Signal flow — how the Mini thinks
Five sections, left to right. Learn this order and every knob on Mini V makes sense.
That's the whole synth: make a bright tone, then carve it with the filter, then shape it over time with the contours. This recipe is called subtractive synthesis. The Minimoog made it famous in 1970 by hard-wiring the most useful route through a modular synth into one portable box. Learn it here and you can program almost any analogue synth, including the ones in Serum and Analog Lab.
What Mini V adds to the original
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Vintage | Adds drift and detuning, from perfectly calibrated to "40-year-old attic find". |
| Drive | Adds presence and crunch. Try it on any preset. |
| Feedback | Recreates the old trick of patching the headphone output back into the external input for extra grit. |
| Bass Compensation | High emphasis normally thins out the low end. This puts it back. |
| Advanced panel | An arpeggiator and 2 modulators, keyboard curves for velocity, aftertouch, mod wheel and key tracking, and 3 effect slots with 17 effects. |
| Polyphony | The original plays one note at a time. Mini V can play chords if you want it to. |
Playground — play it here
A Mini-style synth in your browser. Pick a preset, play the keys, and move one control at a time to hear what it does.
A simplified browser model of the Minimoog signal flow, built to teach how it works. It isn't Mini V and doesn't sound exactly like it, but every control here does the same job as the one on Mini V.
The three oscillators
Where the sound starts: range, waveform, and the detuning that makes it fat.
Range is the octave
Ranges are marked in feet, like organ stops: 32' is lowest, then 16', 8', 4' and 2', each an octave higher. LO drops the oscillator below hearing so it can work as a modulator. For bass, put Osc 1 at 16' and one oscillator at 32'.
Waveforms
Sawtooth is bright and buzzy, the go-to for bass, leads and brass. Square is hollow and woody. Narrow pulse is thin and nasal. Triangle is soft and close to a pure tone: whistles, flutes, sub bass.
Detune for fatness
Tune Osc 2 a few cents away from Osc 1 and they drift in and out of phase. That slow beating is the Moog "fatness". A little is warm; a lot sounds out of tune. Try tuning Osc 3 up a fifth (+7 semitones) for instant power-chord leads.
Osc 3 as a modulator
Turn off Osc 3's keyboard control, set its range to LO, and it stops being a note and becomes a slow wobble (an LFO). Then the Modulation Mix knob blends it with noise, the Osc Mod and Filter Mod switches pick what it moves, and the mod wheel sets how much.
Filter & contours
The ladder filter is the Mini's signature. The contours shape it, and the volume, over time.
Cutoff
The ladder filter is a low-pass: it lets lows through and removes highs above the cutoff. Turn it down for dark and muffled, up for bright and buzzy. It drops 24 dB per octave, so it sounds smooth and round, not thin.
Emphasis
Moog's word for resonance. It boosts the frequencies right at the cutoff, giving that vocal "wow" when the filter moves. Near the top it starts to whistle on its own (self-oscillation). Bass Compensation in Mini V keeps the low end from thinning out as you raise it.
Amount of contour
The filter has its own envelope. Amount of Contour sets how far it pushes the cutoff up. Zero means a static tone; high values give the "bwow" of every classic Moog bass.
Attack, decay, sustain
Both contours are ADS: how fast it rises, how fast it falls, and where it settles while you hold the key. A short decay with zero sustain makes a pluck. Flip the Decay switch on and the decay time also becomes the release after you let go.
Keyboard control
Two switches make the cutoff follow the notes you play (key tracking), so high notes aren't duller than low ones. Turn both on with full emphasis and the filter itself plays in tune: a pure whistle.
The loudness contour
This shapes volume the same way. A slow attack swells in like strings or brass, zero attack hits instantly, and full sustain holds like an organ.
Patch recipes — basses, leads & more
Six classic sounds, step by step. Dial them in on Mini V, or load each one in the playground.
Fat 3-osc bassBass
The sound people mean when they say "Moog bass": thick, round, with a little bite on every note.
- Osc 1: sawtooth, 16'
- Osc 2: sawtooth, 16', tuned a few cents sharp
- Osc 3: square, 32' (an octave below), mixed a little lower
- Cutoff: low, around 9 o'clock. Emphasis: about 2–3
- Contour amount: about halfway. Filter decay: short. Sustain: low
- Loudness: instant attack, sustain near full
Funk pluck bassBass
A rubbery, squelchy bass that pops on every note. Play it short and syncopated.
- Osc 1: square 16'; Osc 2: sawtooth 16', slightly detuned
- Cutoff: very low. Emphasis: high, about 6
- Contour amount: high; filter attack 0, decay short, sustain 0
- Drive: a little, for growl
Classic leadLead
A singing mono lead with glide and vibrato. Play it legato and let the notes slide.
- Osc 1 & 2: sawtooth 8', Osc 2 detuned a few cents
- Osc 3: square 4' (an octave up), mixed low for edge
- Cutoff: about 1 o'clock. Emphasis: 3–4
- Glide: a little (around 2). Overlap notes to slide
- Mod wheel: Osc 3 at LO as a triangle LFO into Osc Mod gives vibrato
Synth brassBrass
The swelling "blat" of 70s and 80s synth brass. The trick is a slow-ish filter attack.
- Osc 1 & 2: sawtooth 8', slightly detuned
- Cutoff: low-mid. Emphasis: 0–1
- Filter attack: around 80–100 ms so the brightness swells in
- Contour amount: halfway; sustain mid
- In Mini V, turn up the voices to play chords
Theremin-style leadLead
A smooth, eerie lead. Mini V ships a preset in this style called Venus.
- Osc 1: triangle 8'. Other oscillators off
- Filter: open, emphasis 0
- Glide: long, around 4–5, so every note swoops
- Vibrato: a gentle triangle LFO on pitch
- Loudness attack: a touch slow
Resonant whistleFX
The filter alone, ringing at its own pitch. No oscillators needed.
- Mixer: all oscillators off (add a touch of noise for breath)
- Emphasis: full
- Keyboard control: both switches on, so the whistle plays in tune
- Cutoff: sets the pitch; tune it by ear
Settings are starting points. Clock positions describe knob angles (7 o'clock = fully left, 5 o'clock = fully right). Use your ears for the last 10%.
Mod, glide & Ableton
Movement and expression, and getting Mini V working in a Live set.
Glide
Glide (portamento) makes the pitch slide from one note to the next instead of jumping. On a mono patch, play legato (hold one key while pressing the next) for the smoothest slides. A little glide makes leads expressive; a lot is a special effect.
The mod wheel
On the original, the wheel sets how much Osc 3 or noise modulates pitch and/or the filter. In Mini V you can route the wheel to other parameters too, from the Keyboard section of the Advanced panel.
Advanced panel
Click the Advanced button to open three extra sections. Mod/Arp has an arpeggiator and two modulators for movement the original couldn't do. Keyboard sets velocity, aftertouch, mod wheel and key-tracking curves. Effects has 3 slots with 17 effects, including reverb, EQ and chorus.
Using Mini V in Ableton
Load it on a MIDI track
Find Mini V under Plug-Ins → Arturia in Live's Browser and drag it onto a MIDI track. For a bass line, keep it mono so notes never pile up.
Glide needs overlapping notes
In the MIDI clip, stretch each note slightly into the next. With glide on, overlapping notes slide and separate notes jump. That's how 808-style slides and smooth leads are programmed.
Automate the filter
Click Configure on the plugin device in Live, wiggle Cutoff and Emphasis in Mini V, and they appear as Live parameters. Then draw automation (press A) or map them to a controller knob.
Commit and save CPU
Once the part is finished, freeze the track (Ctrl/Cmd+Alt/Option+Shift+F) or bounce it to audio. Want a line to play? Export one from the Bass Line Lab.