WEBVTT - The MOOG Story: Part One 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:13.000 With Technology with tech Stuff from snoog. Hey there, and 0:00:13.080 --> 0:00:16.319 welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland, and with me 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:20.240 today is Joe McCormick, my beloved co host from board 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.439 Thinking for one or two. The other one's also beloved, 0:00:23.480 --> 0:00:26.760 but she's not here. That was a terrible introduction. Hey Joe, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.640 how you doing? Hey, how are you doing? I'm I'm 0:00:29.640 --> 0:00:32.000 doing fine. How are you? Jona? All right? So we're 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:37.640 recording this in December, uh, well, in advance of when 0:00:37.640 --> 0:00:41.560 it will publish. It will publish in January. And Joe, 0:00:41.640 --> 0:00:45.200 you and I are kind of like right in the 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:50.800 crunch for people who do podcasts and videos as holidays 0:00:50.840 --> 0:00:55.160 loom up. So I say that to alert our listeners 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:58.240 that we might get a little loopy. And that's only 0:00:58.360 --> 0:01:02.120 kind of a pun because we're talking about mog synthesizers 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:06.440 and sometimes musicians these loops. So yeah, we're gonna talk 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:09.080 about mog synthesizers. And when I brought this up, I 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:12.360 gave Joe a list of potential topics. These were all 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:15.200 ones that were suggested by by listeners. So thank you 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:18.720 guys for sending in your suggestions. That's awesome. I really 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:25.720 appreciate it. And Mog synthesizers are kind of amazingly cool, Jonathan. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:30.840 They are not cool, they are cool. Okay, that's fair. Yeah. 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.479 For the longest time I thought it was Moog. I 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:35.840 thought it was Moog too. And when I told my 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:37.560 wife Rachel that I was going to be recording an 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.560 episode with you on on mog, she was like, what's that? 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:44.000 And she was like, is it not Moog? And I 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:45.880 was like, yeah, I used to think the same thing. 0:01:46.640 --> 0:01:51.240 But apparently we're just all super ignorant because MOG is 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:56.200 not an acronym for something. Doesn't stand for massive open 0:01:56.520 --> 0:02:04.920 online gorillas or mogic modular organic oh led garage. I 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:09.799 don't know. No, it doesn't stand for anything. It's it's 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.360 a person's last name rights the last name of old 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:16.480 Bob Moog who not Moog Bob move. It's a hard 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.400 habit to break, dude. No. I remember I did a 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:22.920 podcast with Chris Palette years and years and years ago, 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.520 and I think I said Moog synthesizer and that, and 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.360 I was get some angry, angry letters. I was. I 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:33.160 was thrashed about the neck and wrists with a with 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:36.880 a ruler, which Chris kept on him. Chris, Yeah, I mean, well, 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:39.720 he's a percussionist for one, and you know he's been 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:43.959 in bands. You know, he opened for he opened for 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:46.919 for Indigo Girls. I mean he's like, we're talking serious 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.320 musician here, um, And I'm only slightly ripping him because 0:02:50.320 --> 0:02:53.080 that's all true. But no, he he was very kind 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:57.280 actually to point out my my faux paw. Now, yeah, 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.400 I don't remember many Indigo Girls songs being big on 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:02.640 the Moges. No, I was just using that as a 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:08.560 way of establishing Chris is uh musical chops in the 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:11.480 sense that he was an established musician, not so much 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:17.480 to specifically put him in a mog camp. I would 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.880 like to attend Mogue camp. I bet it would be fun, 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:23.600 But we wanted to start off before we get into 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:25.480 the nitty gritty of Mogue. We wanted to talk a 0:03:25.520 --> 0:03:29.560 little bit about electronic music because part of the story 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:36.440 is how electronic music wasn't always an acceptable musical format 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.520 to the general public, but of course now it's it's 0:03:39.560 --> 0:03:44.200 an incredibly huge, uh genre of music. Well, despite being 0:03:44.200 --> 0:03:46.960 really popular among some people. I mean, there are lots 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:49.760 of people who love electronic music and that's their favorite 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:52.880 genre of music. There is still sometimes you'll see a 0:03:53.000 --> 0:03:55.360 kind of I don't know what you call it, a 0:03:55.440 --> 0:04:02.160 kind of acoustic elitism snobbery that isn't so much at 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.680 electronic music itself, though you do encounter that a little bit, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:08.400 like like explicitly electronic music, But a lot of times 0:04:08.400 --> 0:04:13.160 I see it at music that is that uses electronically 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:18.520 generated tones in conjunction with traditional arrangements and instruments, So 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:22.840 like pop songs that have synthesizers in them, there are 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:28.640 like snobby, elitist opinions against that, and I wonder why 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:31.120 that is. I mean, I know there is there's sort 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.920 of a general idea that electronically generated tones are fake, 0:04:36.600 --> 0:04:38.880 which is, you know, they're like it's almost like they're 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:42.200 not real sound. Yeah, when you get down to it, 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.040 when you really peel away all the layers of this onion, 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.160 you realize how ludicrous an argument that is. Because a 0:04:48.279 --> 0:04:53.840 musical instrument is a construct we used to generate sound. It. 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:57.640 It doesn't necessarily have any electronic components to it, but 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:01.040 it's still a tool that we're used to create these 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:04.200 musical notes. Like there's nothing natural. You don't go to 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:08.280 the violin tree and pluck a violin off the violin jury, right, 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:12.359 I mean, these are all tools and well, it's sure, 0:05:12.560 --> 0:05:15.400 but my wardrobe broke down like three years ago, so 0:05:15.600 --> 0:05:18.040 I'm not going to go to the old school violin 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:22.640 maker who makes fake violin. Yeah, exactly, Like you should 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:24.760 be arguing like, well, you're not singing, so you're just 0:05:24.800 --> 0:05:27.320 doing You're just faking it, like unless you're using the 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:32.760 human voice and tapping upon your own barrel chest for percussion, you, sir, 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:34.880 are not a musician. Well, this is a concept we're 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:37.520 gonna have to revisit throughout the episode today because I 0:05:37.560 --> 0:05:41.520 think it is a central theme of the career of 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:44.120 Robert mog But I thought it would be good to 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:46.240 start just by asking you what is some of your 0:05:46.240 --> 0:05:50.599 favorite electronic music. You don't have to be moge centric here, 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:53.440 because that might be kind of limiting if if I 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.720 just say, played on a mogue with electronically generated tones, 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:00.240 what do you like? Okay, So I'm just gonna run 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:02.640 through these pretty quickly, because I mean, obviously we could 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.719 we could have an entire podcast dedicated to music. Effect 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:10.000 we used to have a music oriented podcast from How 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:12.200 Stuff Works. Haven't done it in ages? It was stuff 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.000 from the B sides. I would love to see that 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.440 come back sometime. But here's some First of all, have 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:19.760 to mention daft punk, uh obviously, like that's like the 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.000 kind of clear front runner of electronic music as far 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:30.520 as mainstream awareness is concerned, outside of just the electronica fans, 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.240 who are of course their knowledge runs far more deep 0:06:33.240 --> 0:06:36.080 than mine. Um. I could also just lump in pretty 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:38.480 much any band that was part of the new wave movement, 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.600 because new wave was very electronic heavy and in certain 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:48.280 parts of that uh, that movement. Yes, the the the 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:53.280 post punk new wave movement. I love that that genre 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.719 of music as well. Um, the soundtrack to the original 0:06:55.760 --> 0:07:00.000 Tron movie, I love it. I also like Tron Legacy, 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.279 which again goes back to daft punk. But I love 0:07:02.360 --> 0:07:04.400 the soundtrack to the original Tron movie. You know, we 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.039 both fight for the users. Yes, and that was scored 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.600 by Wendy Carlos, and Wendy Carlos is very important in 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.240 the history of MOG because Wendy Carlos also did an 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:18.440 album called Switched on Bach, which was an early album 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:23.200 that really uh pushed MOG into the limelight. Like it 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.760 it was a very popular album. It hit top twenty 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:29.600 charts and I own this on vinyl. It is at 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:31.720 my house right now. I have a vinyl copy of 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.240 Switched on Bach. Now did that album actually make an 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:38.480 appearance in the movie A Clockwork Orange? Or was that 0:07:38.480 --> 0:07:42.400 that was Wendy Carlos scoring? When Carlos scored music and 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.320 that oh wait, that was Beethoven, wasn't it Beethoven was 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:50.040 the piece? That was the music that was That's right, 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:52.800 the lindvig Van. But Wendy Carlos scored Clockwork Orange. She 0:07:52.840 --> 0:07:56.520 also scored the Shining Um and then also, I like 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.400 the soundtrack to Lady Hawk. I don't know what that is. 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.400 You don't know Lady Hawk is. Lady Hawk is a 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.240 fantasy film from the mid eighties and it starred Matthew 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.640 Broderick as a thief. No no, he was a thief 0:08:08.720 --> 0:08:14.200 named mouse. Rutger Howard played a no. Rugger Howard was 0:08:14.400 --> 0:08:19.679 a a like canthrope who was in love with a 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.960 a young lady played by um By Lady Hawk. Well, 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:27.480 she was the Lady Hawk, but the name suddenly escapes 0:08:27.560 --> 0:08:30.360 me and that's terrible, but anyway, and it will kill me. 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.080 People right in and tell me who was Michelle Pfiffer, 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:36.720 Michelle Phifer, she was Lady Hawk. Uh. So, the story 0:08:36.760 --> 0:08:41.120 goes that he turns into uh, a wolf at night, 0:08:41.280 --> 0:08:44.839 she turns into Rugger Howard. She turns into a bird 0:08:44.960 --> 0:08:46.840 in the daytime. They are in love with one another, 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.800 but they can never be together because as one is 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.520 transforming into human, the other one's transforming into animal. And 0:08:52.520 --> 0:08:56.120 it's this kind of story of tragedy as they as 0:08:56.280 --> 0:09:00.120 Rugger Howard's character is looking to enact revenge upon the 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:03.479 the person who has cursed them to this existence. Marger 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:07.800 Howard has so many time related struggles. He wants more life. 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:12.079 He needs to be a day wolf. Yep. So the 0:09:12.080 --> 0:09:17.120 The soundtrack is a mixture of orchestral uh and pop 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:22.079 scynth rock and uh. Some people absolutely detest it. I 0:09:22.120 --> 0:09:25.640 love it. I love it because it is very much 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.120 a thing of its time. It would not fit in 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.360 any other time period. Like if this movie remain in 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.800 the nineties and it had that soundtrack, you would be 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.600 scratching your head wondering why. But in the eighties it 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:38.080 was right there at the forefront of this pop scynth 0:09:38.559 --> 0:09:43.600 score movement that some people hate but I love also. 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:46.520 I mean I mentioned switched on Bach. Have you ever 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:50.120 heard of the Disney's Main Street Electrical Parade. I know, 0:09:50.280 --> 0:09:51.920 I don't know what you're talking about. So it's a 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:55.720 parade that was very popular at Disney World in Disneyland. 0:09:55.720 --> 0:09:59.520 Don't know if they still do it. Parade and actual parade. Yeah, 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.880 you would go oh and and find a spot on 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.440 Main Street and wait and the floats. It was at night, 0:10:04.480 --> 0:10:08.320 and the floats were all lit up with various led lights. 0:10:08.720 --> 0:10:10.920 I think that are originally like incandescent lights when it 0:10:10.960 --> 0:10:15.360 was first going, because that's how old the parade, sure, 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.800 and uh, the the but the music was all electronic 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:24.640 music and very peppy, and it included motifs from various 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.600 Disney films like Mary Poppins and Pete's Dragon and that 0:10:27.679 --> 0:10:30.760 kind of stuff. And um and I had that on vinyl. 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:36.640 It's a little uh uh, a little uh tiny um, 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.040 which is great. There was an album called The mog Cookbook. 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:41.840 Did you ever hear this? So? I didn't hear this 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.000 came out in the mid nineties. The Moge Cookbook is 0:10:45.040 --> 0:10:48.600 a cover album. Uh the cover the songs are all 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:51.600 like from the mid nineties, but covered with bogus. So 0:10:51.640 --> 0:10:54.480 you've got like, wait, is it not the Moke Coke Boke. No, 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.439 it's not the Mog Coke Boke. It's the mog Cookbook. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.520 I looked it up. Uh yeah, it included a black 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:05.080 Hole Sun, Buddy Holly, basket Case, free Fallen smells like 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:09.079 teen Spirit, and several other songs. Wait, it included the 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:12.400 artist Buddy Holly or the song Buddy the song Buddy Hollybyewheeler, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.280 because they were all from that that general era. And 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.200 I also have an un ironic love for the music 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:26.120 of sticks, in which keyboard solos often play a pivotal role. Well, 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.760 it can't fault you there some of my own favorite 0:11:28.800 --> 0:11:31.800 electronic music, like you. A lot of the electronic music 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:35.079 that came to mind was from soundtracks. Of course. I 0:11:35.120 --> 0:11:37.720 think of the Doctor Who theme, which is a wonderful 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:42.760 early electronic masterpiece. It was composed in the BBC Audio 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:46.240 workshops by somebody named Delia derby Shire, or actually I 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.000 think it was composed originally by somebody else as a 0:11:49.000 --> 0:11:53.319 piece of written music, but realized electronically in a fascinating 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.160 and wonderful way by by Derbyshire. At the BBC then 0:11:56.320 --> 0:11:58.760 so much so that the original composer actually said, at 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.760 this point this music is not really my own anymore. 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.000 It's it's Derby Shire's. And not that that. It wasn't 0:12:05.160 --> 0:12:08.360 wasn't distancing from the music. It wasn't saying like this 0:12:08.440 --> 0:12:11.880 is a bad thing, but this is a remarkable thing. Yeah. 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.960 And also I would have to mention the electronic compositions 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:21.240 of one John Carpenter. For example, I cannot get enough 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:25.320 of the soundtrack of Halloween three Season of the Witch, 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:28.560 a movie with much better music than it deserves. Now 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.240 did they use the same motif as the Michael Myers 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:34.320 motif and Halloween's one and two? It's been a lontesis. 0:12:35.200 --> 0:12:38.679 It's different, it's got it's got some of some kind 0:12:38.679 --> 0:12:41.480 of similar themes weaving in and out, but but it's 0:12:41.520 --> 0:12:44.960 its own thing. You should dun dunt dun dundu dun 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:47.760 mean that shows up a little, But you should just 0:12:47.800 --> 0:12:50.600 listen to the Halloween three soundtrack. It's great electronic music. 0:12:50.679 --> 0:12:52.280 I'll have to take a listen. Yeah, I love the 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:55.120 John Carpenter stuff like I love his stuff from Big Trumble, 0:12:55.160 --> 0:12:59.680 Little China, and and uh, you know, like even some 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.559 of the things that are are He's playing songs that 0:13:02.600 --> 0:13:04.559 are more guitar driven, but you can tell the instead 0:13:04.600 --> 0:13:07.160 of guitar, they're using a synthesizer, which is kind of cool. 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:09.880 That's a kind of different thing once you start talking 0:13:09.880 --> 0:13:15.160 about digitally edited together music. But also, earlier today, because 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:17.360 I knew we were going to do this, I asked 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.160 my co host, one of my co hosts from Stuff 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.600 to Blow Your Mind, Robert Lamb, about his favorite old 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:28.239 school SyncE stuff and he recommended a guy named Mort Garson, 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.520 who had never heard of before, but who performs under 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:36.280 the He did perform under one name, Lucifer was the 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:41.040 performer artist's name, and there was an album unreleased him 0:13:41.080 --> 0:13:44.040 to the artist name Lucifer. That's just great. I listened 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:47.960 to it earlier today and I loved it. It's very moogie. 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:50.000 I don't know if it was actually done on a Moog, 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:54.200 but it it sounds like it's got that old school synthesizers. 0:13:53.760 --> 0:13:57.400 Sounds analog um. But but we should get to the 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:01.040 origin of the Moog story. Moog the Mogue. We should 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:04.720 get to the origin of the Moge story. So who 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.760 was Bob Mog? Yeah, and and keep in mind like 0:14:08.320 --> 0:14:10.920 when we talk about the Moge story and we're talking 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:14.520 about the birth of the analog synthesizer. There were other 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.480 groups also working on synthesizers at the same time as Moge, 0:14:18.640 --> 0:14:21.760 but Mogue's name has sort of become iconic in this 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:28.160 idea of the analog physical circuitry synthesizer for multiple reasons. 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:31.000 So who was he, Well, he's he was born in Queens, 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:36.560 New York on May and as a kid he became 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:41.200 really interested in electronics, just thought it was a fascinating thing, 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.360 and so he really kind of dove into it. And 0:14:44.400 --> 0:14:46.600 he also was really interested in the idea of using 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:50.800 electronics to make music. I think it's called mosic maybe, 0:14:51.200 --> 0:14:54.760 uh he He however, was not um a musician himself 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.400 or mosician if you prefer. He was not a musician himself, 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:02.080 but he liked the thought of creating the instruments that 0:15:02.120 --> 0:15:05.680 would be you know, would allow someone else to make music. 0:15:06.280 --> 0:15:08.520 And one of the first things he really became interested 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:13.880 in was the thereman, which we have covered on tech 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.880 stuff before. The thereman had been invented back in the twenties, 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:19.200 so he was that had already been around for quite 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:21.800 some time before Mogue was even born, but Mog got 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:24.880 interested in it. And in case you don't remember what 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:27.400 a thereman is, just imagine a box that has a 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:31.520 pair of antenna. Typically you have one vertical antenna and 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:36.120 one horizontal antenna poking out of this box, and the 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:39.760 antenna rely on radio waves around them, and as you 0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:42.440 move your hands closer to in a way from you 0:15:42.440 --> 0:15:45.760 start to interfere with the waves that are around this antenna. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.400 You never make contact, or you don't you're not supposed 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.200 to make contact with the antenna. You don't have to. 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:52.480 It's just by bringing your hands closer and moving them 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.400 further apart, you can change a tone that is generated 0:15:56.440 --> 0:16:01.880 by this device. Now sound like Just imagine in your 0:16:01.920 --> 0:16:06.720 head all of the goofy bad horror and sci fi 0:16:06.800 --> 0:16:10.320 movies you saw in the nineteen fifties, especially sci fi 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:16.240 yeah that was big, like yeah and uh and typically 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.360 like not. Typically, the way it would work is that 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:22.800 one of the antenna would would change the pitch as 0:16:22.800 --> 0:16:25.040 you moved your hand closer and further away, and the 0:16:25.040 --> 0:16:27.960 other one controlled the volume. So as you're one is 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:31.000 one is how high the flying saucer is often and 0:16:31.040 --> 0:16:33.360 the other one is how close it's coming towards you, yeah, 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.280 or whether it's moving towards you or away from you. 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.520 All right, so I like, oh, it's getting closer because 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.080 Doppler effect, right, Uh so yeah, it's It was a 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:48.080 really interesting and odd musical device, and mog was really 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:50.160 interested in them. He built his first one when he 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.200 was either fourteen or fifteen. I've seen reports that site 0:16:53.240 --> 0:16:55.480 one age or the other. But right in that friend 0:16:55.520 --> 0:16:57.120 that a year I saw. I think it was nineteen 0:16:57.200 --> 0:17:00.600 fifty four that he's well, no way, I think that's 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.280 when he said he sold his first one, right, So 0:17:03.320 --> 0:17:05.320 he started building them when he was still a teenager. 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:07.720 By the age of nineteen, that's when he started a 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:12.320 business them. Yeah, he actually and he didn't just sell theremans. 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:14.840 He did do that, but he also sold kits and 0:17:14.920 --> 0:17:17.560 partially constructed ones. So in other words, he was helping 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:20.680 other d I Y enthusiasts. I assume that if you 0:17:20.720 --> 0:17:23.440 wanted a completed kit, then that would obviously be more 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.960 expensive than just buying the parts from him and then 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.240 the instructions and putting them together yourself. Um, And he 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:31.639 and his father kind of created a business together and 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:35.400 it was the r A Mo company. Uh. He then 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:38.240 would go on to attend college and go on to 0:17:38.320 --> 0:17:41.760 graduate school at Cornell and while he was there he 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.159 was studying physical engineering and in nineteen sixty three he 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:50.600 met a guy named Walter Sear who was a tuba manufacturer. Manufacturer. No, 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.360 how many times are we going to do this? You're 0:17:53.400 --> 0:17:59.160 not the one who gets the email Joe manacturer? Yes, 0:17:59.440 --> 0:18:03.360 how many will have that job? At least one a right, 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:07.720 at least one manfacturers operate in the world at the 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:11.119 same time. You do wonder what the you know, how 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.560 tuba's have to last a long time? Right, there's gotta 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.960 be a major resella expired. I gotta check it out. 0:18:18.160 --> 0:18:20.640 Hading to go buy a new tuba? Uh so yeah, 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:24.400 he he met Walter Seer and Seer thought that Mog 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:27.440 was an interesting guy and said that Mog should uh 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:31.440 go to the New York State School Music Association gathering. 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:34.520 And while he was there, he met another guy named 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:39.000 Herb Deutsch, and Deutsch was part of the experimental music 0:18:39.119 --> 0:18:43.119 movement that was starting to really kind of play with 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:45.960 the idea of what is music and what what can 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.760 be music and what can music do? Like really pushing 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:52.679 the boundary going beyond just the simple construction of a 0:18:52.760 --> 0:18:57.720 song and and getting really weird stuff. And Mog talks 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:00.520 about how it was his meeting with deut that sort 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:03.639 of really got him interested in electronic music and wanting 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:07.040 to build equipment that would help us create new kinds 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:10.480 of sounds. Yeah, the two of them kind of agreed 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:12.800 that this would be a really interesting prospect, the idea 0:19:12.800 --> 0:19:18.600 of building a device specifically to create new sounds for music. 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.760 And so, with Deutsche's urging, that's what most out to do, 0:19:22.920 --> 0:19:26.800 and he created a shop near Ithaca, New York, UH 0:19:26.840 --> 0:19:31.400 and began to experiment using silicon transistors as the basic components. 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.920 Transistors were kind of a game changer at the time, right, absolutely, Yeah, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.240 totally changing what you could do with electronic equipment. Well, 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:41.600 it certainly changed, yes, And the main reason is because 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:44.400 they took up less space and generated less heat than 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:47.200 the alternatives, right, because it would be vacuum too, exactly. 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:51.000 So there were certainly electronics before transistors, but they were 0:19:51.080 --> 0:19:54.560 larger and they generated way more heat. And so if 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.199 you wanted to have and electronic device that was a 0:19:58.280 --> 0:20:02.680 musical instrument. For the invention of the transistor you're looking 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:06.720 at some pretty unwieldy equipment. It's gonna be bigger and 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:10.080 hotter than what you would find later on once you 0:20:10.160 --> 0:20:14.399 switched over to transistors. So he began to look at 0:20:14.440 --> 0:20:18.600 transistors to be the basis of the circuitry he would 0:20:18.680 --> 0:20:24.679 use to create a Mogue musical instrument, and uh, he 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.679 found that he could alter the pitch, like as long 0:20:27.720 --> 0:20:30.040 as he created frequencies that were within the range of 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.399 human hearing. He could alter the pitch by changing the 0:20:33.480 --> 0:20:38.040 voltage in various circuits before sending that signal out to 0:20:38.040 --> 0:20:41.520 to allowed speaker. So as long as you keep the 0:20:41.520 --> 0:20:45.080 frequency between say, twenty hurts and twenty thousand hurts, that's 0:20:45.200 --> 0:20:47.879 the range of human hearing, then you can do that. 0:20:47.920 --> 0:20:51.200 If you go beyond that, obviously, then you most people 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:54.600 are unable to perceive it. And obviously not everyone has 0:20:54.680 --> 0:20:58.000 exactly that range, right. Some people start, especially as you 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.879 get older, you start to lose they to perceive at 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:04.160 the higher end, which is why I no longer hear children. 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.200 Oh yeah, I remember those stories about the cell phone 0:21:08.240 --> 0:21:10.520 tones that only kids could hear because they're too high 0:21:10.520 --> 0:21:12.359 pitch for adults to hear. Was that true or was 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:14.520 that that, I hope, I don't know. I heard a 0:21:14.560 --> 0:21:20.560 similar story about how how like um gas stations were 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:23.679 employing loudspeaker systems that would play that pitch at a 0:21:23.760 --> 0:21:26.920 high volume because adults couldn't hear it and it discouraged 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:30.480 kids from loitering. Man, that's that's that's that's another story 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:32.040 I heard, But I don't know if that's true. If 0:21:32.040 --> 0:21:36.360 you wanted to be a really cool uh synthesizer musician, 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:40.000 you could create a musical instrument that only plays in 0:21:40.040 --> 0:21:43.919 the frequency range that adults can't hear, and so you 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.800 couldn't have a stodgy adults coming into your concert and 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:49.320 just well I guess you could have them just they're 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:51.720 pretending or they would or they just say like I 0:21:51.720 --> 0:21:55.400 don't understand the music these days, uh, or yeah, yeah 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:57.320 I hear it. Man, you go a step further and 0:21:57.320 --> 0:21:59.960 you just make music for dogs. You know you could 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:04.800 do that? So? Uh So Moe created a circuit. One 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:06.720 of the one of the music stores I go to 0:22:06.800 --> 0:22:10.480 here in town called its Decatur c D. If you 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:13.879 go in there, there's an album they sell they've always 0:22:13.920 --> 0:22:16.640 got in stock that I think is called music for Dogs. 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.720 There might be called like music, dogs love. I've never 0:22:19.760 --> 0:22:22.480 listened to it. Yeah, yeah, just be a bunch of 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:25.000 cats melling. I don't know what it is, maybe maybe 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.160 a doorbell. Occasionally. Have to ask about it next time. Well, 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:30.800 Moe created a circuit that produced a pitch and then 0:22:31.560 --> 0:22:34.359 with an increase of one vault, that pitch would go 0:22:34.520 --> 0:22:38.160 up one octave. That's convenient, right, and then the pitch 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:40.760 would change back and forth using different types of wave forms, 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:43.359 which I will cover later on in this episode. So 0:22:43.480 --> 0:22:45.520 I'll explain all about the different wave forms because that's 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:48.480 an important part of what makes a mogue sound the 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:52.199 way it does, and other analog synthesizers as well. Um, 0:22:52.480 --> 0:22:55.360 and it would create the sort of weird vibratos sound. 0:22:55.840 --> 0:22:59.440 And he gave the instrument his own last name, possibly 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:03.679 following the lead of Theriman. Therreman was named after the 0:23:03.720 --> 0:23:06.280 guy who invented it. You know that it's not a 0:23:06.320 --> 0:23:08.720 word that was made up for the device. It's actually 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:11.520 named after the inventor. It sounds like a made up word, 0:23:11.720 --> 0:23:16.800 it does. But it was somebody named like like Jeff Thereman. Yeah, 0:23:16.960 --> 0:23:21.600 it was exactly that. It was Jeff Thereman. It was not, 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:24.280 but at any rate. No, it's he decided to name 0:23:24.280 --> 0:23:29.000 it after himself. You know, there are tapes of Mog 0:23:29.240 --> 0:23:33.639