Robert Moog was a one-of-a-kind innovator who changed the realm of synthesis and electronic music for the entire world. The 'Moog Synthesizer' was one of the first widely used electronic musical instruments and is still used as a choice instrument to this day.

🏗️ The Foundation Years

It all began at the age of 19 when Moog founded his first company, R.A. Moog Co. in 1954. The company originally began manufacturing theremin kits - by 1961, he had sold around 1,000 theremin kits for $50 each, roughly $400,000 in today's money! This early success funded his college education at Cornell.

🎛️ The Synthesizer Revolution

The breakthrough came in 1963 when Bob Moog developed the first Moog modular synthesizer, thanks in part to inspiration provided by composer Herbert A. Deutsch. It wasn't until Moog had been approached by the very influential Raymond Scott that he began his career creating modular instruments.

🎹 The Legendary Minimoog Model D

In 1971, one of the first relatively affordable, portable, and widely available innovative synthesizers, the Minimoog Model D, was created. Although it was first created with only a few filters, it eventually evolved into having a wider key range and a larger range of oscillators and filters. This instrument would become the gold standard for analog synthesis.

🎼 Wendy Carlos: The Moog Collaborator & Pioneer

Perhaps no one was more crucial to the Moog synthesizer's development and success than Wendy Carlos (1939-present). A brilliant musician and engineer, Carlos met Bob Moog at the 1964 Audio Engineering Society show and began a partnership that would transform electronic music forever.

Carlos wasn't just a user - she was a co-developer. She ordered custom-designed synthesizer modules from Moog and gave him extensive advice and technical assistance. She convinced Moog to add crucial features including the touch-sensitive keyboard, portamento control, fixed filter bank, and a 49-oscillator polyphonic generator bank. Moog credited Carlos with originating many features of his synthesizer.

In 1968, Carlos released "Switched-On Bach" - an album of Johann Sebastian Bach's music performed entirely on a Moog synthesizer. This groundbreaking album proved that synthesizers weren't just for avant-garde "noise-making" but could create beautiful, accessible music. The album was a massive success:

The recording process was monumentally complex. Using her self-built 8-track recorder (she couldn't afford commercial equipment), Carlos had to record every single note separately since the Moog was monophonic. She worked 8 hours a day, five days a week, for five months - over 1,100 hours total - while maintaining her day job as a recording engineer.

Carlos also contributed scores to Stanley Kubrick's "A Clockwork Orange" (1971) and "The Shining" (1980), as well as Disney's "Tron" (1982), further cementing the Moog's place in popular culture.

💼 Corporate Challenges & New Beginnings

In 1973, partly due to the drastic change in product focus, Moog changed the company name to Moog Music. Unfortunately, because of failure in attaining a good marketing and management team, Moog parted ways with the company he founded in 1977.

He eventually made his way to Big Briar, a new company that specialized in theremins. By 1999, the company began expanding and began production on "Moogerfoogers" - analog effects pedals that were extremely innovative. This led to creating the first digital effects plugins that worked directly with Pro Tools Digital Audio Workstation.

🔄 Reclaiming the Legacy

Interestingly, Moog Music (without Robert Moog) eventually closed in 1993, but Moog legally could not market products under his own name for the better part of the 1990s. Finally, in 2002, the Moog name and its rights were given back to their original owner after a large legal battle.

With the rights back in his hands, Moog created the Minimoog Voyager - a modern interpretation of the original Model D that replicated its functionality but with numerous enhancements and features. The Minimoog Voyager is still used today as one of the best high-performance synthesizers.