This page is read from MIDI Instrument Definitions, a Python library used in the author's other projects, in which every number is traced to a document its maker published. Its source is on GitHub.

Moog Music Sub 37 MIDI implementation

The MIDI implementation of the Moog Music Sub 37: what it answers to, and the 116 controls it offers, on firmware 1.2.0.

At a glance

Firmware

This page describes firmware 1.2.0.

MIDI channel

Any one of 1 to 16.

Voices

1 or 2, as set on the instrument, and it can play paraphonically.

Note range

Not recorded.

Velocity

Not recorded.

Aftertouch

Sent. Whether it answers to any is not recorded.

Pitch bend

How far it bends is not recorded, and the range can be changed.

Program change

Received and sent, with 256 presets.

MIDI clock

Sent and received.

Start and stop

Sent.

Control change

75 controls, in the tables below, 28 of them with a fine half on a second controller number.

NRPN

Supported. 98 of the controls below have one.

System exclusive

Supported.

Controls

In the order the definition gives them, by group. Under each control is the name a program calls it by, once pymidiinstrumentdefs.load("moog/sub_37") has loaded them.

Wheels

Keyboard

Output

Glide

Arpeggiator

Mod 1

Mod 2

Mixer

Oscillators

Filter

Filter envelope

Amplifier envelope

Without a group

Where these facts come from

Source documents

• Sub 37 User Guide, v1.1, from Moog's file name; the document states none, its user manual, read on 1 October 2026 (the file read).
• MOOG SUB 37 - FIRMWARE UPDATE 1.2.0, 1.2.0, its release notes, read on 1 October 2026 (the file read).
• Subsequent 37 | Moog Music, its product page, read on 1 October 2026 (the file read).

How they were read

User guide (62pp), the edition Moog's file name calls v1.1: pp. 9, 12, 14-15, 21-23, 25, 27-32, 34-44, 47-48, 50-59, 61, and the change log printed inside the firmware v1.2.0 package.

THIS INSTRUMENT AND THE SUBSEQUENT 37 ARE ONE MIDI IMPLEMENTATION, and that is the first thing to know about this file, because it is why the two definitions carry the same 116 controls. It was established from the documents rather than assumed from the family name: THE FIRMWARE IS ONE IMAGE. Moog's package for each instrument was compared member by member by the SHA-256 of each member's bytes, keyed by content so that a file appearing twice under one name could not be mistaken for a difference. All 18 contents of this instrument's package are in the Subsequent 37's, byte for byte, including the image sub37_1.2.0.mfw and the four system exclusive files that install it by hand. That package adds seven files and all seven are the C6 system exclusive utility.

THE MIDI PAGES ARE THE SAME PAGES. Printed pp. 35, 36 and 37, which is the whole of the MIDI menu, and p. 52, which is the MIDI operations page and the clock division table, were compared character for character with the model name set aside: they are identical, and so is the specifications page at p. 61.

THE CHARTS AGREE IN EVERY ROW THIS ONE HAS. Both NRPN charts hold 123 rows numbered consecutively 402 to 524, and every row matches in name and in value count. The CC charts agree on all 86 rows here; the Subsequent 37's prints one more, ALL NOTES OFF at CC 123, which is a channel mode message and so is a control in neither file. Four of this chart's names differ from that one's only in how the PDF spaces the letters - this file uses Type 1 fonts where the newer manual uses a subset CID font, so an extractor infers word gaps differently and reads AR PEGG IATOR L ATCH for a string that is identical in both. The raw show-string operands were read in both files to confirm the words are the same.

AND MOOG NAMES NO MIDI DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THEM. Every change its notice claims is sonic: "The SUBSEQUENT 37 is a (2-note) paraphonic analog synthesizer with double the mixer headroom of the Sub 37 ... the gain-staging of the Ladder filter has been reshaped to boost harmonic saturation and analog compression ... a re-tuned Multidrive circuit that extends well beyond the grit and growl of the original Sub 37" (product_page), and "Each enhancement maintains the magic and character of its predecessor" (product_page).

WHAT IS STILL NOT SETTLED, and is marked here rather than resolved: whether an instrument of this model answers to CC 123, which the newer manual documents and this one does not mention in 62 pages. The two ship one firmware image, so the likely reading is that it is a difference between the documents; that cannot be established from documents, and there is no Sub 37 here to ask.

TWO TABLES CARRY THE CONTROLS, and they overlap without saying so. The CC chart, pp. 53-55, has 86 rows; the NRPN chart, pp. 56-59, has 123. Every row of both is accounted for below: 75 of the 86 rows are controls here, bank select's two among them, 10 are rows the maker marks RESERVED and 1 is a channel mode message. 98 of the 123 NRPN rows are named and 25 are the maker's own (RESERVED).

57 PARAMETERS ARE IN BOTH CHARTS UNDER DIFFERENT NAMES, which no page points out: "FILTER EG ATTACK TIME" (p. 53) in the CC chart is "F EG ATTACK" (p. 58) in the NRPN chart, "FILTER MULTIDRIVE" (p. 53) is "FILTER DRIVE" (p. 58), "GLIDE" is "GLIDE ON". The pairings come from the maker's own list of parameter names on p. 51, printed there as the choices for the programmable modulation destination, which expands every abbreviation the charts use.

41 CONTROLS CAN BE REACHED BY NRPN ALONE: the arpeggiator's rate, range, pattern, gate length and clock division, each LFO's sync, clock division, clock source and keyboard tracking, each modulation bus's mod wheel, velocity, pressure and controller 4 amounts, the five mixer mute switches, and the filter envelope's sync, loop, latch and clock division. The maker says why: "Since the Sub 37 has over 150 parameters saved with each sound, it is not possible to assign a standard MIDI CC to every parameter. For complete MIDI output from every panel knob and button, you will need to set the KNB NRPN/CC parameter to NRPN mode" (p. 56).

THE AMPLIFIER ENVELOPE IS THE OTHER WAY ROUND: ten controller numbers below and no NRPN at all. The NRPN chart stops four rows into reserved space at 524, having given the filter envelope twelve rows and the amplifier envelope none, while p. 51 lists twelve amplifier envelope parameters by name.

THE NRPN CHART'S VALUE RANGE COLUMN IS A COUNT, not a range, and the ranges below are one less. The reading is the maker's own five times over: the column's 21 is the 21 clock divisions printed on p. 52, its 4 is CC 109's four filter slopes, its 3 is CC 85's three glide types, its 6 is CC 71's six modulation sources, and its 7 is CC 91's seven destinations.

SIX ROWS OF THAT COLUMN CONTRADICT THE MANUAL ITSELF, and they are marked in place rather than corrected. Five are consecutive: NRPN 486 to 490 print 16384, 3, 2, 2 and 21 for OSC 2 DUO MODE, OSC 2 FREQUENCY, OSC 2 BEAT, OSC 1 LEVEL and OSC 1 ON, where p. 51 gives those as an on/off control, two frequency offsets, a level and an on/off control. The rows either side of that block are right. The sixth is NRPN 518, F EG CLK DIV, which prints 2 where p. 41 sends the same parameter to the 21 clock divisions of p. 52 in words, and where the chart's three other clock divisions all print 21.

ONE NAMED ROW HAS NO VALUE RANGE PRINTED AT ALL: NRPN 500, FILTER RESONANCE. That is the page rather than the reading, and the Subsequent 37's manual prints the row the same way.

28 CONTROLS ARE 14-BIT PAIRS, printed as "0-127 [MSB], 0-16383[MSB,LSB]" (p. 53) with the fine half 32 above the coarse one, which is the MMA's own pairing. Three further rows are pairs and are reserved. Whether the instrument sends both halves is a setting: CC FORMAT offers 7-BIT and 14-BIT and "use 7-bit (default)" (p. 37).

THE ONE VALUE TABLE THE MANUAL PRINTS FOR A CONTROLLER BELONGS TO A CONTROLLER THE CHART NAMES DIFFERENTLY, which is why its 21 divisions are quoted beside LFO 1 Rate rather than carried as its values. See the comment there.

BANK SELECT IS CARRIED, CC 0 and CC 32, as it is wherever a maker numbers it; what this instrument puts in them is with the two controls and under program_change below. EXCLUDED, and not missed: CC 122 LOCAL CONTROL ON/OFF, a channel mode message, which the validator refuses as a control.

NOT RECORDED, and marked in place:

• the note range, since the manual never says which MIDI note numbers the instrument answers to;
• what the 89 programmable modulation destinations are numbered as;
• the MIDI mode;
• and a default for any control, since neither chart has a default column.