Moog Animoog Galaxy: Anisotropic Immersive Synthesizer for Apple Vision Pro

02 Feb by Robin Vincent |

4,3 / 5,0 | Approximate reading time: 2 Minutes

Moog Animoog Galaxy · Source: Moog

Introducing Apple Vision Pro. · Source: Apple

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If you have the Apple Vision Pro, then suit up and enjoy the Animoog Galaxy augmented reality synthesizer experience. Even better than the real thing.

Animoog Galaxy

Building on the Anisotropic Synth Engine of the Animoog Z iOS app, Animoog Galaxy pushes out the Z-plane and falls into 3D space. The X, Y and Z parameters become objects in your environment and unique timbres are found through spatial manipulation. This is the sort of thing virtual reality was invented for. Actually, no, that was probably porn, but this is perhaps a more healthy way to spend your time in augmented or virtual reality.

Through the power of Apple’s Vision Pro, Animoog Galaxy generates sound and vision that can exist in and around your real-life surroundings. The Vision Pro helmet works by overlaying virtual objects onto your environment, so essentially, we’re getting an animated piece of synthesizer software sat on your real desk as if it’s supposed to be there. However, there’s also a fully immersive mode where you become one with the synth like Lawnmower Man.

It appears to be very much like Animoog Z but with an interface designed to cope with gestures and hand waving. I can imagine placing nodes and drawing paths through timbres could be very interesting.

Specs

The Anisotropic Synth Engine offers a library of digital timbres that can be accessed and modulated through three planes of access. It’s a mash-up between wavetables and vector synthesis with layers of modulation mapped out in 3D space. Animoog Galaxy has a gestural keyboard with scales, quantization and glide. You can play live or make use of the intelligent step-sequencer. There are three envelopes and three LFOs with continuously varying waveshape and repeat options. For deeper modulation, there are 10 lanes with all sorts of sources, controllers and destinations.

Making everything sound nice is a solid effects engine with Delay, Unison, Bitcrsuh, Drive, and Filter. For added fun, there’s an Arpeggiator, and you can capture everything you’re doing in the Recorder. You also have MIDI integration, and through the augmented mode, you can see your MIDI controller with the Animoog Galaxy floating over the top – fascinating.

Virtual synthesis

What’s missing at the time of writing is any insight into how well this works. Moog did offer me an NFR of Animoog Galaxy, which is nice. But it amuses me that they would think I would own the $3,499 Vision Pro, considering there’s no UK release date, which is probably the least of my worries. Seeing some videos of people interacting with the synth will be interesting.

I’ve no doubt that it will sound fantastic, but being a Quest 2 user, I do have doubts about the likelihood of long-term use or seeing it as anything more than a coffee break diversion.

Animoog Galaxy is exclusively available on the Vision Pro for $29.99.