible scaling/stepping of the envelope values. You will turn the attack knob from 0 for a degree or two with nothing happening, until snap, it goes to the next value, and that first value above 0 is already too slow.

Question for the Matriarch owners:
I love running sounds through my matriarch, via the 'External In' jack.

I set the matriarch to 'Drone' mode and it works great.

Then I wanted to put a little tremolo on the output.

When I'm using the matriarch as a synth, I'll run LFO 2 (the simple lfo on the right) into the attenuator above it, and then run the attenuator into the 'VCA CV 1 IN' jack above the main volume know. Then I can use the attenuator to control the tremolo amount, with 12 o'clock being no tremolo.

In drone mode it seems to work differently, and there is no sound at all at 12 o'clock.

How would you create a variable-amount tremolo on the external instrument? I get around it by setting it to 'Amp Env' instead of drone and holding a note down, but wonder if there's a better way.

Thank you!

In drone mode the voltage going into the vca cv in will determine the volume, so 0V= silence. That is exactly as you describe it.

In Amp Env or Split mode the voltage at the amp cv input will be multiplied with the envelope voltage.

an lfo is a bipolar signal. Amplitude is unipolar. So in drone mode, an lfo will alternate between sound/no sound every half cycle.

In env mode, the lfo will increase the level of the enveloped vca during the positive half, and the negative half of the cycle will decrease it. That is more how you would want it for tremolo.

In drone mode, you would need to offset the lfo with a fixed voltage to make it unipolar, or rectfy it. But there's no proper cv mixer or adder as far as i can see.

A third way would be to connect the vca env end trigger out to the vca env trigger in, to make it loop. After a key press, it should cycle and work like a single AD envelope or unipolar triangle lfo with adjustable rise and fall.
But this will give amplitude variations always from silence to max volume.

So for a subtle vibrato, Envelope mode and playing notes to enable the envelope will work best. Or play a single note, then press the 'hold' button to lock it into the sustain portion of the envelope.

In the left side utility section the first attenuator is summed into the second if the output isn't patched, and it is normaled to 8V. It can be used as a bias offset for attenuator 2, opening the VCA in drone mode by turning it fully clockwise. You can then use the second attenuator to scale the amount of LFO added.

- Left attenuator 1 knob fully clockwise (though with a scope it seems better at 3pm)
- Utility LFO Triangle out->Left side attenuator 2 input
- Left attenuator 2 output to VCA 1 CV input
- Left attenuator 2 adjusted to taste

This might get you what you're looking for, Ben.

thank you both!

Thank you for the explanation. All the reports about the mediocre build quality of Moog synthesizers has made me a little worried.

It's a bit annoying, but I got a Korg NTS 2 for Christmas and it really helps with finding a suitable envelope setting.

Recently I've been equivocating with myself over whether I want to buy a matriarch or a KARP 2600 m.

I've rented a matriarch and I liked it but I did feel like it was slightly wanting in girth/punch/phatness/whatever you want to call it compared to the model d, while obviously being more versatile in many ways.

However people often say the 2600 is at least the equal of the minimoog in that regard while having a lot of the same semi modular functionality of the matriarch. The BBD on the matriarch vs the spring reverb on the 2600 is kind of a toss up.

I will say trying to run other synths through the matriarch was somewhat disappointing possible due to running into the excessive filtering when going through the line out. It seems like the arp 2600 is more highly regarded for signal processing.

Of course there's always the "porque no Los dos" option but curious to hear from anyone who has or has had both.

That's interesting take. I was always envying people, who owned Matriarch, because I would LOVE to use that stereo delay as a send effect in my rig.

If I were to buy ARP 2600, I would definitely love to substitute that stereo delay ability with Walrus' Meraki. Just remember to use it as a send, because I read somewhere that it has significant high pass filter, cutting off some low end.

Here, problem solved. ;]

Cordially,
Norman

Is using the eurorack outputs not an option? It sounds amazing this way.

Can anyone help me understand why Hold is not...holding notes (arp, seq off) when local control is off and I am running the Matriarch as an external MIDI instrument in Logic? Switch local back on, works fine. Is there a related Global that I am not understanding all the implications of? Or something?