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Bob Moog (it's pronounced "mohg", or "mogue", not "moog" like in
"moo-cow") started out as a young man building theremin kits as a
paid hobby. Graduating to more serious electronic musical
instruments, he moved on to build quite large (some say monstrous)
modular synthesizers which looked like big telephone patchboards,
connected up to dozens of wires and controlled by detachable
keyboard controllers.
This was in the late 60's and Bob was making a comfortable living
doing it. Among his clients was composer Wendy Carlos (at the time
she was Walter Carlos - you do the math). Carlos used the Moog
synthesizer to record one of the first commercially successful
electronic albums, Switched On Bach. "Synthesizer" became a
household word, and eventually Bob met up with a very young
musician named Keith Emerson, with whom he worked to design a
portable version of his huge modular synth. Out of this collaboration
the Moog Minimoog was born. And it was a beautiful baby, not only to
play but also, quite frankly, to look at.
The Minimoog sported a 44-note keyboard, three oscillators, a filter
section and an amplifier section, and knobs and switches to control it
all. The bulk of the knobs and switches were on a hinged panel which
could be propped up at an angle above the keyboard (the whole thing
was self-contained, you could fold the panel back down and put the
Minimoog in a small suitcase). Directly to the left were two modulation
wheels, an innovation at the time which later became standard on
synths. In addition to the wheels were switches which turned on
release (so notes could ring out, like using a sustain pedal) and an
off-on switch enabling the "glide" (or what we now call portamento). A
separate panel knob controlled portamento time.
It was all very functional, ergonomic and incredibly easy to use. And
the tone was awesome. Fat, thick, shimmering, aggressive, pure, all
of these and more. You could add noise, and the third oscillator could
also function in low-frequency mode modulating the first two, so you
could produce ring-modulation style effects.
Keith Emerson even took to pitching knives at his Minimoog as
part of his wild onstage act. Personally, I couldn't afford to do that to
my Minimoogs. But they kept me gigging as I was one of the few
musicians in my town at the time who had any synthesizers at all, let
alone knowing how to use them.
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