I love this synth! Its purpose is for bass only and I does that soooo well. The sounds translate very good across the board. Sounds good and deep in the car, monitor system (with sub) and home audio system. Vet impressed at what Moog pulled off here.

I updated to 1.1 and it didn't seem to help the CPU usage at all. Even with a buffer size of 1024, it hovers around 40-60% on Ableton's CPU meter.

Maybe my cheap DAW PC is underpowered for this plugin, but I don't have this much CPU trouble with other plugins. My PC has a late generation Intel Core i5 CPU that runs 4 cores/8 threads at over 3 GHz and Mariana still overwhelms it.

Mariana Crashing LOGIC very badly...
6 Mariana 0x1848286d2 google::protobuf::FileDescriptorProto::~FileDescriptorProto() + 114
7 Mariana 0x184828935 google::protobuf::FileDescriptorProto::~FileDescriptorProto() + 21
8 Mariana 0x1848573f8 google::protobuf::EncodedDescriptorDatabase::Add(void const*, int) + 440
9 Mariana 0x18479dbb3 google::protobuf::DescriptorPool::InternalAddGeneratedFile(void const*, int) + 35
10 Mariana 0x18489a1e1 google::protobuf::(anonymous namespace)::AddDescriptorsImpl(google::protobuf::internal::DescriptorTable const*) + 129
11 Mariana 0x18489646e google::protobuf::(anonymous namespace)::AddDescriptors(google::protobuf::internal::DescriptorTable const*) + 46
12 Mariana 0x184896439 google::protobuf::internal::AddDescriptorsRunner::AddDescriptorsRunner(google::protobuf::internal::DescriptorTable const*) + 25
13 Mariana 0x18489649d google::protobuf::internal::AddDescriptorsRunner::AddDescriptorsRunner(google::protobuf::internal::DescriptorTable const*) + 29
14 Mariana 0x184686427 __cxx_global_var_init + 23
15 Mariana 0x184686439 _GLOBAL__I_000102 + 9

What OS? How to reproduce?

Just launching the program with Mariana inside
Latest Sonoma Mac OS

System Requirements
For macOS 11.7 Intel Core i7 2.5GHz or Apple Silicon or newer, standalone and plug-in formats VST3, AudioUnits, and Pro Tools AAX
Windows 10 64-bit Intel Core i7 2.5GHz systems or newer, standalone and plug-in formats VST3, and Pro Tools AAX
iPadOS 14.4 or newer on iPad, standalone and as AUv3 plug-in

I'm late to the game and just found out about the Mariana when I received a Plugin Boutique email showing that it's on sale for 50% off ($49). I suppose if Moog has worked out the CPU consumption issues that's not a bad deal for a polyphonic analog modeling plugin if someone doesn't already own several.

But after watching the Starsky Carr review of the Mariana, I just don't get why Moog would have gimped the plugin in so many unnecessary ways. As Starsky mentions several times, there are weird "hardware" limitations in a plugin. WTF? Why? It makes zero sense.

At first I thought, "Oh, this looks sort of neat. The UI looks kind of like the Minitaur editor." But I have a gut of analog modeling plugins. So even at $49, it's likely to be just one more seldom used plugin that is more of a distraction than anything else.

So pass for me as well.

They actually did an optimization pass since the release and it’s not as bad. I ended up getting it because I think it has an interesting character. Somewhat like analog, but not like any analog I’ve ever heard. Definitely not like a standard Moog 24 db ladder filter.

I like to have a lot of things that I keep in a very loose rotation. It’s a way of forcing me to explore, instead of automatically just going for something in my head with a synth that I’m really familiar with. Even if I only use it a few times a year, it’s worth it to me. $49 barely covers a cheap dinner and a movie for me, and I get a lot out of that kind of new instrument distraction.

Just for shits and giggles I downloaded Mariana and activated the 10-day trial. It's an interesting plugin with a somewhat unique sound. It doesn't sound convincingly analog. But it does have a slight "Moogy" vibe to it that's hard to describe.

The modulation system is interesting. It took me just a second to figure out what's going on. I kept wanting to adjust the mod amounts on the destination knobs themselves. But you have to do it in the sidebar on the left.

I don't know if I prefer that to a standard mod matrix or not. But it's cool to see something different for a change.

But man, the CPU consumption is still out of control on my M1 Max MacBook Pro using Studio One Pro v6.6 and the VST3 version of Mariana. I had a bunch of other plugins instantiated so they were using some CPU power just idling. But still, Mariana uses about 4 times the amount of CPU power judging from Studio One's performance meter than something like Steinberg's Retrologue plugin.

While Mariana sounds different from Retrologue, I wouldn't say Mariana necessarily sounds better. And I prefer Retrologue's more straightforward and conventional interface. Plus Retrologue provides more voices of polyphony and its oscillators are way more versatile and it includes a much broader range of effects.

And this isn't even comparing Mariana to higher end analog modeling plugins like Diva, Repro-5, The Legend, and the various Arturia V-Collection synths. I think Mariana comes up short in those comparisons.

So even at $49, I think I'll pass on Mariana. If the CPU consumption was about a quarter of what it currently is, then I might consider it. But it's not worth the CPU hit for what it offers in terms of sound and features, IMO.

It sounds like a modern Moog bass synth, not that ancient stuff.

I don't know. I owned a Minitaur for a while but eventually sold it because it was too limited. And Mariana doesn't sound like that (although the Minitaur editor looks similar to the Mariana UI).

I also owned a Slim Phatty but ended up selling it because the damn thing would never stay in tune. And the Mariana doesn't sound anything like that.

And I was seriously considering purchasing a Subsequent 37 but ended up not getting one because I just didn't have room for another keyboard. However, I played that synth for hours and am thus pretty familiar with how it sounds. And the Mariana doesn't sound anything like that.

So which "modern Moog" are you referring to? Certainly not the Moog One, right?

I'm not overly familiar with the Moog Grandmother, Mother-32, or the Matriarch. But from the demos of those synths I've heard online I would say they sound noticeably different from the Mariana which just sounds like another so-so analog modeling plugin to me. It's not bad. But it doesn't sound like any analog synth I've ever heard. Maybe my Waldorf Pulse 2 a bit because that sounds very modern. But even the Pulse sounds a lot more, well "analog" because it is.

I'm with @ Hallo Spaceboy on this one. I don't find Mariana to sound really like anything I've heard out of Moog in the past few decades (I've owned a Slim and Sub Phatty), and definitely not like anything from the 70s or 80s. I don't say that as a slight against it. I actually applaud them for making something new and unique sounding.

I'd go as far as to say that I don't necessarily think it even sounds all that analog, except for the drive effects. I'd describe it as ultra-high resolution VA with analog style effects. I guess I associate "analog" with a bit of smudge, while Mariana seems very coherent. It almost reminds me of the Novation Peak if you limit yourself to the standard analog wave shapes. A nice addition would be to open up the wave shapes to include wavetables.

What would the attraction of official Moog VSTs be? That's bordering on the ridiculous.

The attraction? It sounds good and at the same time it's a different tone than my the few Moog synths I own (although I have the "cheaper" models - Minitaur, GrandMother, Mother-32 an DFAM) and I'd only need a computer (and a cheap and light master keyboard) to play with it wherever I want.


I'm not a fan of the multitab gui (and also of some design choices) of Mariana, but the synth also has some interesting features/tricks, like the control over the phase offset between the oscillators (I can hardsync / reset the phase on some of my hardware hardware, but I don't have that kind of control)...


Anyway I tried the demo when it was launched but it was too heavy for my daw computer (my laptop could handle it, though), so I passed.
Maybe I'm spoiled with choices (and I prefer playing with hardware anyway), but Mariana has some selling points to me.

YMMV

Moog have been Akai'd.

The Mariana project far predates that acquisition. It was commenced around a year or so before the sale.

Moog have never suggested nor inferred this was an attempt at emulating Moog hardware, past or present. It's its own thing.

It definitely has a character. If you like it, buy it, if you don't, move on.

I personally think it sounds awesome. Super hifi. The two independent layers aspect adds a lot of richness.

Yeah, just like the spectravox and labyrinth. Typical cheap labor crud that is going nowhere. (Do I have to explain this is sarcasm?)

Acquisitions do not happen overnight. A company that wants to sell itself has to prepare to be attractive; business agreements, due diligence, ... I'm glad you like this synth.

The fact that you think it is normal for Moog to pass as one of many Eurorack manufacturers speaks volumes. I'm glad you find Moog's offerings fascinating and its doodles entertaining.

Hi there,

Your post is just slightly confusing... On the one hand you seem to disagree, but then at the same time you seem to agree with my point that it wasn't Akai who came up with the Mariana concept. I guess we are in agreement.

But yeah, the synth sounds stellar. CPU hog and worth every cycle!

For anyone wanting an oldy timely analog Moog sound, I believe Softube is the best in the game right now.

So, I’m coming back to this thread because I went to download the updates for the Moogerfoogers plugins and I noticed Mariana is now at 1.2.0.

The changelog says “performance improvements to internal DSP”… unfortunately my trial is expired and I can’t try it on my system. Does someone has a full license? Is there any performance improvement actually? By hoe much since the original release?

I’m not planning to buy it yet, but I’m keeping an eye on it anyway…

Thank You.

I'm still waiting for the Mariana to be available to run on my MPC Live II standalone

Mariana on a ARM Quad-core and 2 GB RAM for OS and host and plugs will be a good challenge

May I ask what is the avg latency you experience? Thanks.

I haven't bought it yet but I will in a heartbeat if there's ever a version that can run standalone on my MPC or on my Raspberry Pi. I take both out and play live with them, using Jura and some Samples from Mars keygroups on the MPC and Pianoteq on the Pi

UAD’s a bit better.

Just a few observations about Mariana and the new Moog (InMusic) after owning Mariana for the past 5ish months or whatever, and a bonus harrowing tale of customer support.

First. I love the sound of Mariana. To me, it sounds killer the way it breaks up and is nasty. The filter sounds cool. I don't care if it sounds like anything else or what people think it should sound like. I just really like the sound.

But. I hate the GUI. The GUI was obviously made for iPad and they just kept it the same for all systems. There is a synth page and a separate control page (modulation). Having them separate sucks. But wait. There's more. There are actually 2 synths or voices or whatever, each with two pages. And then a mixer page with weirdly restrictive effects and no master filter. Each synth side has it's own filter. If you want to filter sweep the whole synth, you have to use Cytomic's The Drop (still the best filters after all of these years) or something else. I'm not great at maths but that's like 5 pages. And the pages take up a lot of screen real estate but you can shrink them down but you can't read anything very easily. It is just really weird and difficult to enjoy. So, I basically just use one of the synths and ignore the other. Too many pages. But you can't turn one of the synth sides off to save CPU. Which seams like a criminal omission. Am I wrong? Am I missing something? Is there like a button?

Speaking of CPU. I would say it is not great. On my M1 MacBook Air w/ 16gb ram running Ventura, I just loaded 1 instance of Mariana version 1.1.0 into an empty Live 11 project at 48kHz sample rate with 1024 buffer. 15% CPU according to Live. This was the same when I loaded it into an actual working project as well, not just an empty one. I checked 96kHz and it was 27%.

But wait, they just optimized it and have released version 1.2.0. So I spent 5 minutes trying to log into the website but it's the wrong website even though it has Mariana marketed on it. You gotta find the OTHER moogmusic website login. Side note: I've been using the internet for some time now and I feel like I have to learn how to use the internet all over again for the first time to be able to use moog's website. Whoever designed this is... not nice or not competent or maybe psychotic. Maybe it's the same person who designed the GUI. Anyway. I got the download (hint: it's not on the moogmusic website under downloads --> mariana. No. You have to log in. No, not that login. The other one). Anyway ... again. I got the download. 17% at 48kHz and 32% at 96kHz. Super!

BONUS STORY: I emailed MoogMusic (InMusic) the other day with a completely reasonable question that I couldn't find an answer to in the manual. I let them know that I couldn't find the answer to this completely reasonable question in the manual, and I then proceeded to ask my completely reasonable question. It took about 3 days to get a response. They were all like: "You're issue is VERY important to us. We look forward to providing the best possible service to your important bla bla corporate speak whatever... Please click the link provided below for information regarding your important issue..." So I clicked the link. The link was a link to the user manual. Incredible. I'll spare you the grisly details of the correspondence over the next several days, but rest assured that my question was never actually answered. I never felt supported. The next stage was "It's proprietary (go away)" followed by "Oh yes, it's proprietary but what you responded with in your last message is the right answer (please go away now)" [paraphrased]. Now, I know that I'm crazy (right?), but I swear to you, my brothers and sisters, that I was completely sane during this correspondence. Total control.

So, in closing, I've learned some important lessons that I'd like to share.

1. Avoid, if possible, companies that have been taken over by private equity (or whatever InMoogMusic is). I probably won't every buy anything from Moog again unless it's on reverb.
2. Avoid, if possible, software instruments and effects that have been designed initially for iPad. Yuk.
3. I still really like the way Mariana sounds and I'm still going to keep using it despite all of my ranting and raving. $50 on sale.

You've been warned. Ok good talk. Be nice to each other.

That was a weak optimization and It only added around 1-2% reduction in cpu usage between the versions.
So it still use a stupid amount of Cpu.

It should definitely be better, I agree. It doesn’t concern me that much, as I run a hybrid setup. I’ve got plenty of hardware to pick up when CPU cycles are scarce. I only use Mariana for major parts where it’s going to be prominent in the mix.