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Duncan MacConnell

Moog Modular Synthesizers and The Mini Moog

“I can feel what’s going on inside a piece of electronic equipment” — Bob Moog

Bob Moog

  • documentary: http://bit.ly/2cjx7MC
  • designed and built some of the first analog synthesizers, still around today
  • originally designed instruments to provide many possibilities (late 60s)

Mood Modular (late 60s) http://bit.ly/2cf1PrU

  • The Monkeys
  • The Beatles
  • The Rolling Stones
  • Emerson Lake and Palmer
  • Wendy Carlos — Switched On Bach
  • Wendy Carlos provided commercial/stylistic breakthrough
  • required a lot of understanding → time spent
  • modular synthesizers of this size require understanding of signal theory, what is an envelope, when are they applied, how do you play a specific note, what is an appropriate signal to modulate with, etc.
  • supporting so many possibilities for signal routing leaves us with a noisy interface for novice users

Mini Moog (1970/71) http://bit.ly/1U7GuNJ

MINI MOOG MODEL D
  • what is different?
  • no physical patching
  • nice big labels
  • a keyboard, western music’s most popular interface
  • limited set of oscillators, filters, and envelopes → in order
  • same quality of sound
  • Moog took the filter types, envelope designs, and oscillator configurations that were preferred by musicians when using the larger modular units
  • these configurations were most musical?
  • first electronic music presets?
  • simplicity guaranteed adoption by wide range of artists
  • everyone! from ABBA to Zappa (http://bit.ly/2cwvWci)
  • for any keyboard player, not just engineers etc.