The famous filter of Bob Moog’s original monosynth is one of the instrument’s most iconic features, and has been copied numerous times by hardware and software creators for the best part of half a century.

Until now, these replica filters haven’t ever truly captured the musical essence of the original. Thanks to Stefano and the tireless efforts of the Arturia tech team, the code has finally been cracked.

“While I feel confident to say that the majority of subtractive synths around include a 24 dB/oct. lowpass filter with resonance of some sort, the ladder filter on Robert Moog’s 1970 monosynth is special in that it has a distinctive timbre and peculiar control characteristics.”

“In order to let you get a glimpse of its salient sonic features, I need to say a few words about the core circuit. The heart of the filter circuit is functionally equivalent to a series of a saturating amplifier and 4 identical saturating lowpass stages. On one hand the lowpass filtering part indiscriminately attenuates the signal spectrum past the cutoff, and on the other the saturation part adds only frequency content that is harmonically related to the input, thus enhancing the “overall musicality” of the signal, if used properly.”