Love the Moog sound but can't really justify spending money on specific VSTs and I'm ware of freeware on the DAW. I figure there has to be some reasonable emulations or things that are close included with all these wacky synths I've gotten with Sonar.
 
Also it should be noted that I own (and still have installed) everything that came with the X1 Production Suite, X2 Producer as well as X3 Producer.
 
Wouldn't mind dropping a few old school analog bass drops/warbles into some of my stuff. Cheers.

Nothing will really, genuinely replace the original. But from the tools you have, I have used Z3TA+ to good effect. There are a bunch of vintage presets in there somewhere, and the vintage saws are a good starting point for rolling your own.

Without a real Moog or even a dedicated VST you're more looking for a "ballpark" approach though.

The MiniTaur is very affordable by the way. And Monark is dead cheap.

Thanks. Zeta is the synth I've played with the most so far and I have gotten it to do the brain rattling wobbles and stuff but you're right... it isn't the same, but if that's what'll get me closest then I'll mess with it more. I want to do an in depth study of how to properly use it to create/manipulate patches to learn about synths better anyway.
 
I figured maybe DimPro might have some stuff but I've barely touched it. I also have a copy of Novation BassStation that came with my interface that I haven't tried yet but I don't think that'll be the same. I also keep seeing threads about it not working properly with Sonar.
 
I gotta wonder... isn't there a free version of Kontakt Player that comes with a few sounds and that patches can be bought for a la carte? After seeing/hearing some of the stuff that thing can do I should probably consider it for the future.
 
Anyway... thanks for the heads up. I'll just have to poke around at stuff some more. Cheers.

Sample based stuff isn't your best bet for synth stuff, although Trilogy is pretty good. But if you want to mangle the sounds and modulate them lots of ways, it's a limited approach. There are a few free Reaktor ensembles I think but I don't believe Monark is in there (which is the only one specifically made to emulate Moog).

The Bass Station is pretty good but I always considered Novation to be closer to the Roland sound than to the Moog. Only familiar with the V Station though and that's pretty dated, sound wise.

Z3TA+ is pretty versatile which means you can at least set it up with most of the right parameters to sound like a Mini might. Just google the properties of the specific Moog you're going for. The 24dB/Oct LPF is kind of a given but the Mini's envelopes were also specific, as is the configuration of oscillators (3, but you could switch the third to LFO because otherwise you had none), the "lowest note" priority, etc.

Have you tooled around with Pentagon? It's got some Moog-y sounds in it. PSYN II has some as well. I think one of these should do the trick for you.

@sander... Great info. Thanks. I actually have a looooong way to go as far as learning even the basics about synths, samplers, etc... but now that I seem to be able to make Sonar do what I need it to as far as recording what I normally do (straight up instrument/live input based music) my studies are shifting more toward synths. Fortunately the time I've spent learning how to work drum samplers has my foot in the door as far as setting up tracks and controllers. Oscillators and filters and "pads" and all that stuff is still greek to me but I'm starting to watch some vids and will work through the manuals. Hopefully by this time next year I'll be nerding it up with you seasoned synth guys.
 
For now though I will definitely keep reaching for the Zeta+ to do wacky low end stuff. It'll be going into heavily distorted guitar material as accents or to beef up the bottom end with something interesting and so far Zeta seems to cut through nicely.
 
Cheers.

Oh also simple EQ can help a lot to get the right tone. I tried matching a KingKorg to my MicroMoog and ended up using a little low boost on the KK to end up nearly identical.

Leadfoot
Have you tooled around with Pentagon? It's got some Moog-y sounds in it. PSYN II has some as well. I think one of these should do the trick for you.

Thanks. I actually haven't even touched those and honestly forget about them because they don't get mentioned often. I'll take a look. I think I've got Beatscape too but that seems like it's something completely different.
 
Cheers.

I've gotten some great Moog type sounds out of both of those that I mentioned, especially PSYN II.

Pentagon is very powerful, and I find the knobs and switches easier to work with than Zeta's menus and drop downs.