There may have been more portable ones, and ones that had bigger libraries of sounds, but nothing else in the world sounds like a Moog.
Robert Moog, the creator of the electronic music synthesizer that bears his name and that became ubiquitous among both experimental composers and rock musicians in the 1960’s and 1970’s, died on Sunday at his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 71.
The first Moog synthesizers were collections of modules, connected by electronic patch cords, something like those that connect stereo components. The first module, an oscillator, would produce a sound wave, giving a musician a choice of several kinds, ranging from the gracefully undulating purity of a sine wave to the more complex, angular or abrasive sounds of square and sawtooth waves. The wave was sent to the next module, called an A.D.S.R. (attack-decay-sustain-release) envelope generator, with which the player defined the way a note begins and ends, and how long it is held. A note might, for example, explode in a sudden burst, like a trumpet blast, or it could fade in at any number of speeds. From there, the sound went to a third module, a filter, which was used to shape its color and texture.
— Robert Moog, Music Synthesizer Creator, Dies, by Allan Kozinn, NYTimes.com, August 22, 2005
My fondest memory of the Moog synthesizer was when it first came out we took an album of it over to our friends’ house. Their five-year old son was sitting on the floor in front of the stereo coloring. With the first note, he raised his head and looked directly at the stereo and vomitted. We immediately took it off the turntable.
His father experimented a day or so later with the album and the kid threw up each time he heard the Moog.
I wonder if this still happens now that he is, what, 40 years old?
What an amazing step the Moog was! All I remember was that there were lots of pieces written about the “death” of live music. Ha Ha….didn’t happen! Bon Voyage Mr. Moog…and thanks for those lovely and interesting sounds!
STB