When Moog decided to reimagine the legendary Taurus I for the 1980s, they took a bold approach: split the synthesizer into two separate units and borrowed the guts from their Rogue synth, creating something that felt like a completely different animal. Released in 1981, the Taurus II was Moog's attempt to modernize the bass pedal experience with more timbral flexibility and a control layout that let you tweak sounds mid-performance.
The Taurus II pairs an 18-note bass pedal unit with a detachable desktop synthesizer module suspended on a microphone stand above it. Under the hood sits a monophonic synthesis engine built around two analog oscillators feeding into a 24dB/octave resonant low-pass filter with key tracking. Unlike the original Taurus, the II introduced a second waveform option—pulse wave alongside the distorted sawtooth—giving you more tonal range to work with. The control panel includes modulation and pitch bend wheels, portamento control, and a modulation section with adjustable rate and shape controls. You get 1.5 octaves of playable range across the pedals, plus CV and trigger outputs for interfacing with modular gear.
The Taurus II found its audience among players who valued the hands-on control and the ability to manipulate parameters during live performance, though the synthesis engine itself never quite earned the reverence of its predecessor. The lack of patch memory meant you were working with what you set up, which some saw as a limitation and others embraced as a feature. It's a fascinating snapshot of early-80s Moog design philosophy—ambitious in scope but ultimately overshadowed by the original's legendary status.
