Moog Taurus Bass Pedal Synthesizer Version 3  

All the features of analog in a foot stomping chassis!

The Taurus III Bass Pedal Analog Synth is perfect for the acoustic guitar player who gigs alone.  Right out of the box, it is easy to set up and accompany your tunes with a low end backing groove.  This keeps the bottom from falling out while you play and sing.  Of course, some of the presets require tweaking...but this is easy to do with "hot key" style buttons and a quick turn of a foot-sized mod wheel.  For the analog crew, there are plenty of synth presets, an arpeggiator, and most of the "Little Phatty" style tweakers.  Oscillators 1 and 2 are fixed as a sawtooth wave, but the LFO's are adjustable to any parameters.  The appegiator controls allow the user to adjust the order, pattern, octave, and rate, and uses "note-stacking" as a memory bank.  I would've used more sequencer style controls had they been included (more like Dave Smith's analog synths).  When controlling the Taurus III with MIDI, you get a three octave range, making quicker runs much easier and more flexible than when using the unit's one octave range.  A polyphonic synth stack setting is available through MIDI set up menus, for players with multiple synths.

The unit is HEAVY, and no handles are available, so moving the thing is a chore.  But it's also solid and durable.  I don't see this thing breaking down for 30 years, and I hope to still have it when it becomes a "vintage" piece of equipment.

It's expensive for a single piece of hardware!  But there's nothing out there that does what it does...so novelty costs.

The Taurus III is a specialized piece of gear--I don't think it's for everyone.  But if you play keys or guitars, and you want to slim down the personnel in your band, buy it!  I can do the job of two people with the help of my new Taurus synth.

This synth does one thing extremely well (solid bass tones), and other things less so. Some of the leads sound decent enough, and are servicable, but a keyboard would be a much better option for controlling those sort of sounds. It cannot be beat for a companion instrument. For example: playing an acoustic set and having these pedals handling the underlying bass tones.

This thing is built like a tank. It weighs a ton, and doesn't give anywhere on the chassis. Solid enough to stomp on for years. I've had it about a year and it still doesn't have any give, and the pedals don't have any give and quickly snap back once you step off them.

The price is tough to swallow, but you get some fantastic tones for your money. Moog knows analog synth bass, and it shows here. I have used it for some leads in the studio, but obviously you are limited by how fast you can hit the pedals (with hand or foot).

I love these pedals, and wouldn't trade them for any of the other Moog synths. They work excellently when playing during solo outings for a fuller sound, and mix well in band settings as well.