A
duophonic analog synthesizer with a 49-note
keyboard. Manufactured between
1974* and
1979.
The Sonic Six was originally designed to be a portable educational synth for learning the basics of subtractive synthesis. It came with its own carrying case plus a built-in speaker, and was reportedly taken on the road by Bob Moog on his lecture tours.
For sound generation the unit features two VCOs switchable between sawtooth, triangle and square (with pulse width control) waveforms. VCO1 can be set to modulate VCO2. A white / pink noise generator is also available.
A single low-pass ladder VCF (3046) is featured as the filter. There is also a ring modulator plus a very simple AD/AR envelope generator shared between VCO1, VCF and the model 3080 VCA.
The most interesting part of this simple unit are the two LFOs with separate rates and waveforms (sawtooth up/down, sine plus square). They can be affected by the EG and mixed into each other for more interesting modulation effects.
The Sonic Six offers a duophonic mode, but it can only be achieved by adjusting the two oscillators so that VCO1 is set to low note priority. The keyboard itself is similar to the ones on the MicroMoog and MultiMoog models.
* Some sources claim that the Sonic Six was actually released in 1970. They may be right, because it was a follow-up to the Sonic Five from Musonics, which merged with Moog that year. Anyone with 100% solid information of this, /msg me.
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