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Speaker 1: With Technology with tech Stuff from snoog. Hey there, and

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Speaker 1: welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and with me

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Speaker 1: today is Joe McCormick, my beloved co host from board

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Speaker 1: Thinking for one or two. The other one's also beloved,

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Speaker 1: but she's not here. That was a terrible introduction. Hey Joe,

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Speaker 1: how you doing? Hey, how are you doing? I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: doing fine. How are you? Jona? All right? So we're

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Speaker 1: recording this in December, uh, well, in advance of when

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Speaker 1: it will publish. It will publish in January. And Joe,

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Speaker 1: you and I are kind of like right in the

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Speaker 1: crunch for people who do podcasts and videos as holidays

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Speaker 1: loom up. So I say that to alert our listeners

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Speaker 1: that we might get a little loopy. And that's only

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Speaker 1: kind of a pun because we're talking about mog synthesizers

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Speaker 1: and sometimes musicians these loops. So yeah, we're gonna talk

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Speaker 1: about mog synthesizers. And when I brought this up, I

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Speaker 1: gave Joe a list of potential topics. These were all

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Speaker 1: ones that were suggested by by listeners. So thank you

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Speaker 1: guys for sending in your suggestions. That's awesome. I really

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Speaker 1: appreciate it. And Mog synthesizers are kind of amazingly cool, Jonathan.

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Speaker 1: They are not cool, they are cool. Okay, that's fair. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: For the longest time I thought it was Moog. I

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Speaker 1: thought it was Moog too. And when I told my

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Speaker 1: wife Rachel that I was going to be recording an

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Speaker 1: episode with you on on mog, she was like, what's that?

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Speaker 1: And she was like, is it not Moog? And I

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Speaker 1: was like, yeah, I used to think the same thing.

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Speaker 1: But apparently we're just all super ignorant because MOG is

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Speaker 1: not an acronym for something. Doesn't stand for massive open

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Speaker 1: online gorillas or mogic modular organic oh led garage. I

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Speaker 1: don't know. No, it doesn't stand for anything. It's it's

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Speaker 1: a person's last name rights the last name of old

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Speaker 1: Bob Moog who not Moog Bob move. It's a hard

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Speaker 1: habit to break, dude. No. I remember I did a

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Speaker 1: podcast with Chris Palette years and years and years ago,

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Speaker 1: and I think I said Moog synthesizer and that, and

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Speaker 1: I was get some angry, angry letters. I was. I

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Speaker 1: was thrashed about the neck and wrists with a with

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Speaker 1: a ruler, which Chris kept on him. Chris, Yeah, I mean, well,

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Speaker 1: he's a percussionist for one, and you know he's been

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Speaker 1: in bands. You know, he opened for he opened for

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Speaker 1: for Indigo Girls. I mean he's like, we're talking serious

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Speaker 1: musician here, um, And I'm only slightly ripping him because

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Speaker 1: that's all true. But no, he he was very kind

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Speaker 1: actually to point out my my faux paw. Now, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't remember many Indigo Girls songs being big on

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Speaker 1: the Moges. No, I was just using that as a

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Speaker 1: way of establishing Chris is uh musical chops in the

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Speaker 1: sense that he was an established musician, not so much

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Speaker 1: to specifically put him in a mog camp. I would

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Speaker 1: like to attend Mogue camp. I bet it would be fun,

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Speaker 1: But we wanted to start off before we get into

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Speaker 1: the nitty gritty of Mogue. We wanted to talk a

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Speaker 1: little bit about electronic music because part of the story

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Speaker 1: is how electronic music wasn't always an acceptable musical format

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Speaker 1: to the general public, but of course now it's it's

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Speaker 1: an incredibly huge, uh genre of music. Well, despite being

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Speaker 1: really popular among some people. I mean, there are lots

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Speaker 1: of people who love electronic music and that's their favorite

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Speaker 1: genre of music. There is still sometimes you'll see a

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Speaker 1: kind of I don't know what you call it, a

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Speaker 1: kind of acoustic elitism snobbery that isn't so much at

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Speaker 1: electronic music itself, though you do encounter that a little bit,

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Speaker 1: like like explicitly electronic music, But a lot of times

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Speaker 1: I see it at music that is that uses electronically

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Speaker 1: generated tones in conjunction with traditional arrangements and instruments, So

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Speaker 1: like pop songs that have synthesizers in them, there are

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Speaker 1: like snobby, elitist opinions against that, and I wonder why

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Speaker 1: that is. I mean, I know there is there's sort

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Speaker 1: of a general idea that electronically generated tones are fake,

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Speaker 1: which is, you know, they're like it's almost like they're

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Speaker 1: not real sound. Yeah, when you get down to it,

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Speaker 1: when you really peel away all the layers of this onion,

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Speaker 1: you realize how ludicrous an argument that is. Because a

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Speaker 1: musical instrument is a construct we used to generate sound. It.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't necessarily have any electronic components to it, but

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Speaker 1: it's still a tool that we're used to create these

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Speaker 1: musical notes. Like there's nothing natural. You don't go to

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Speaker 1: the violin tree and pluck a violin off the violin jury, right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, these are all tools and well, it's sure,

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Speaker 1: but my wardrobe broke down like three years ago, so

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to go to the old school violin

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Speaker 1: maker who makes fake violin. Yeah, exactly, Like you should

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Speaker 1: be arguing like, well, you're not singing, so you're just

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Speaker 1: doing You're just faking it, like unless you're using the

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Speaker 1: human voice and tapping upon your own barrel chest for percussion, you, sir,

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Speaker 1: are not a musician. Well, this is a concept we're

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Speaker 1: gonna have to revisit throughout the episode today because I

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Speaker 1: think it is a central theme of the career of

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Speaker 1: Robert mog But I thought it would be good to

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Speaker 1: start just by asking you what is some of your

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Speaker 1: favorite electronic music. You don't have to be moge centric here,

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Speaker 1: because that might be kind of limiting if if I

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Speaker 1: just say, played on a mogue with electronically generated tones,

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Speaker 1: what do you like? Okay, So I'm just gonna run

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Speaker 1: through these pretty quickly, because I mean, obviously we could

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Speaker 1: we could have an entire podcast dedicated to music. Effect

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Speaker 1: we used to have a music oriented podcast from How

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works. Haven't done it in ages? It was stuff

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Speaker 1: from the B sides. I would love to see that

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Speaker 1: come back sometime. But here's some First of all, have

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Speaker 1: to mention daft punk, uh obviously, like that's like the

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Speaker 1: kind of clear front runner of electronic music as far

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Speaker 1: as mainstream awareness is concerned, outside of just the electronica fans,

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Speaker 1: who are of course their knowledge runs far more deep

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Speaker 1: than mine. Um. I could also just lump in pretty

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Speaker 1: much any band that was part of the new wave movement,

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Speaker 1: because new wave was very electronic heavy and in certain

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Speaker 1: parts of that uh, that movement. Yes, the the the

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Speaker 1: post punk new wave movement. I love that that genre

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Speaker 1: of music as well. Um, the soundtrack to the original

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Speaker 1: Tron movie, I love it. I also like Tron Legacy,

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Speaker 1: which again goes back to daft punk. But I love

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Speaker 1: the soundtrack to the original Tron movie. You know, we

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Speaker 1: both fight for the users. Yes, and that was scored

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Speaker 1: by Wendy Carlos, and Wendy Carlos is very important in

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Speaker 1: the history of MOG because Wendy Carlos also did an

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Speaker 1: album called Switched on Bach, which was an early album

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Speaker 1: that really uh pushed MOG into the limelight. Like it

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Speaker 1: it was a very popular album. It hit top twenty

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Speaker 1: charts and I own this on vinyl. It is at

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Speaker 1: my house right now. I have a vinyl copy of

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Speaker 1: Switched on Bach. Now did that album actually make an

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Speaker 1: appearance in the movie A Clockwork Orange? Or was that

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Speaker 1: that was Wendy Carlos scoring? When Carlos scored music and

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Speaker 1: that oh wait, that was Beethoven, wasn't it Beethoven was

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Speaker 1: the piece? That was the music that was That's right,

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Speaker 1: the lindvig Van. But Wendy Carlos scored Clockwork Orange. She

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Speaker 1: also scored the Shining Um and then also, I like

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Speaker 1: the soundtrack to Lady Hawk. I don't know what that is.

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Speaker 1: You don't know Lady Hawk is. Lady Hawk is a

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Speaker 1: fantasy film from the mid eighties and it starred Matthew

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Speaker 1: Broderick as a thief. No no, he was a thief

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Speaker 1: named mouse. Rutger Howard played a no. Rugger Howard was

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Speaker 1: a a like canthrope who was in love with a

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Speaker 1: a young lady played by um By Lady Hawk. Well,

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Speaker 1: she was the Lady Hawk, but the name suddenly escapes

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Speaker 1: me and that's terrible, but anyway, and it will kill me.

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Speaker 1: People right in and tell me who was Michelle Pfiffer,

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Speaker 1: Michelle Phifer, she was Lady Hawk. Uh. So, the story

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Speaker 1: goes that he turns into uh, a wolf at night,

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Speaker 1: she turns into Rugger Howard. She turns into a bird

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Speaker 1: in the daytime. They are in love with one another,

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Speaker 1: but they can never be together because as one is

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Speaker 1: transforming into human, the other one's transforming into animal. And

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Speaker 1: it's this kind of story of tragedy as they as

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Speaker 1: Rugger Howard's character is looking to enact revenge upon the

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Speaker 1: the person who has cursed them to this existence. Marger

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Speaker 1: Howard has so many time related struggles. He wants more life.

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Speaker 1: He needs to be a day wolf. Yep. So the

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Speaker 1: The soundtrack is a mixture of orchestral uh and pop

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Speaker 1: scynth rock and uh. Some people absolutely detest it. I

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Speaker 1: love it. I love it because it is very much

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Speaker 1: a thing of its time. It would not fit in

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Speaker 1: any other time period. Like if this movie remain in

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Speaker 1: the nineties and it had that soundtrack, you would be

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Speaker 1: scratching your head wondering why. But in the eighties it

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Speaker 1: was right there at the forefront of this pop scynth

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Speaker 1: score movement that some people hate but I love also.

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Speaker 1: I mean I mentioned switched on Bach. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: heard of the Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade. I know,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about. So it's a

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Speaker 1: parade that was very popular at Disney World in Disneyland.

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Speaker 1: Don't know if they still do it. Parade and actual parade. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you would go oh and and find a spot on

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Speaker 1: Main Street and wait and the floats. It was at night,

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Speaker 1: and the floats were all lit up with various led lights.

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Speaker 1: I think that are originally like incandescent lights when it

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Speaker 1: was first going, because that's how old the parade, sure,

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Speaker 1: and uh, the the but the music was all electronic

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Speaker 1: music and very peppy, and it included motifs from various

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Speaker 1: Disney films like Mary Poppins and Pete's Dragon and that

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And um and I had that on vinyl.

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Speaker 1: It's a little uh uh, a little uh tiny um,

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Speaker 1: which is great. There was an album called The mog Cookbook.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever hear this? So? I didn't hear this

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Speaker 1: came out in the mid nineties. The Moge Cookbook is

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Speaker 1: a cover album. Uh the cover the songs are all

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Speaker 1: like from the mid nineties, but covered with bogus. So

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Speaker 1: you've got like, wait, is it not the Moke Coke Boke. No,

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Speaker 1: it's not the Mog Coke Boke. It's the mog Cookbook.

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Speaker 1: I looked it up. Uh yeah, it included a black

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Speaker 1: Hole Sun, Buddy Holly, basket Case, free Fallen smells like

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Speaker 1: teen Spirit, and several other songs. Wait, it included the

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Speaker 1: artist Buddy Holly or the song Buddy the song Buddy Hollybyewheeler,

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Speaker 1: because they were all from that that general era. And

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Speaker 1: I also have an un ironic love for the music

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Speaker 1: of sticks, in which keyboard solos often play a pivotal role. Well,

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Speaker 1: it can't fault you there some of my own favorite

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Speaker 1: electronic music, like you. A lot of the electronic music

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Speaker 1: that came to mind was from soundtracks. Of course. I

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Speaker 1: think of the Doctor Who theme, which is a wonderful

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Speaker 1: early electronic masterpiece. It was composed in the BBC Audio

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Speaker 1: workshops by somebody named Delia derby Shire, or actually I

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Speaker 1: think it was composed originally by somebody else as a

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Speaker 1: piece of written music, but realized electronically in a fascinating

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Speaker 1: and wonderful way by by Derbyshire. At the BBC then

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Speaker 1: so much so that the original composer actually said, at

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Speaker 1: this point this music is not really my own anymore.

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Speaker 1: It's it's Derby Shire's. And not that that. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: wasn't distancing from the music. It wasn't saying like this

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Speaker 1: is a bad thing, but this is a remarkable thing. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And also I would have to mention the electronic compositions

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Speaker 1: of one John Carpenter. For example, I cannot get enough

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Speaker 1: of the soundtrack of Halloween three Season of the Witch,

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Speaker 1: a movie with much better music than it deserves. Now

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Speaker 1: did they use the same motif as the Michael Myers

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Speaker 1: motif and Halloween's one and two? It's been a lontesis.

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Speaker 1: It's different, it's got it's got some of some kind

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Speaker 1: of similar themes weaving in and out, but but it's

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Speaker 1: its own thing. You should dun dunt dun dundu dun

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Speaker 1: mean that shows up a little, But you should just

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Speaker 1: listen to the Halloween three soundtrack. It's great electronic music.

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Speaker 1: I'll have to take a listen. Yeah, I love the

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Speaker 1: John Carpenter stuff like I love his stuff from Big Trumble,

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Speaker 1: Little China, and and uh, you know, like even some

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Speaker 1: of the things that are are He's playing songs that

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Speaker 1: are more guitar driven, but you can tell the instead

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Speaker 1: of guitar, they're using a synthesizer, which is kind of cool.

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Speaker 1: That's a kind of different thing once you start talking

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Speaker 1: about digitally edited together music. But also, earlier today, because

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Speaker 1: I knew we were going to do this, I asked

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Speaker 1: my co host, one of my co hosts from Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb, about his favorite old

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Speaker 1: school SyncE stuff and he recommended a guy named Mort Garson,

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Speaker 1: who had never heard of before, but who performs under

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Speaker 1: the He did perform under one name, Lucifer was the

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Speaker 1: performer artist's name, and there was an album unreleased him

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Speaker 1: to the artist name Lucifer. That's just great. I listened

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Speaker 1: to it earlier today and I loved it. It's very moogie.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if it was actually done on a Moog,

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Speaker 1: but it it sounds like it's got that old school synthesizers.

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Speaker 1: Sounds analog um. But but we should get to the

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Speaker 1: origin of the Moog story. Moog the Mogue. We should

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Speaker 1: get to the origin of the Moge story. So who

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Speaker 1: was Bob Mog? Yeah, and and keep in mind like

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Speaker 1: when we talk about the Moge story and we're talking

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Speaker 1: about the birth of the analog synthesizer. There were other

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Speaker 1: groups also working on synthesizers at the same time as Moge,

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Speaker 1: but Mogue's name has sort of become iconic in this

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Speaker 1: idea of the analog physical circuitry synthesizer for multiple reasons.

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Speaker 1: So who was he, Well, he's he was born in Queens,

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Speaker 1: New York on May and as a kid he became

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Speaker 1: really interested in electronics, just thought it was a fascinating thing,

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Speaker 1: and so he really kind of dove into it. And

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Speaker 1: he also was really interested in the idea of using

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Speaker 1: electronics to make music. I think it's called mosic maybe,

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Speaker 1: uh he He however, was not um a musician himself

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Speaker 1: or mosician if you prefer. He was not a musician himself,

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Speaker 1: but he liked the thought of creating the instruments that

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Speaker 1: would be you know, would allow someone else to make music.

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Speaker 1: And one of the first things he really became interested

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Speaker 1: in was the thereman, which we have covered on tech

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Speaker 1: stuff before. The thereman had been invented back in the twenties,

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Speaker 1: so he was that had already been around for quite

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Speaker 1: some time before Mogue was even born, but Mog got

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Speaker 1: interested in it. And in case you don't remember what

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Speaker 1: a thereman is, just imagine a box that has a

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Speaker 1: pair of antenna. Typically you have one vertical antenna and

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Speaker 1: one horizontal antenna poking out of this box, and the

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Speaker 1: antenna rely on radio waves around them, and as you

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Speaker 1: move your hands closer to in a way from you

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Speaker 1: start to interfere with the waves that are around this antenna.

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Speaker 1: You never make contact, or you don't you're not supposed

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Speaker 1: to make contact with the antenna. You don't have to.

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Speaker 1: It's just by bringing your hands closer and moving them

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Speaker 1: further apart, you can change a tone that is generated

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Speaker 1: by this device. Now sound like Just imagine in your

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Speaker 1: head all of the goofy bad horror and sci fi

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Speaker 1: movies you saw in the nineteen fifties, especially sci fi

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Speaker 1: yeah that was big, like yeah and uh and typically

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Speaker 1: like not. Typically, the way it would work is that

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Speaker 1: one of the antenna would would change the pitch as

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Speaker 1: you moved your hand closer and further away, and the

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Speaker 1: other one controlled the volume. So as you're one is

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Speaker 1: one is how high the flying saucer is often and

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Speaker 1: the other one is how close it's coming towards you, yeah,

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Speaker 1: or whether it's moving towards you or away from you.

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Speaker 1: All right, so I like, oh, it's getting closer because

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Speaker 1: Doppler effect, right, Uh so yeah, it's It was a

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Speaker 1: really interesting and odd musical device, and mog was really

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Speaker 1: interested in them. He built his first one when he

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Speaker 1: was either fourteen or fifteen. I've seen reports that site

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Speaker 1: one age or the other. But right in that friend

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Speaker 1: that a year I saw. I think it was nineteen

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Speaker 1: fifty four that he's well, no way, I think that's

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Speaker 1: when he said he sold his first one, right, So

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Speaker 1: he started building them when he was still a teenager.

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Speaker 1: By the age of nineteen, that's when he started a

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Speaker 1: business them. Yeah, he actually and he didn't just sell theremans.

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Speaker 1: He did do that, but he also sold kits and

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Speaker 1: partially constructed ones. So in other words, he was helping

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Speaker 1: other d I Y enthusiasts. I assume that if you

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Speaker 1: wanted a completed kit, then that would obviously be more

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Speaker 1: expensive than just buying the parts from him and then

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Speaker 1: the instructions and putting them together yourself. Um, And he

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Speaker 1: and his father kind of created a business together and

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Speaker 1: it was the r A Mo company. Uh. He then

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Speaker 1: would go on to attend college and go on to

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Speaker 1: graduate school at Cornell and while he was there he

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Speaker 1: was studying physical engineering and in nineteen sixty three he

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Speaker 1: met a guy named Walter Sear who was a tuba manufacturer. Manufacturer. No,

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Speaker 1: how many times are we going to do this? You're

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Speaker 1: not the one who gets the email Joe manacturer? Yes,

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Speaker 1: how many will have that job? At least one a right,

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Speaker 1: at least one manfacturers operate in the world at the

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Speaker 1: same time. You do wonder what the you know, how

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Speaker 1: tuba's have to last a long time? Right, there's gotta

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Speaker 1: be a major resella expired. I gotta check it out.

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Speaker 1: Hading to go buy a new tuba? Uh so yeah,

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Speaker 1: he he met Walter Seer and Seer thought that Mog

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Speaker 1: was an interesting guy and said that Mog should uh

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Speaker 1: go to the New York State School Music Association gathering.

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Speaker 1: And while he was there, he met another guy named

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Speaker 1: Herb Deutsch, and Deutsch was part of the experimental music

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Speaker 1: movement that was starting to really kind of play with

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Speaker 1: the idea of what is music and what what can

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Speaker 1: be music and what can music do? Like really pushing

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Speaker 1: the boundary going beyond just the simple construction of a

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Speaker 1: song and and getting really weird stuff. And Mog talks

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Speaker 1: about how it was his meeting with deut that sort

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Speaker 1: of really got him interested in electronic music and wanting

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Speaker 1: to build equipment that would help us create new kinds

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Speaker 1: of sounds. Yeah, the two of them kind of agreed

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Speaker 1: that this would be a really interesting prospect, the idea

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Speaker 1: of building a device specifically to create new sounds for music.

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Speaker 1: And so, with Deutsche's urging, that's what most out to do,

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Speaker 1: and he created a shop near Ithaca, New York, UH

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Speaker 1: and began to experiment using silicon transistors as the basic components.

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Speaker 1: Transistors were kind of a game changer at the time, right, absolutely, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: totally changing what you could do with electronic equipment. Well,

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Speaker 1: it certainly changed, yes, And the main reason is because

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Speaker 1: they took up less space and generated less heat than

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Speaker 1: the alternatives, right, because it would be vacuum too, exactly.

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Speaker 1: So there were certainly electronics before transistors, but they were

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Speaker 1: larger and they generated way more heat. And so if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to have and electronic device that was a

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Speaker 1: musical instrument. For the invention of the transistor you're looking

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Speaker 1: at some pretty unwieldy equipment. It's gonna be bigger and

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Speaker 1: hotter than what you would find later on once you

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Speaker 1: switched over to transistors. So he began to look at

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Speaker 1: transistors to be the basis of the circuitry he would

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Speaker 1: use to create a Mogue musical instrument, and uh, he

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Speaker 1: found that he could alter the pitch, like as long

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Speaker 1: as he created frequencies that were within the range of

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Speaker 1: human hearing. He could alter the pitch by changing the

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Speaker 1: voltage in various circuits before sending that signal out to

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Speaker 1: to allowed speaker. So as long as you keep the

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Speaker 1: frequency between say, twenty hurts and twenty thousand hurts, that's

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Speaker 1: the range of human hearing, then you can do that.

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Speaker 1: If you go beyond that, obviously, then you most people

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Speaker 1: are unable to perceive it. And obviously not everyone has

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Speaker 1: exactly that range, right. Some people start, especially as you

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Speaker 1: get older, you start to lose they to perceive at

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Speaker 1: the higher end, which is why I no longer hear children.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I remember those stories about the cell phone

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Speaker 1: tones that only kids could hear because they're too high

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Speaker 1: pitch for adults to hear. Was that true or was

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Speaker 1: that that, I hope, I don't know. I heard a

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Speaker 1: similar story about how how like um gas stations were

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Speaker 1: employing loudspeaker systems that would play that pitch at a

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Speaker 1: high volume because adults couldn't hear it and it discouraged

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Speaker 1: kids from loitering. Man, that's that's that's that's another story

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Speaker 1: I heard, But I don't know if that's true. If

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Speaker 1: you wanted to be a really cool uh synthesizer musician,

366
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Speaker 1: you could create a musical instrument that only plays in

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Speaker 1: the frequency range that adults can't hear, and so you

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Speaker 1: couldn't have a stodgy adults coming into your concert and

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Speaker 1: just well I guess you could have them just they're

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Speaker 1: pretending or they would or they just say like I

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Speaker 1: don't understand the music these days, uh, or yeah, yeah

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Speaker 1: I hear it. Man, you go a step further and

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Speaker 1: you just make music for dogs. You know you could

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Speaker 1: do that? So? Uh So Moe created a circuit. One

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Speaker 1: of the one of the music stores I go to

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Speaker 1: here in town called its Decatur c D. If you

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Speaker 1: go in there, there's an album they sell they've always

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Speaker 1: got in stock that I think is called music for Dogs.

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Speaker 1: There might be called like music, dogs love. I've never

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Speaker 1: listened to it. Yeah, yeah, just be a bunch of

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Speaker 1: cats melling. I don't know what it is, maybe maybe

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Speaker 1: a doorbell. Occasionally. Have to ask about it next time. Well,

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Speaker 1: Moe created a circuit that produced a pitch and then

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Speaker 1: with an increase of one vault, that pitch would go

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Speaker 1: up one octave. That's convenient, right, and then the pitch

386
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Speaker 1: would change back and forth using different types of wave forms,

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Speaker 1: which I will cover later on in this episode. So

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Speaker 1: I'll explain all about the different wave forms because that's

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Speaker 1: an important part of what makes a mogue sound the

390
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Speaker 1: way it does, and other analog synthesizers as well. Um,

391
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Speaker 1: and it would create the sort of weird vibratos sound.

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Speaker 1: And he gave the instrument his own last name, possibly

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Speaker 1: following the lead of Theriman. Therreman was named after the

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Speaker 1: guy who invented it. You know that it's not a

395
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Speaker 1: word that was made up for the device. It's actually

396
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Speaker 1: named after the inventor. It sounds like a made up word,

397
00:23:11,720 --> 00:23:16,800
Speaker 1: it does. But it was somebody named like like Jeff Thereman. Yeah,

398
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 1: it was exactly that. It was Jeff Thereman. It was not,

399
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Speaker 1: but at any rate. No, it's he decided to name

400
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Speaker 1: it after himself. You know, there are tapes of Mog

401
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Speaker 1: giving early demonstrations of of his synthesizer equipment when he

402
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Speaker 1: when he was very first developing it. And in one

403
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Speaker 1: of those tapes that I heard by listening to the

404
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Speaker 1: documentary Mogue, which which is a documentary that that I

405
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:46,199
Speaker 1: watched online about Robert Mog. Yeah, and it's available on YouTube,

406
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Speaker 1: so you can actually watch the whole thing, right, it

407
00:23:48,480 --> 00:23:51,480
Speaker 1: might be a bootleg. I don't know. Well, well, it

408
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: definitely is there. If you want to unethically watch the

409
00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,680
Speaker 1: whole thing, it's on there. But yeah, so there there

410
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Speaker 1: was a nineteen sixty four demonstration where Mog is talking

411
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Speaker 1: about a prototype modular synthesizer and he calls it the

412
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Speaker 1: Abominatron and I love that. So he obviously has a

413
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Speaker 1: sense of humor about it. But it does kind of

414
00:24:13,440 --> 00:24:17,639
Speaker 1: get to a problem that Mog started noticing when he

415
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Speaker 1: was first making his his synthesizers public. He says that

416
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Speaker 1: people reacted to it by saying it wasn't natural. He

417
00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:30,000
Speaker 1: says that, you know, the first response was that it

418
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:34,240
Speaker 1: was just not right, something about using this electronic means

419
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:37,920
Speaker 1: of creating musical pitch was not the way things should

420
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Speaker 1: be in music. And he even tells a story where

421
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Speaker 1: there's an interviewer who was, you know, interviewing him about

422
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Speaker 1: his new technology, and he leans into him and the

423
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Speaker 1: interviewer says, tell me, Mr Mog, don't you feel guilty

424
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Speaker 1: about what you've done? Sick burn? And so MoG's interpretation

425
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Speaker 1: of that is that the the reporter's point of view

426
00:24:59,520 --> 00:25:04,720
Speaker 1: was that by creating the means to generate tones without

427
00:25:04,840 --> 00:25:09,680
Speaker 1: traditional instruments made of wood or brass or plucking strings

428
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:13,959
Speaker 1: or something like that, he was somehow perverting and destroying music,

429
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:19,200
Speaker 1: doing something offensive to an ancient tradition from human culture,

430
00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:22,879
Speaker 1: which again to me, is ludicrous on the very face

431
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: of it, because the history of music is one of innovation,

432
00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:32,160
Speaker 1: where people have created instruments that are more capable than

433
00:25:32,240 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: their predecessors. Right, the piano forte is a lot different

434
00:25:35,720 --> 00:25:38,399
Speaker 1: than the ancestors to the piano. Well, yeah, and I

435
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:40,400
Speaker 1: hate to break it to these people, but the piano

436
00:25:40,560 --> 00:25:43,600
Speaker 1: has not existed for ten thousand years. The piano is

437
00:25:43,680 --> 00:25:46,120
Speaker 1: only a few hundred years old, right, And before that

438
00:25:46,200 --> 00:25:48,119
Speaker 1: they were, you know, you had the harpsichord, where you

439
00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 1: had the plucking of metal tabs as opposed to the

440
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:54,919
Speaker 1: percussion of strings. And if you look at the history

441
00:25:54,920 --> 00:25:58,480
Speaker 1: of music again, it is all about innovation, and so

442
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,720
Speaker 1: I think it was just that it sounded so different

443
00:26:02,359 --> 00:26:05,520
Speaker 1: from the stuff that came before it that people's initial

444
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:10,080
Speaker 1: reaction was one of confusion, and maybe they were a

445
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 1: little unsettled that this thing that did not have any

446
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:17,800
Speaker 1: moving parts to it, unlike something like, you know, a

447
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 1: stringed instrument where you can actually see the action that

448
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:23,639
Speaker 1: is creating the sound that you hear, or a wind

449
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:26,200
Speaker 1: instrument where you can see that the musician is breathing

450
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,239
Speaker 1: life into this object and you're getting music out of it.

451
00:26:29,800 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: This is a monstrosity of a machine of wires and

452
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 1: transistors that you know when you press a button a

453
00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:39,920
Speaker 1: sound comes out of it. And I think it must

454
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: have just felt like it was too far removed for

455
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,280
Speaker 1: some people to be comfortable with it. Well, one possibility

456
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,600
Speaker 1: that comes up this is also from MoG's comments in

457
00:26:48,640 --> 00:26:52,800
Speaker 1: that documentary, and I think this is really interesting. I've

458
00:26:52,880 --> 00:26:58,920
Speaker 1: always thought of the idea of a synthesizer as Okay,

459
00:26:58,960 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: it has that name because it creates something synthetic like

460
00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 1: there are natural sounds, and then there are synthetic sounds,

461
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:12,160
Speaker 1: as in fake sounds created by this fake sound making machine,

462
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,639
Speaker 1: the synthesizer. The idea, the idea being that this this

463
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:20,720
Speaker 1: device can synthesize the sound of other quote unquote real

464
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 1: musical instruments. But that's not at all the sense in

465
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:27,760
Speaker 1: which the name was originally intended. It Originally, Mog says,

466
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:33,119
Speaker 1: the term synthesizer came from the other main meaning of synthesis,

467
00:27:33,160 --> 00:27:36,880
Speaker 1: like the combination of elements to create a whole. Like

468
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: when you, you you know, you take a bunch of research

469
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:43,760
Speaker 1: sources and synthesize them into a single coherent vision of something, right,

470
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,159
Speaker 1: like a like a dissertation of some sort. Yeah, that

471
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:49,880
Speaker 1: would be synthesis. Uh, and so in that applies to

472
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: his technology because originally what Mog was creating was individual

473
00:27:54,480 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 1: modules for modulating sounds. So you'd make a module that

474
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,440
Speaker 1: generates a square way, or a module that does this,

475
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:04,400
Speaker 1: or module that does that. And if you combine all

476
00:28:04,400 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: these modules together into a single huge instrument that you

477
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,440
Speaker 1: can manipulate in lots of different ways, you're essentially creating

478
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: an electronic music modulation synthesis. It's a synthesizer. It's it's

479
00:28:17,600 --> 00:28:19,560
Speaker 1: it's a hole that's greater than the sum of its

480
00:28:19,600 --> 00:28:24,000
Speaker 1: parts in many ways, because these modules are arranged in

481
00:28:24,040 --> 00:28:28,000
Speaker 1: such a way so that you can connect them in

482
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:31,160
Speaker 1: in different ways dynamically, like you can change the connections,

483
00:28:31,560 --> 00:28:33,800
Speaker 1: so it's not like you can plug one into another

484
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: or you can buy Now you've made a new type

485
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: of machine. And that's that's the I mean, that's the

486
00:28:40,000 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: whole basis of modular electronics and modular inventions. It's this

487
00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: idea that by making these combinations you can innovate. We've

488
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: seen that in technology and other areas to the idea,

489
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: like the modular phone where you put a phone together

490
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: with just the elements that you want. And there are

491
00:28:57,800 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: a couple of different companies that are trying this approach

492
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:02,360
Speaker 1: out and it you know, we'll have to wait and

493
00:29:02,400 --> 00:29:04,680
Speaker 1: see if that actually becomes successful, but it's a really

494
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: interesting idea where the consumer determines what his or her

495
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:11,560
Speaker 1: phone has just based on the modules you want to include,

496
00:29:11,560 --> 00:29:14,120
Speaker 1: and you leave out anything you're not interested in. Well,

497
00:29:14,120 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: that's sort of the same idea behind the synthesizer, except

498
00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: of course, the goal was what are the different ways

499
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: we can manipulate electronic frequencies to create different types of sound. Yeah,

500
00:29:26,320 --> 00:29:31,640
Speaker 1: And so eventually Mog did bring a model to market. Yeah.

501
00:29:31,720 --> 00:29:35,320
Speaker 1: He He actually made quite a few different models. One

502
00:29:35,320 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: of them, one of the ones that was in development

503
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 1: for a very long time was the Mini Moog. I

504
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 1: think that was a popular one. Yeah. So the Mogs

505
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:45,560
Speaker 1: are um like, if you're thinking of just a keyboard,

506
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 1: your way off mog is buying a Mogue is like

507
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: buying a boat. Yeah. I mean they talked about it

508
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: in in some detail in this documentary where Mog talks

509
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 1: about how when they sold these things originally it was

510
00:30:04,000 --> 00:30:06,959
Speaker 1: kind of a tricky business because it wasn't like, you know,

511
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:11,120
Speaker 1: they're generating Fender stratocasters and things sell a hundred thousand

512
00:30:11,200 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 1: of them a month or something like that. I don't

513
00:30:13,840 --> 00:30:17,440
Speaker 1: know how many stratocasters, but it wasn't a mass market item.

514
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:20,520
Speaker 1: They were making them one at a time and selling

515
00:30:20,560 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 1: them one at a time, and they were very bulky

516
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:27,600
Speaker 1: and very expensive, and so most of their customers were

517
00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,120
Speaker 1: people who had a lot of money and expected to

518
00:30:31,160 --> 00:30:33,800
Speaker 1: get a lot of use out of the machine. So,

519
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:38,320
Speaker 1: for example, like a music house studio that recorded commercial

520
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:44,720
Speaker 1: jingles or something like soundtracks to nineteen fifties science fiction films. So, uh,

521
00:30:44,760 --> 00:30:48,280
Speaker 1: the way I tend to describe these early synthesizers, these

522
00:30:48,320 --> 00:30:52,160
Speaker 1: analog synthesizers, is that imagine that you've got a keyboard

523
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 1: and it's attached to a what looks like a old

524
00:30:56,000 --> 00:30:59,959
Speaker 1: fashioned telephone switchboard, the kind where you would plug cables

525
00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:02,800
Speaker 1: and to make the connections like, uh, you know, I'll

526
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:05,400
Speaker 1: ring her for you, and you plug the cable in

527
00:31:05,560 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: and then you make the actual physical connection between two

528
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: lines similar to that, except of course, instead of connecting

529
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 1: two lines, you are connecting modules together to manipulate an

530
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:18,720
Speaker 1: electronic signal in some way. When I used to see

531
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:22,240
Speaker 1: mog synthesizer boards with all of the cables hanging out

532
00:31:22,240 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: of them, what I honestly thought was that this was

533
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: just people. It was like intentional obscurity. I thought it

534
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: was people just trying to look cool or be funny

535
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 1: by having all these cables hanging out. No, that's how

536
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: you make the sound of your instrument is by plugging

537
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: like fifty different cables into different places. Right, And it

538
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:44,200
Speaker 1: all depends on how many modules you have as part

539
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: of your synthesize, Right, that's if you have one of

540
00:31:46,200 --> 00:31:47,800
Speaker 1: the big ones, yeah, because because I mean if you

541
00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:50,720
Speaker 1: have just a few modules, then one your synthesizer is

542
00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: going to be more limited. You won't be able to

543
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,840
Speaker 1: do as many variations on that electronic signal as you

544
00:31:56,880 --> 00:31:59,320
Speaker 1: could with one that has a lot more modules, but

545
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: it also be maller like. That was the idea that

546
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:04,080
Speaker 1: Mini Moge, right, was the idea that let's try and

547
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:08,160
Speaker 1: get something that is of a manageable size because these

548
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:13,360
Speaker 1: are big instruments. Um. So, one of the other models

549
00:32:13,400 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: that became famous with the Moge name, and somewhat controversially

550
00:32:18,080 --> 00:32:21,000
Speaker 1: is the Sonic six, which began its life as a

551
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: different device that was made by someone who had originally

552
00:32:25,400 --> 00:32:30,000
Speaker 1: worked for Mogue left the company ended up joining another company.

553
00:32:30,560 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: That company ended up buying Mogue because, as you were

554
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 1: pointing out the business model Mogue was following, it's pretty limited.

555
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 1: It was it was hard to make a profit, it

556
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:44,240
Speaker 1: was hard to stay afloat. And so I believe that

557
00:32:44,560 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 1: that Moge was sold for something like a quarter of

558
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:48,720
Speaker 1: a million dollars, which was the amount of debt it

559
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: had accrued. And but they decided to keep the Mogue

560
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: name because it had real brand recognition among musicians, and

561
00:32:57,160 --> 00:33:00,640
Speaker 1: they actually did take this pre existing Prototoel Hype that

562
00:33:00,760 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 1: was originally not a Mogue device, changed it around a

563
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:07,600
Speaker 1: little bit by adding in some components that were found

564
00:33:07,640 --> 00:33:10,320
Speaker 1: in Mogue devices and put that the market. So it's

565
00:33:10,440 --> 00:33:13,160
Speaker 1: the Sonic six is very different from the other Mogue

566
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: instruments of that time. But um and it's one of

567
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:21,800
Speaker 1: those that that still like like aficionados still really love

568
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:25,760
Speaker 1: that particular instrument. Uh. Mog himself passed away in two

569
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:29,960
Speaker 1: thousand five, but the Moge brand name still exists. You

570
00:33:30,000 --> 00:33:34,840
Speaker 1: can still buy products from Mog. It's not it's kind

571
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 1: of it's not not as bad as Atari, but it

572
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:40,640
Speaker 1: is kind of different from the original Moge company. But

573
00:33:40,640 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: but it has a stronger claim to that name than

574
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: say anything that you call Atari these days. That name

575
00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:51,440
Speaker 1: is is long since severed all connection to its origins. Well,

576
00:33:51,440 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: then what is it you really think of as being

577
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,240
Speaker 1: the essence of the legacy of Moga. I don't know

578
00:33:57,320 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: to what extent this is true about the products they

579
00:33:59,440 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: create to a but historically I think of Mog as

580
00:34:03,160 --> 00:34:08,480
Speaker 1: being a company associated with analog electronic music, as opposed

581
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:12,279
Speaker 1: to digitally digitally created electronic tones. Yeah, and and the

582
00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:17,440
Speaker 1: difference there is important. Although you could argue that our

583
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:22,400
Speaker 1: our ability to get ever more refined digital music has

584
00:34:22,719 --> 00:34:26,160
Speaker 1: largely erased the gap between the two, there still is

585
00:34:26,200 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: a fundamental difference in the technology. And UH the best

586
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:34,520
Speaker 1: way of of explaining this is to imagine that the

587
00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:40,600
Speaker 1: sound you get with analog UH instrumentation and analog recording

588
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:45,759
Speaker 1: is a continuous wave of sound, right like, just as

589
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,680
Speaker 1: I am creating sound right now to you, Joe, maybe

590
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:51,640
Speaker 1: not to the listeners because they're listening to a digital file,

591
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,800
Speaker 1: but to you, Joe, I'm creating sound is a continuous

592
00:34:55,719 --> 00:34:58,279
Speaker 1: a wave every time I'm generating that sound, right, But

593
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:01,719
Speaker 1: you you listeners at home, or it unfortunately just a

594
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 1: sampling's voice, because that's the digital conversion. So if you

595
00:35:07,120 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: were to look at analog music in a in a

596
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,120
Speaker 1: form where you're you know, you're trying to visualize it,

597
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:15,359
Speaker 1: we always use the wave form, right, That's that's how

598
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: we we visually depict a a sound file or a

599
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:26,480
Speaker 1: sound or rather a sound wave in an analog format. UM.

600
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:30,520
Speaker 1: And this is because it's continuous. There's no point where

601
00:35:30,560 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: in one moment it ends in the next moment it begins.

602
00:35:33,120 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: For for a single sound, it's it's continuous until the

603
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 1: sound is done. Um. This is different from digital. Digital

604
00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:45,320
Speaker 1: is discreete digital. You have numbers that represent a single

605
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: slice of time at which point there is a sound,

606
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: and the number of slices of time you have within

607
00:35:53,080 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 1: say a second, tells you the sample rate that you

608
00:35:56,680 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: have for your digital sound file. The sample rate is

609
00:35:59,239 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: how many times you sample that sound within a second

610
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 1: h to represent it in a digital format. The more

611
00:36:05,600 --> 00:36:08,720
Speaker 1: times you do it, the closer it's going to sound

612
00:36:08,719 --> 00:36:12,920
Speaker 1: to the original analog source. But also the more information

613
00:36:13,000 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: you are including in your sound file. Your file gets

614
00:36:15,160 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger as your sample rate goes up. Right,

615
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:23,279
Speaker 1: But if your sample rate is really low, then it's

616
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,920
Speaker 1: almost like you are only able to listen to a

617
00:36:27,000 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: fraction of a second of each moment that you're listening

618
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,600
Speaker 1: to music. It will be a very different experience than

619
00:36:32,600 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: if it's a continuous experience. You know, a continuous uh

620
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:41,160
Speaker 1: performance and all that that all applies to playback and

621
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:45,720
Speaker 1: stuffy like recording a piece of music and then playing

622
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:48,360
Speaker 1: it back. You could have an analog playback format like

623
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,799
Speaker 1: a vinyl record or digital playback format like an MP

624
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,520
Speaker 1: three or f C thing. Uh. But but here we're

625
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:59,320
Speaker 1: we're talking about the generation of sounds inside the machine,

626
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: and that happens differently in digital versus analog ways to

627
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:07,879
Speaker 1: So in the digital version, and the way MOG would

628
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 1: explain it is, you know, you've got a sound saved

629
00:37:10,920 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: in memory that's represented digitally a set of values. You

630
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:18,000
Speaker 1: call that up, you send it to the speakers, and

631
00:37:18,000 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: the speakers play it, so they create the vibrations there.

632
00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:24,880
Speaker 1: With an analog generated tone, what's coming out of the

633
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:29,919
Speaker 1: speakers is generated by the natural vibrations of the electronic

634
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:33,759
Speaker 1: components in the machine, right. And by by vibrations, we're

635
00:37:33,760 --> 00:37:38,840
Speaker 1: talking about the frequency of the the electronic signal, So

636
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:43,000
Speaker 1: it's the circuitry that's making the sound as opposed to

637
00:37:43,600 --> 00:37:48,560
Speaker 1: just replicating something with one's zeros. It is a bit

638
00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:52,520
Speaker 1: of a fine distinction. There's also there's also another concept

639
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:56,799
Speaker 1: called sample precision, which tells you how big a gradation

640
00:37:57,000 --> 00:38:01,600
Speaker 1: you have when you're doing a step from one sampled

641
00:38:01,719 --> 00:38:05,719
Speaker 1: moment of a of a piece to the next, um Like,

642
00:38:05,760 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 1: are you able to get that so precise that it

643
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:12,000
Speaker 1: feels like a continuous piece of music. Because one of

644
00:38:12,040 --> 00:38:15,319
Speaker 1: the things about a analog wave is that you have

645
00:38:15,360 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 1: an infinite number of values within any analog wave, right,

646
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:22,520
Speaker 1: because you could just keep getting more and more fine tuned.

647
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,280
Speaker 1: So uh like, if you're looking at a sixty hurts

648
00:38:27,320 --> 00:38:31,200
Speaker 1: uh frequency sound wave where it's going from positive sixty

649
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: to negative sixty hurts any point in there, you could say, like,

650
00:38:35,080 --> 00:38:37,319
Speaker 1: all right, well, here's twenty hurts right here, this is

651
00:38:37,520 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: the part of a period of a wave where it's

652
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: a twenty hurts. But then you could zoom in and say, okay,

653
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: well here's twenty point five hurts. You can zoom in more,

654
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:49,400
Speaker 1: is it? Here's twenty point five five hurts, and you

655
00:38:49,400 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: could keep on doing that. With digital you can't. You

656
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 1: have a specific value for a specific moment of time,

657
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,000
Speaker 1: and then you have a specific value for the next

658
00:38:59,040 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: moment of time. But there's nothing in between. You can't

659
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:05,560
Speaker 1: you can't zoom in any further. You are as far

660
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,799
Speaker 1: in as you can go. So they are discreet. There

661
00:39:07,880 --> 00:39:11,560
Speaker 1: is a finite amount of representation in a digital file.

662
00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:15,520
Speaker 1: There's infinite and analog. Jonathan, are you trying to get

663
00:39:15,520 --> 00:39:19,880
Speaker 1: me to have thoughts about my mortality? You know? I

664
00:39:20,000 --> 00:39:22,320
Speaker 1: got some stuff to sell you after the end of

665
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:24,600
Speaker 1: this podcast, but I'll save it for when we're off

666
00:39:24,600 --> 00:39:28,240
Speaker 1: the air. So one thing I thought would be really cool, obviously,

667
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:30,960
Speaker 1: is to talk about these modules, the circuitry that are

668
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 1: that's in a Mogue synthesizer, and actually explain what the

669
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,160
Speaker 1: heck these things do, because if you know, we're talking

670
00:39:37,200 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: about generalities and and the principles behind it, but how

671
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:43,920
Speaker 1: does it actually work? Right? Well, we we mentioned before

672
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: that the the this idea of a synthesizer is made

673
00:39:47,520 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: out of modules, and that's modules in the sense of

674
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 1: something being modular right there. There are pieces that you

675
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,080
Speaker 1: can insert and exchange, and the basic ideas that each

676
00:39:58,120 --> 00:40:03,160
Speaker 1: module does something pacific and relatively simple. You get even

677
00:40:03,160 --> 00:40:05,800
Speaker 1: more simple when you look at the components within those modules.

678
00:40:05,840 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: They are they are like the embodiment of that idea.

679
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:13,399
Speaker 1: Each circuitry component does a very specific thing and that's

680
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: all it does. And that simplicity is what allows you

681
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:21,200
Speaker 1: to pair these with other elements to create more complexity.

682
00:40:21,280 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: So when you break it down to its individual parts,

683
00:40:24,680 --> 00:40:27,879
Speaker 1: it's simple. When you put them all collectively together, that's

684
00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:30,359
Speaker 1: where it gets complex and you start to think you've

685
00:40:30,360 --> 00:40:33,200
Speaker 1: got to have a degree in physics to play this instrument,

686
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 1: and uh, it's really cool. Well, we know that there

687
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 1: are going to be a lot of different ways of

688
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:42,160
Speaker 1: manipulating the sound electronically, but I'm interested in where the

689
00:40:42,200 --> 00:40:45,080
Speaker 1: sound actually comes from. What like, So a sound is

690
00:40:45,080 --> 00:40:47,759
Speaker 1: a vibration in the air, but it's got to originate

691
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:52,760
Speaker 1: with something oscillating inside the equipment. Where does that come from?

692
00:40:52,920 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 1: That comes from? An oscillator actually is uh, which I

693
00:40:56,280 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: originally thought was a breed of like kind of a

694
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: cat part of the feline family. Where oscillators that's apparently

695
00:41:04,200 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: awesome lots you know they're called oscillators, right, So oscillators

696
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: are that's what provides the the the oscillation the frequency

697
00:41:13,600 --> 00:41:20,040
Speaker 1: here of an electric electronic signal. So oscillators don't have

698
00:41:20,120 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: to be electronic, right, Oscillators can be a pendulum? Is

699
00:41:23,160 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: an oscillator? Is it? Is? It? Pretty much that if

700
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:29,719
Speaker 1: anything goes back and forth, it's an oscillator pretty much. Yeah.

701
00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:33,640
Speaker 1: It's something that it has a a wave and it

702
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: has each you know, it has this periodic behavior to

703
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 1: it that repeats until some other force causes it to stop.

704
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,200
Speaker 1: In the case of a pendulum friction will eventually cause

705
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:48,920
Speaker 1: the pendulum to stop swinging. So when Moe slaps Larry

706
00:41:48,960 --> 00:41:52,360
Speaker 1: and curly back and forth rapidly between their two faces,

707
00:41:52,440 --> 00:41:56,920
Speaker 1: his hand isillator. Yeah, it's oscillating and uh yeah. So

708
00:41:57,080 --> 00:41:59,560
Speaker 1: an oscillator swings back and forth a certain number of

709
00:41:59,560 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 1: times in a certain number within a certain time period.

710
00:42:03,840 --> 00:42:06,120
Speaker 1: Usually we talked about a second being the time period,

711
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:08,640
Speaker 1: and the number would be at least in sound. We

712
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,320
Speaker 1: talked about it. It hurts by the length of time

713
00:42:12,520 --> 00:42:16,000
Speaker 1: that a waves period passes through a certain stationary point.

714
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:18,800
Speaker 1: So a period on a wave, you pick a stationary

715
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,239
Speaker 1: point on a wave. Let's the easiest is either the

716
00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,320
Speaker 1: peak or the trough, like the lowest point or the

717
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:26,160
Speaker 1: highest point on a wave, and you go to the

718
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: next peak or trough, whichever one you picked. So peak

719
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:33,840
Speaker 1: to peak from mountain to valley, but mountain of mountain,

720
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: and that distance from that same point on those on

721
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 1: those two sections, that's the period of the wave, and

722
00:42:42,080 --> 00:42:45,200
Speaker 1: the number of times that passes. Uh, that happens within

723
00:42:45,239 --> 00:42:48,840
Speaker 1: a second, that's the frequency. And if it happens twenty

724
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:51,640
Speaker 1: times in a second, that's twenty hurts. Hurts. As the

725
00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: unit we give for frequency, and twenty hurts is again

726
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:59,480
Speaker 1: at that low level of perception for humans, like, that's

727
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:01,799
Speaker 1: that's about low as you can go after that. When

728
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,480
Speaker 1: you go lower than twenty hurts, you get into sounds

729
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: that you cannot hear, but you can feel, like if

730
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: you've ever felt the force of something but you're not

731
00:43:11,080 --> 00:43:15,920
Speaker 1: actually hearing anything. That's probably below twenty hurts. Uh. And

732
00:43:15,960 --> 00:43:18,320
Speaker 1: then of course if you get up to twenty thousand hurts,

733
00:43:18,320 --> 00:43:22,240
Speaker 1: that means that the waves are repeating twenty times a second.

734
00:43:22,800 --> 00:43:26,240
Speaker 1: That's set the upper end of human hearing. And also

735
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:30,719
Speaker 1: the frequency relates to the pitch, right, the lower the

736
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:32,720
Speaker 1: frequency of the lower the pitch, the higher the frequency,

737
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 1: the higher the pitch, more vibrations per second, the higher

738
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:39,879
Speaker 1: its sound exactly. So Uh. The oscillator is the heart

739
00:43:40,200 --> 00:43:45,040
Speaker 1: of the synthesizer. The oscillator is what allows this frequency

740
00:43:45,200 --> 00:43:47,880
Speaker 1: to happen and then be sent to the other modules

741
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:51,399
Speaker 1: to have it altered in some way. So you could

742
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:53,799
Speaker 1: just use an oscillator. In fact, you could just use

743
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:58,800
Speaker 1: an oscillator connected to speakers, but you would just constantly

744
00:43:58,800 --> 00:44:03,320
Speaker 1: be generating noise because there'll be no governing element there

745
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:05,880
Speaker 1: to stop it from making noise. As long as that

746
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:08,120
Speaker 1: course it had a signal coming into it, you obviously

747
00:44:08,160 --> 00:44:10,400
Speaker 1: have to feed it with electricity. So a very simple

748
00:44:10,400 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: oscillator would be pairing a capacitor with an inductor. These

749
00:44:14,560 --> 00:44:19,480
Speaker 1: are two very basic electronic components, and a capacitor is

750
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:22,120
Speaker 1: essentially a pair of plates and you build up the

751
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,960
Speaker 1: charge on one plate until there's enough charge for it

752
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:28,440
Speaker 1: to jump across the gap. So capacitors are kind of

753
00:44:28,440 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: like batteries. They store energy, but they release all their

754
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 1: energy in a single got batteries, Yeah, So like the

755
00:44:35,719 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 1: flash on an old camera, flash that works by capacitor

756
00:44:39,800 --> 00:44:42,439
Speaker 1: because you wanted to release the energy all at once.

757
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: If it were a battery, the light would take too

758
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 1: long to light up and go down, and it would

759
00:44:47,160 --> 00:44:50,080
Speaker 1: you would never get a good photograph. So they're different

760
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: from batteries and that they release all that energy at

761
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: one time. The inductor is essentially a coil of wire

762
00:44:55,880 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: and when it encounters electrical charge, it creates a magnetic field.

763
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:02,360
Speaker 1: So if you pair a capacitor with an inductor, what

764
00:45:02,440 --> 00:45:07,160
Speaker 1: happens is electricity goes from the capacitor discharges into the inductor,

765
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: which creates a magnetic field. That magnetic field begins to

766
00:45:10,520 --> 00:45:15,319
Speaker 1: build up a charge on the capacitor's other plate, so

767
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:19,240
Speaker 1: you're getting the polar opposite charge. So talk about voltages,

768
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:22,399
Speaker 1: Actually you get the polar opposite voltage. So you put

769
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,720
Speaker 1: in sixty volts on one side, it's the minus sixty

770
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,719
Speaker 1: volts coming back the other way. Uh. It's the way

771
00:45:28,719 --> 00:45:32,480
Speaker 1: we describe the movement of electricity here. And then it

772
00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 1: discharges again, but now it's the opposite polarity, and then

773
00:45:34,880 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 1: it doesn't again. So that's why when you look at

774
00:45:36,960 --> 00:45:42,000
Speaker 1: the the wave depiction of uh sound, you have those

775
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:44,560
Speaker 1: peaks and those valleys. It's the going from the positive

776
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 1: end to the negative end of whatever that sound actually

777
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 1: is um and it's pretty neat stuff. That's a very

778
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: but that's a very basic oscillator. That's and also it

779
00:45:54,080 --> 00:45:58,720
Speaker 1: would just like a pendulum would eventually stop because of friction,

780
00:45:59,480 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 1: electron of oscillators would eventually stop if you don't feed

781
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: more energy into them. They'd eventually stop because of resistance.

782
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:08,799
Speaker 1: You know, you have resistance with electric wires. That means

783
00:46:08,840 --> 00:46:11,759
Speaker 1: you lose some energy to heat and eventually you would

784
00:46:11,800 --> 00:46:14,160
Speaker 1: lose enough where if you didn't pour more energy into it.

785
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:16,360
Speaker 1: It would just stop. You wouldn't have enough energy to

786
00:46:16,440 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: discharge the capacitor in the first place. So um a

787
00:46:20,640 --> 00:46:23,719
Speaker 1: lot of reasons why. It's similar to a physical oscillator.

788
00:46:23,800 --> 00:46:27,719
Speaker 1: So that's your very basic component that is important. But

789
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 1: like I said, if you don't have anything else, like

790
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:33,040
Speaker 1: if you had a keyboard connected to an oscillator that

791
00:46:33,120 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: was connected to a speaker, like an amplifier and a speaker,

792
00:46:36,080 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: then it would always be making noise. You could change

793
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,120
Speaker 1: the pitch by pressing keys on the keyboard, but it

794
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:44,600
Speaker 1: would never stop like it would you would just be like,

795
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: unplug this thing. It's a monstrosity. So it sounds like

796
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,560
Speaker 1: some kind of gate a gatekeeper for voltage, and that

797
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 1: would be the voltage controlled amplifier or v c A,

798
00:46:55,520 --> 00:46:58,280
Speaker 1: which can raise or lower the volume of a synthesizer.

799
00:46:58,680 --> 00:47:01,640
Speaker 1: And so it affects the amplitude of a wave. The

800
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: amplitude is how high and low those peaks and troughs

801
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:07,799
Speaker 1: are right. So the frequency is the number within a

802
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:11,720
Speaker 1: certain given amount of time. The amplitude is the height

803
00:47:11,840 --> 00:47:15,840
Speaker 1: the volume essentially of this and so with a v

804
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,080
Speaker 1: c A you can lower that volume to nothing and

805
00:47:18,120 --> 00:47:21,759
Speaker 1: you can create a gate where the is a very

806
00:47:21,760 --> 00:47:24,680
Speaker 1: simple logic gate, which essentially says, if there's a signal

807
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: coming in, then allow it to go to the speaker.

808
00:47:29,440 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: So you would connect that so that when you press

809
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,279
Speaker 1: a key, that's essentially a signal saying I would like

810
00:47:34,320 --> 00:47:36,960
Speaker 1: you to make sound now, and when you stop pressing

811
00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:39,040
Speaker 1: the key its I would like you to stop making

812
00:47:39,080 --> 00:47:41,600
Speaker 1: that horrible noise. And the v C A is what

813
00:47:41,640 --> 00:47:45,560
Speaker 1: allows that to happen. So that's another very basic component. Um.

814
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,839
Speaker 1: They are so abusive to your electronics. Look there there

815
00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: for me, all right, I'm not there for them. You've

816
00:47:52,920 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: got to understand whose boss, otherwise electronics will rule your life. Okay, guys,

817
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:03,080
Speaker 1: this is Jonathan. You've been listening to me and Joe

818
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:06,120
Speaker 1: talk for a while. This show ended up being way

819
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:10,319
Speaker 1: longer than what we anticipated. So in the interest of

820
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:16,720
Speaker 1: preserving sanity and Noel's UH preservation as well, we're gonna

821
00:48:16,840 --> 00:48:20,000
Speaker 1: divide this up into two episodes. So this is the

822
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: conclusion of part one. We will return with part two

823
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:27,239
Speaker 1: to continue our discussion about electronics and moge synthesizers and

824
00:48:27,320 --> 00:48:31,440
Speaker 1: analog synthesizers and all that goodness UH. In next week's episode.

825
00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:33,840
Speaker 1: So I just want to remind you guys, if you

826
00:48:33,880 --> 00:48:37,040
Speaker 1: have any suggestions for future episodes of Text Stuff, you

827
00:48:37,080 --> 00:48:40,520
Speaker 1: can always let me know. The email address you can

828
00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:45,719
Speaker 1: use is text Stuff at how stuff works dot com,

829
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:48,880
Speaker 1: or drop me a line on Facebook, Twitter or Tumbler

830
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:51,440
Speaker 1: with the handle text stuff hs W and I'll talk

831
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:59,480
Speaker 1: to you again about more mog really soon. For more

832
00:48:59,520 --> 00:49:02,400
Speaker 1: on this thousands of other topics, is a housetop works

833
00:49:02,440 --> 00:49:12,240
Speaker 1: dot com MHM