I happened to be in Asheville, North Carolina a couple of weeks ago and had agreed to meet some friends at a newly relocated brewery in town (there are over 35 breweries in Asheville) … next door to the brewery was this factory … flashes of ELP et al washed over me … MOOG … the MOOG factory was right next door … and NONE of my beer friends knew why the h…l I was so excited …
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Do they still make them…i have a recollection that they were an intricate tape loop machine beneath the keyboards. Much used by George Harrison, the Moody blues. I would have been excited👍
Yes indeed … and they are still hand made apparently. They also have factory tours. If you ask Mr. Google to look up Moog factory and Asheville you can see for yourself.
Wow, if i am ever there, i will look up. I guess they are fully digital these days.
No, that’s a Mellotron you’re thinking of. Moog made the first practical (and popular) synthesizer, much used by ELP, Wendy Carlos, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Jarre… basically everyone Back In The Day.
Mark
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No, every synth they make is still resolutely analogue. They were so famous for making analogue machines, they’ve stuck to giving the people what they want. It’s worked too.
Mark
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Yes you are right i was thinking of-the mellotron, thanks
Nice story - I’d have been excited too.
Excellent… were you able to visit around the Moog factory?
I remember making an analogue monophonic synth using various designs I cobbled together in my youth… and the VCF was modelled on a Moog ladder filter design… it sounded wonderful…
unfortunately I could never master the voltage to log current converter thermal stability, so the instrument used to drift terribly… but as a ‘radiophonics’ noise machine i thought it superb… I did end up selling it to a friend who went onto becoming an accomplished svante grande/experimental musician and composer…and the synth was used on one of his early albums, I guess as it sounded so distinct!.. so I was chuffed… and I can say I was very much inspired by the modular Moog synths at the time.
And there early success was mostly down to this ‘68 album by Wendy (Walter) Carlos and Rachel Elkind, also boosted by Giorgio Moroders I Feel Love for Donna Summer…
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I thought George used the Moog on Here Comes the Sun.
Yes you are right Andy, i mixed them up
Another pioneer of the Moog - Annette Peacock.
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I seem to remember that the trick was to use a device that was a pair of matched diodes implemented in a single package and on the same substrate.
Yes I used a twin transistor package, in a single thermally bonded metal can, and the idea you would negatively apply gain with one of the transistors to the log converter (for octave scaled control voltages) managed by the other transistor… but I couldn’t get them to reliably track each other, and after about 15 mins my synth would become slightly sharp or flat. I was obviously doing something wrong or my gain compensation was wrong… oh for the benefits of digital electronics…
Checkout the Brandenberg Concerto No. 3 played by Will Gregory and his Ensemble, all on Moog Synths
Saw them live in Dublin’s Concert Hall a couple of years ago.
Performed this movement, plus music from The Shining.
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My favourite Moog composer and performer is Wendy Carlos, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendy_Carlos
And she had a partnership with Robert Moog.
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Unfortunately not … I “discovered” it on a Saturday evening and we were leaving the next day. We’ll be visiting again in the middle of May and I have it pencilled in for a tour then.
All of the Moog models are available as an app. I have a few that I have spent untold hours messing about with. Plug the iPhone or iPad into your digital input and crank it up.
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