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Anyone else using the Moog MF Drive as a LPF?

sunbeast

sunbeast

Supporting Member
Jul 19, 2006
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#1
I recently traded for an MF Drive from a TB'er after watching a ton of videos of it used on guitar. I was expecting to mostly just use it on guitar as I hadn't heard very many appealing bass demos with it (the bass demos I've heard have either been too high-gain, too farty, or too nasally for my taste). First thing I did when picking it up is to crank it up with my Telecaster- it can turn a Fender guitar tone into a thick Les Paul tone with ease! Definitely a great guitar pedal. Then I plug my bass in- with a lot of tweaking I could get some pretty good fat fuzzy tones or pretty exceptional cleanish EQ'ed boost tones...

What surprised me was how great it works as a low-pass filter on bass with an expression pedal- I have yet to hear a demo of it used that way. When you engage the peak switch for the filter you can get some really nice synthy sweeps. It actually reminds me alot of my old Morley Power Wah/Boost pedal when I dial in some drive as well- and I LOVED the tone of that thing for sweeps (just hated everything else about it!). I haven't found anything else that has been able to cop the tone of the Morley before- including my IE Xerograph or my old Robot Factory Brain Freeze.

I put my IE Subterranea in front of the MF Drive and it is fantastic- I think I honestly prefer it to my IE Xerograph Deluxe in some ways. Obviously I can't tweak the filter effect of the Moog nearly as much (resonance/2-pole vs 4-pole/ envelope), but the way it drives when pushed is just more pleasing to my ears (which I guess is the point of the pedal, and probably also why many folks prefer the Moogerfooger LPF to the Xerograph). One cool addition on the Moog not found on the Xerograph is the Tone control- you can sweep the Filter through its entire range, but the Tone can tweak how tight and cutting you want it overall. With the Tone at 3 o'clock or above, you get an added bite on the top of the sweep and a tighter low-end but without chaging the actual frequency of the Filter sweep. The Xerograph can't really do that (you can get a sort of similar effect by blending in a bit of Clean in some situations, but it isn't nearly as natural).
I've also had a great time using it with my Copilot Broadcast to make it like a really synthy autowah- I even plugged my acoustic guitar into the Subterranea-MF Drive + Broadcast pair and it sounded massive (you can blend in a fair amount of Clean to the Subterranea through a filter and play chords without it sounding too glitchy!).

Granted this is just preliminary testing through my bedroom rig- things may well be different through the big rig, but so far I am super happy with it! Anyone else doing this?
 
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#2
Glad that works - it seemed like a really interesting use, but I wasn't able to use an exp pedal I tried it in a store. Definitely didn't love the higher gain tones, but am interested to revisit..

I usually use a cleanish filter (SA BEF Pro right now) with some dirt after to get that sound.
 
#3
I don't have a Moog Mf-drive but I have always been curious about the pedal and its filter function. So the expression pedal gets tied to the filter? And what does the filter knob do as you turn it up? Does it turn up the volume of the effect or does it choose the frequency where the filter engages? Is there any envelope on the filter?

I would love to hear a sound clip if you have the time to do one.
 
#5
Mosfed said:
I don't have a Moog Mf-drive but I have always been curious about the pedal and its filter function. So the expression pedal gets tied to the filter? And what does the filter knob do as you turn it up? Does it turn up the volume of the effect or does it choose the frequency where the filter engages? Is there any envelope on the filter?

I would love to hear a sound clip if you have the time to do one.
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There is a switch that changes between two different Filter functions- when you switch it the way I am talking about it engages a 12dB peak at the cutoff frequency. Essentially the same as the resonance of a dedicated LPF pedal- as long as you feed it a signal with lots of harmonic content it seems to retain a good volume through the sweep. With the switch in the other position the Filter is more subtle, but actually still does a pretty good job of retaining volume as long as you keep the Gain up enough to get a little natural compression.

I will try to make some clips- I have never been a clip guy, but for the first time I actually have all the stuff readily handy to do them anytime so why not?!
 
#6
FretNoMore said:
Thank for that tip - maybe I can get some use from my pedal that way, I really don't like it as a drive pedal.
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I find using the expression pedal to hone in on the right frequencies for the Filter makes it easier to get good drive tones out of it as well, though I really prefer it as a kind of colored boost into another drive (in my case right now a Darkglass Vintage Deluxe). The Tone control seems to come before the drive section to my ears, so turning it down to boost the bass also adds significant gain and it definitely can get some farty tones with the Tone at noon or below. I set mine up above noon with bass and it still seems to retain plenty of bottom and does low/medium gain sounds better in my limited testing. Its definitely not a top choice for straight bass overdrive for me either, but sounds great with guitar in my opinion. Looking forward to trying it with my synth too!
 
#7
sunbeast said:
There is a switch that changes between two different Filter functions- when you switch it the way I am talking about it engages a 12dB peak at the cutoff frequency. Essentially the same as the resonance of a dedicated LPF pedal- as long as you feed it a signal with lots of harmonic content it seems to retain a good volume through the sweep. With the switch in the other position the Filter is more subtle, but actually still does a pretty good job of retaining volume as long as you keep the Gain up enough to get a little natural compression.

I will try to make some clips- I have never been a clip guy, but for the first time I actually have all the stuff readily handy to do them anytime so why not?!
Click to expand...

That would be really great. I love the MF-101 and I think everyone was wondering why Moog didn't make a MF-Filter in the mini-fooger line. But it sounds like they kind of did from what you are saying.
 
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#8
Mosfed said:
That would be really great. I love the MF-101 and I think everyone was wondering why Moog didn't make a MF-Filter in the mini-fooger line. But it sounds like they kind of did from what you are saying.
Click to expand...
I've only been able to spend about 20 minutes with an MF-101 and without an expression pedal, so my main points of reference are my Xerograph and my old Robot Factory Brain Freeze. I'll maybe do an AB of the Moog with the Xerograph when I get on it!

Its interesting because Moog describes the MF Drive as a "filter-based overdrive", which is a term I've never heard before. The Filter in the "peak" mode definitely has the character of a LPF with a big resonance. Looking back on the Moog site, it is a 15dB resonance peak at the cutoff (I think I said 12 earlier), and a 2-pole filter (which is what the Brain Freeze is). So it won't be able to get the super dramatic 4-pole filter sounds of the MF-101 or the Xerograph, but it sure sounds great and very organic to me.
 
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#9
sunbeast said:
I've only been able to spend about 20 minutes with an MF-101 and without an expression pedal, so my main points of reference are my Xerograph and my old Robot Factory Brain Freeze. I'll maybe do an AB of the Moog with the Xerograph when I get on it!

Its interesting because Moog describes the MF Drive as a "filter-based overdrive", which is a term I've never heard before. The Filter in the "peak" mode definitely sounds has the character of a LPF with a big resonance. Looking back on the Moog site, it is a 15dB resonance peak at the cutoff (I think I said 12 earlier), and a 2-pole filter (which is what the Brain Freeze is). So it won't be able to get the super dramatic 4-pole filter sounds of the MF-101 or the Xerograph, but it sure sounds great and very organic to me.
Click to expand...

I am really curious - would love to hear a soundclip
 
#12
SirMjac28 said:
I'm loving my MF 101 I recently bought a Q Tron that I was going to run with the 101 in a loop but it didn't sound good so no I'm looking for an octave pedal to run with it.
Click to expand...

I have been running the Mu-Fx Octave Divider into my MF-101 with really fantastic synth results. Fantastic octave pedal and worth every penny.

SIGNED-OD_New.jpg
 
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#15
Alright- officially did my first-ever TB quick'n'dirty FX soundclip. Very quick and sloppy, but tried to get a good decent showing. I can do more later, but put it off so long that I thought I should give it a quick go before I gotta take off for a show tonight in the OC. Used my Lakland Skyline P with flatwounds into a SubT> Moog MF Drive, swept either by a Moog EP-2 or Copilot Broadcast LFO (didn't really have time to dial in settings to precision, especially the range on the Broadcast and synthy settings on SubT). Direct to interface and into Logic X with no processing or EQ added...there are all the basic settings listed in the notes on the Soundcloud page (hope it works!).
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
 
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#16
well sir (OP) thank you. I wanted exactly this sound, your sample was convincing, so bought the MF drive with exp pedal and now I am more than happy with it. I am on a quest to find the right synth pedal for it to make it even better, I don't like that the SubT does not have octave up.... but after so many videos and forum discussions, only you have pointed this trick out and thus saved me from having to buy much more pedals, new power supply and bigger board, so much kudos :)
 
#17
gyuriambrozy said:
well sir (OP) thank you. I wanted exactly this sound, your sample was convincing, so bought the MF drive with exp pedal and now I am more than happy with it. I am on a quest to find the right synth pedal for it to make it even better, I don't like that the SubT does not have octave up.... but after so many videos and forum discussions, only you have pointed this trick out and thus saved me from having to buy much more pedals, new power supply and bigger board, so much kudos :)
Click to expand...
Glad it was of some use! My clips were kinda thrown together- my first time recording direct effect clips like that. I no longer have the MF, just because I ended up getting a Robot Factory Brain Freeze again at a good price. The Brain Freeze is more versatile overall and has better headroom, but has super funky power requirements and costs way more. It doesn't really get the scope of cool dirty filter tones of the Moog though!

I think the synth voices of the SubT go well with the Moog, where something like the OC-2 might not have enough high harmonic content to really get the best of it by itself.
 
#19
sunbeast said:
Alright- officially did my first-ever TB quick'n'dirty FX soundclip. Very quick and sloppy, but tried to get a good decent showing. I can do more later, but put it off so long that I thought I should give it a quick go before I gotta take off for a show tonight in the OC. Used my Lakland Skyline P with flatwounds into a SubT> Moog MF Drive, swept either by a Moog EP-2 or Copilot Broadcast LFO (didn't really have time to dial in settings to precision, especially the range on the Broadcast and synthy settings on SubT). Direct to interface and into Logic X with no processing or EQ added...there are all the basic settings listed in the notes on the Soundcloud page (hope it works!).
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
Click to expand...

Your tracks sound awesome!!

I notice that de decay sounds a bit strange, does it have a good sustain?
 
#20
chumbo73 said:
Your tracks sound awesome!!

I notice that de decay sounds a bit strange, does it have a good sustain?
Click to expand...
I assume you mean the synthier sounds? The Iron Ether Subterranea I used on these using a tracking synth-wave sound for all the tones apart from its analog octave-down sound, and depending on the wave shape you use it can get a bit sputtery on the decay for sure (square wavey sounds are especially noticeable that way). You can mitigate this some by messing with your technique and using compression before the pedal, but these clips were just quick/dirty. This is just par for the course with most synth pedals IME outside of the more complicated digital ones like the Deep Impact or Markbass Super Synth.
 

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