WEBVTT - Moog Synthesizers 0:00:02.160 --> 0:00:06.840 Ephemeral is production of I heart three D audio for 0:00:06.960 --> 0:00:13.640 full exposure. Listen with that phones. Human beings have been 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:21.000 building musical instruments for tens of thousands of years, chasing 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:25.960 different timbres, textures, and ranges possible in the acoustic world, 0:00:32.600 --> 0:00:35.920 and then in the twentieth century a whole new pallide 0:00:35.920 --> 0:00:44.879 of sounds emerged. This is a MOG synthesizer. MoG's were 0:00:44.920 --> 0:00:48.680 the most popular and innovative synthesizers of the nineteen sixties 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.239 and seventies, and they were the first synths to be 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:56.480 widely accessible by musicians across the world. Nowadays, MOG Music 0:00:56.520 --> 0:00:59.200 is a very different company, but they still create new 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.400 keyboards and sounds. If Emeral producer Trevor Young took a 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.520 trip to MOUG headquarters to learn more about these machines 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:21.759 and the history behind their creation. Let's say I'm walking 0:01:21.800 --> 0:01:27.520 through the mosium in Asheville, North Carolina. I'm surrounded by keyboards, synthesizers, 0:01:27.760 --> 0:01:29.920 and all sorts of other gadgets that I'm not smart 0:01:30.040 --> 0:01:33.160 enough to recognize, but they're letting me play on some 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:36.280 of the synthesizers here, and I'm getting a personal tour 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.319 from a very special guest. Hi, I'm Michelle moe Kusa. 0:01:40.480 --> 0:01:43.720 I'm the executive director of the Bob Mog Foundation and 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:49.120 the Mosium. I'm also Bob MoG's third daughter. We walk 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.080 around a corner to find a huge collage taking up 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:56.120 an entire wall all about Mog Synthesizers founder Bob Mog. 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:03.960 What we have here is kind of some arises his legacy, innovation, creativity, 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.400 and inspiration. There's a little passage here that says, welcome 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.079 to the Mosium, where Bob mogs life, work and legacy 0:02:11.160 --> 0:02:16.000 come alive to inspire curiosity and creativity and to give 0:02:16.080 --> 0:02:19.880 us insight into one of the electronic music's most important pioneers. 0:02:21.320 --> 0:02:24.920 So kind of the crowning the back of the Moxium, 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:29.800 we have an immersive half doome that teaches people how 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.280 electricity turns into sound when it's traveling through a circuit board. 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:37.160 So this is essentially the very heart of Bob's work 0:02:37.240 --> 0:02:39.880 that we wanted to bring forward. So why don't we 0:02:39.919 --> 0:02:44.600 listen to at least the first minute of it. Sound 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.799 is the movement of air perceived by our ears. An 0:02:47.840 --> 0:02:52.600 electric speaker creates sound by vibrating air molecules using a 0:02:52.680 --> 0:02:56.720 moving membrane by changing the rate of current flow through 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:01.079 the magnetic field. A speaker membrane can be vibrated at 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:06.600 different frequencies to create any kind of sound. It might 0:03:06.639 --> 0:03:09.040 seem like a lot of science on terminology to take in, 0:03:09.560 --> 0:03:12.000 but we're going to walk you through how synthesizers work. 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.120 Probably the best place to start, because with the history 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:19.040 of how synthesizers came into being, the mog machine here 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:22.480 has made a startling contribution to the new bach rage. 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:25.920 It can do anything but stand up and take a bow. 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.120 It can produce almost any kind of variation on pure sound, 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:34.560 including some sounds that have never been heard before on 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:37.680 this Earth at least, and these sounds can then be 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:43.400 dubbed onto tape in any combination, from interplanetary noises to 0:03:43.560 --> 0:03:48.560 a bach fugue. Synthesis technology first appeared in post World 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:52.640 War two North America. By the late nineteen forties, engineers 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.600 were starting to play around with manipulating electrical currents and 0:03:55.640 --> 0:04:00.800 the sounds they make. In Canadian engineer he Like developed 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:09.880 the sack But, a sort of early rudimentary synthesizer, and 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.280 in n a team at R. C. A. Laps created 0:04:13.320 --> 0:04:17.360 the Mark to synthesizer, a massive unit that was essentially 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:24.000 glued to a laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey. But the 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:27.280 invention of synthesizers as we know them today is almost 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:31.760 entirely credited to one man, Bob Moog. I asked Michelle 0:04:31.800 --> 0:04:33.880 to tell us about Bob and how we ended up 0:04:33.880 --> 0:04:38.839 creating one of the world's most popular instruments. My dad 0:04:38.920 --> 0:04:43.239 was an only child of George and Shirley Moak. My grandpa, George, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.440 was an electrical engineer for conn Edison. He was also 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.200 an amateur woodworker. And you'll understand why I'm telling you 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.560 that in a minute. They lived in Flushing, Queens, New York, 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:59.080 and my grandfather had a very well outfitted basement workshop. 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:02.920 And MI grandfather was kind of quiet and more reserved 0:05:02.960 --> 0:05:06.479 and introverted. And I would say that my father was 0:05:06.520 --> 0:05:12.080 also more quiet and introverted, and highly intelligent and interested 0:05:12.320 --> 0:05:15.200 in science from a very early age, in all kinds 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:18.520 of science. At the age of ten years old, he 0:05:18.560 --> 0:05:22.479 wrote a letter to his aunt and his grandmother proclaiming 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:29.680 his hobbies and in his hobbies included chemistry, electro chemistry, biology, physics. 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:34.240 He was obviously very influenced by his father. At the 0:05:34.279 --> 0:05:37.760 same time, at the age of six years old, he 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:42.160 began taking piano lessons. My grandmother had a great desire 0:05:42.240 --> 0:05:45.480 for him to be a concert pianist, and so she 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.080 made sure that he practiced every day. As a matter 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.599 of fact, he used to tell us stories that she 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:53.760 would wrap him on the knuckles with a wooden spoon 0:05:53.839 --> 0:05:56.720 when he messed up, so there was no messing up. 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.680 And I think he did enjoy playing the piano, but 0:05:59.720 --> 0:06:03.800 not necessarily under those circumstances. He did become quite profession 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.039 at it and went on to study at the Manhattan 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:10.000 School the Music and he was offered to pursue a 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:14.840 professional accompanist track which he declined pretty early. At ten 0:06:14.920 --> 0:06:19.160 years old, he started making small electronic hobbyist projects with 0:06:19.360 --> 0:06:22.320 his father. I think part of it was they would 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.479 both escape down into the basement just to get a break, 0:06:25.520 --> 0:06:28.800 as introverts like to do. That is where my father's 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:32.640 work in electronics started, and they would make three note organs, 0:06:32.680 --> 0:06:37.479 and my dad actually made Geiger counters. Eventually, by the 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:41.840 time he was around fourteen fifteen, he found an article 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.040 in I think it was called Radio News about how 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:47.560 to build your own thereman, and that is when he 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:50.159 fell in love with the thereman, which is an early 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:54.120 electronic musical device that was invented by the Russian physicist 0:06:54.200 --> 0:06:58.520 Leon Thereman. If you've never heard or seen a theremin, 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.720 they're incredibly unique instruments. There perhaps the only instrument you 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.440 play without touching them. Instead, you move your hands around 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:09.440 an antenna and the proximity and movement of the hand 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.680 generates an eerie sound from the theramin. Here's a demonstration 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:38.160 from Leon Thereman himself. And my dad really was captivated 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.160 by not only this kind of magical interface where you 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:45.840 produce sound with an instrument that you don't touch, but 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:51.160 he was captivated by the elegance and simplicity of Leon 0:07:51.280 --> 0:07:56.600 Thereman's circuitry design. And at that time, theremans were no 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.360 longer in production, so he worked at prof in his 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:03.040 own design. This is when he was about fifteen. By 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.960 the time he was nineteen, he was proficient enough that 0:08:06.040 --> 0:08:09.840 he wrote an article for radio and television news called 0:08:09.880 --> 0:08:12.680 the Theremin, and it was an instructional on how to 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:17.600 build your own theremin. But what happened is that people 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:21.760 had a hard time finding the parts. They were somewhat esoteric. 0:08:22.360 --> 0:08:25.640 These were at that time vacuum tube based Theremans with 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:29.840 big copper coils that were, you know, maybe even a 0:08:29.840 --> 0:08:34.080 foot tall and required hundred and seventy five rounds of copper. 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:36.640 I can remember my father telling me that's one of 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.640 the things he excelled at, that he would wind the 0:08:39.760 --> 0:08:44.560 copper coils, he would design the circuitry. Grandpa helped him 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.920 some with that. Grandpa built the wooden cabinets for his Theoremans, 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.880 and they both did some of the kind of silk 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:56.720 screening that went on the front interface. But what happened 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:00.320 with the article is that people didn't find that they 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.680 excelled at winding copper coils like Bob did or finding 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.560 the parts, and so they wrote him and said, where 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:09.600 can I get a full built Thereman? And so my 0:09:09.679 --> 0:09:13.920 father started our a Moke co with my grandfather's support, 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:18.880 to not only self thereman parts, but also fully built thereman's. 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:23.960 That was the beginning. Bob's Thereman business was booming. He 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:26.680 was selling his own models left and right, and this 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.040 success is what laid the conceptual groundwork and provided the 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.640 financial means for his work to come. In synthesis. What 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:39.160 happened is he was at a music educator's conference in 0:09:39.200 --> 0:09:44.439 New York rapping his theoreman's and a young professor from 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:49.320 Hostra University approached him and said, listen, I have one 0:09:49.360 --> 0:09:52.680 of your melodia theramans. I use it in my ear 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:56.560 training classes, and I'm an experimental jazz composer as well 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.000 as being a professor of music, and there are all 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.760 these sounds that I've to make in my experimental jazz 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:05.560 compositions that I just can't make with splicing tape, which 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:09.160 is the technology that was available then. This gentleman's name 0:10:09.200 --> 0:10:11.720 was Herb Deutsch, and he said to my dad, do 0:10:11.720 --> 0:10:13.760 you think you could help me build something that would 0:10:13.760 --> 0:10:17.800 make these sounds that I'm envisioning for my compositions. And 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:22.520 so that began a year long conversation that ended in 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:26.520 the summer of nineteen sixty four when Herb, with a 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:31.040 two d dollar grant from host University, spent three weeks 0:10:31.120 --> 0:10:34.800 during that summer working with my dad on creating the 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.280 first prototype of the more synthesizer. And essentially it was 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.000 this collaboration where Herb would say, listen, as a musician, 0:10:41.040 --> 0:10:43.319 this is what I need, and my dad would build 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.640 it and then her would test him say I need 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:47.760 more of this or less of this. Okay, well well 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:52.720 now we have this, say the oscillator tone generating source 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:55.920 than what, Well then I need to sculpture somehow. So 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:58.680 they worked together over three weeks, and then they eventually 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.200 brought in other people over the summer, and my dad 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:06.880 lectured on this voltage controlled synthesis that he had developed 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:12.320 in October of nine four the Audio Engineering Society. So 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:15.559 this big board here is where the sound is made. 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:19.720 Appropriately enough, we call the analog board. A lot of 0:11:19.760 --> 0:11:23.679 parts on you. Each section of this board here corresponds 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:26.760 to one section of the of the front panel. These 0:11:26.760 --> 0:11:30.600 are cold connectors here bringing the electrical signals that tell 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.520 the analog circuitry what pitch to go at, when to 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:36.559 start a note and when to stop it and so on. 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:42.080 And he started selling his modules at that convention, and 0:11:42.160 --> 0:11:45.600 that is when he was offered a booth that someone 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:48.840 else had vacated. He didn't even plan on exhibiting there. 0:11:49.080 --> 0:11:50.960 So he was there with like a bridge table with 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.440 some kind of bohemian table cloth of my mom's and 0:11:54.480 --> 0:11:57.280 a few little modules. I mean, this has just started. 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:00.120 And he started getting orders. He got an order her 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:04.199 from our one Nikolai Wendy Carlos and by hitting a 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.200 note on the keyboard. Now I'm connected up, so I'll 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:11.360 hear that one sound. It's very low sound, it's very bright. 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:13.920 If I manually turn this knob, you listen to the 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:22.040 sound get considerably duller gets very dull down here. Prior 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:25.240 to Bob Moog, there had been some work in synthesis already. 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:28.280 We mentioned a few examples at the beginning, like the 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:38.680 r C A Mark two. There were people working in 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.400 synthesis prior to that. Harold Boda was one of those people, 0:12:43.040 --> 0:12:46.839 and also Vladim r Usachski, who was working at the 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:50.319 Columbia Princeton Electronic Music Studio. They had the r C 0:12:50.520 --> 0:12:55.920 A Mark synthesizer. The r C A synthesizer was this huge, 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:03.160 room sized synthesizer that function by punch tape, so it 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:07.080 was very very different, and it was really run by academics. 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.160 But Bob was a musician, so he wanted to create 0:13:11.240 --> 0:13:13.800 something not to be studied in a lab, but to 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:18.280 be used for the purposes of musical expression. What Bob 0:13:18.360 --> 0:13:22.880 Mug did is he took the synthesis that had already 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:28.840 begun to be developed and created a system that was 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:34.040 accessible to musicians. At the very beginning, that was accessible to, 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:40.479 you know, maybe some more experimental musicians originally, but eventually 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.760 a few people, a few very talented people who were 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.920 able to understand modular synthesis decided to wrap those instruments. 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.320 I'm thinking right now, Paul Beaver and Bernie Cross on 0:13:52.320 --> 0:14:06.719 the West coast. M Yeah. What they did is they 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:12.160 tried to sell Moog synthesizers in Los Angeles and they 0:14:12.200 --> 0:14:16.000 had a really hard time. The modulars were big, heavy, 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.480 hard to transport, very expensive. They cost as much as 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:24.200 a small house at that time, and they were having 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:27.840 a hard time getting people to embrace them. They talked 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:30.800 to someone at their record label. They actually had a 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.320 record kind of that was a demonstration of the Mog 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:38.200 synthesizer on non such records, and they talked to Jack Holsman, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.640 who was the CEO, and said, you know, we're having 0:14:40.640 --> 0:14:43.640 a hard time getting people to understand these instruments. What 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:46.520 do you think we should do? He said, why don't 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:49.560 bring them to the Honorary Pop Festival, which happened in 0:14:49.880 --> 0:15:00.520 the summer of n And they did that at and 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.360 what they didn't expect is that they were absolutely mobbed 0:15:03.600 --> 0:15:06.600 with people. They had a tent with a mug modular 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.840 in it, and they were mobbed with people to the 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.960 extent that they had to have security assist them in 0:15:12.080 --> 0:15:15.520 creating a line. But what came out of that is 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:36.800 the Monkeys, the Doors, Simon and Garf Uncle and the 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:51.040 Birds all subsequently bought mog synthesizers. The Doors were the 0:15:51.120 --> 0:15:55.920 first to use it. Later and by the time nine 0:15:56.040 --> 0:16:04.240 rolled around, the Beatles were using it. It should go 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:09.040 without mentioning that in there Wendy Carlos came out with 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:19.720 the groundbreaking record Switched sham Bab, which didn't just use 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.960 it as these cool sounds in the background, but it 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.640 used it exclusively. It was an entire album of Bach 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:33.240 music translated with the mog synthesizer, which is incredibly hard 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:35.840 to do. Wendy told me that it would take her 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.960 twenty minutes to do nine notes because she was constantly 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.920 having to patch and repatch. And then Keith Emerson of 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:46.080 Emerson Like and Palmer actually then of the Nice Heard 0:16:46.440 --> 0:17:01.760 switched sham Bach and then he got a huge modular system. 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:07.119 So it was really these very ambitious musicians, all in 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:11.560 their own ways, who helped bring the more synthesizer to 0:17:11.600 --> 0:17:15.800 the four of the public consciousness, and it was the 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:19.640 earliest use of synthesis in that way. Now, Don bouk 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.240 Law also developed a synthesizer at about the same time 0:17:23.320 --> 0:17:26.200 that Bob did, but his approach was very different. They 0:17:26.240 --> 0:17:30.560 were not quite as accessible to most musicians, so they 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:34.040 were a little bit more what you might call experimental, 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:38.640 so not as well known the most synthesizers. They were 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.960 the tool of popular musicians, and that is why they 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:47.360 came into the popular consciousness earlier and in a much 0:17:47.359 --> 0:18:03.520 stronger way than any other synthesizer at that time. As 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:07.280 mog synthesizers picked up in popularity, you heard them everywhere, 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:10.600 and so the sound of the mog became a distinct 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:14.720 cultural statement that an older sister that was a big 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:18.480 Beatles and a Monkey's fan. So those were two of 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:21.320 the first pop groups that actually used the synthesizer and 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.760 a recording. And I remember hearing that. I must have been, 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:27.359 you know, eight or nine years old or whatever, and going, 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.480 you know, well, what's that sound? You know, that's that's interesting. 0:18:30.720 --> 0:18:32.760 There's something about that that really kind of pulls you in, 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:34.920 you know, if you resonate with that sort of thing. 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:40.240 My name is August Whorlie. I'm an electrical engineer and 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:45.280 a musician and the former More Music technician, both up 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.000 in Muffalo, New York, the Old Factory and down here 0:18:49.040 --> 0:18:53.359 in Asheville the Newer Factor. I work for Bob and 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:58.440 developing the Mini More Voyagers synthesizer. I asked August where 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:01.840 his story with synthesizers began it and his answer surprised me. 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.080 I started working on my own equipment as a bassist, 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:10.119 you know, amplifiers and designing speaker cabinets, and just started 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:13.400 tinkering around. He's taking a part of my parents stereo systems, 0:19:13.960 --> 0:19:18.760 and I decided to buy a moke Torus bass pedal synthesizer, 0:19:18.800 --> 0:19:21.800 and so that was my first synthesizer and reading up 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.159 on it and exploring all the sounds it's It was 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.720 a really good, rudimentary, primary sort of synthesizer because it 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:29.920 didn't have all the bells and whistles. It was pretty 0:19:30.000 --> 0:19:32.440 much straight ahead, you know, didn't have all the modulation 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:34.399 or noise or any of those other things. It was 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:47.840 reutilitarian and it was just a lot of fun to 0:19:47.960 --> 0:19:51.879 work with that technology as well as being a bass player. 0:19:52.359 --> 0:19:54.879 People marvel at Getty Lee or whatever because all the 0:19:54.920 --> 0:20:02.520 stuff he had. I never ever heard of Getty Lee 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:06.920 when I was doing all that. You know, as August 0:20:06.920 --> 0:20:10.280 got more interested, he started thinking about synth technology as 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:14.160 a future career path, and one day that opportunity fell 0:20:14.160 --> 0:20:19.240 into his lap. I was getting close to graduating. I 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.639 really had no idea what I wanted to do. I 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.520 think it was about two weeks before I graduated when 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.800 my lab partner sat down before class and said, hey, 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:30.119 I've got a friend of mine I worked at more Music, 0:20:30.520 --> 0:20:32.920 and he said that they're hiring. I'm gonna go down 0:20:32.920 --> 0:20:34.919 there and put in a job application. You want to 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.960 go And it was like, well, let me think about that. Yes. 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:41.560 And the interesting thing was that I always like to 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:44.199 tell people that my first job was working on the 0:20:44.240 --> 0:20:48.480 space shuttle. At the time, More Music had a subcontract 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:52.680 with Fisher Price Toy manufacturing Company to do a little 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:57.400 space shuttle, the Alpha Pro, the Alfa Rican sled Here, 0:20:57.680 --> 0:21:02.639 the electronic sound system Blast, all communications on redd Alert, 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:09.120 astroplots here on here, life support cable for space walking 0:21:09.320 --> 0:21:18.560 on docking now for the Crucist No No, the Electronic 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:23.120 Alpha Probe by Fisher Price. They needed testers audio testers 0:21:23.160 --> 0:21:26.080 for the little circuit boards that went into their Space shuttle. 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:30.439 I listened to this little Space Shuttle board make, you know, 0:21:30.840 --> 0:21:33.760 sample and hold noises and take off noises and all 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:36.159 that kind of stuff for I think about two weeks. 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.359 It was a second shift job. But August wanted to 0:21:39.400 --> 0:21:42.679 do more. He wanted to build his own synthesizers, so 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.800 he found a clever way to do that. I built 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:50.680 am source from rejected parts from the assembly line. You're 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.800 gonna throw that digital board out, may I haven't. So 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.960 I just started taking parts home and building the unit up. 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:00.000 And I still haven't. And that was just the big 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.080 inning of a long and storied career in audio engineering. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.120 I figured August would be the perfect person to help 0:22:06.200 --> 0:22:13.159 us understand how synthesizers actually worked. Probably the first place 0:22:13.240 --> 0:22:16.480 to start with thinking about how a synthesizer works is 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.640 the concept of a an input in an output where 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:21.800 there's a beginning of middle and an end to the 0:22:21.840 --> 0:22:24.640 signal path until it comes out the other end, which 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.840 can then be amplified and heard. So the first place 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.199 to start was the concept of voltage control, where you 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.679 have a control voltage which doesn't really make a sound 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:39.720 in and of itself, but it tells things like oscillators 0:22:40.320 --> 0:22:44.280 and filters and envelope generators what to do. So an 0:22:44.280 --> 0:22:49.320 oscillator is a periodic waveform generator. By inputting a control 0:22:49.440 --> 0:22:53.400 voltage into it of a certain level, you can control 0:22:53.480 --> 0:22:56.280 the frequency of it. You can control the pitch. So 0:22:56.400 --> 0:22:59.439 that lends itself to being able to be connected to 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:03.960 something that has a discrete incremental array, like a keyboard, 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:08.040 so that when you move left to right, the voltage 0:23:08.040 --> 0:23:11.880 goes up, and therefore the pitch will follow that control voltage, 0:23:12.359 --> 0:23:15.200 And so the keyboard is a good starting point for that. 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:17.840 But you don't have to use a keyboard to control 0:23:18.119 --> 0:23:21.520 the pitch of the oscillator. You can use anything that 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.560 creates a voltage. Crawford, the guys used to have suit 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:34.080 jackets that had conductive lapels, or when you touch the 0:23:34.119 --> 0:23:37.680 lapel of their jacket, you could generate a control voltage 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.320 and put it into you know, the synthesizer, So you 0:23:40.440 --> 0:23:43.800 use your clothing as a control voltage source. The more 0:23:43.800 --> 0:23:46.800 oscillators you add, the more textures you can add to 0:23:46.920 --> 0:23:50.760 the sound. And different waveforms that you can create in 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:53.080 order to thicken the sound and give the oscillator a 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:55.600 different texture. That's how you can emulate some of the 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:58.800 real instruments, such as you know saxophone, which is a 0:23:58.880 --> 0:24:13.560 soft wave. O bos are a triangle wave, so you 0:24:13.560 --> 0:24:19.200 can emulate real instruments or just completely derive a texture 0:24:19.440 --> 0:24:23.600 out of your imagination by what you have. One of 0:24:23.640 --> 0:24:26.919 the most popular features of a synthesizer is the sequencer. 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:31.680 A sequencer basically is just what it says. You're able 0:24:31.720 --> 0:24:35.959 to put an array of elements in a row in 0:24:36.080 --> 0:24:40.280 order to create melodies or austinato patterns that is a 0:24:40.320 --> 0:24:43.679 pattern and repeats. And I remember there was always this 0:24:43.800 --> 0:24:48.120 debate about having sequencers there at all, because it's now 0:24:48.200 --> 0:24:51.360 you're turning it over to robots. But it's like anything 0:24:51.560 --> 0:24:56.440 else with music, depends on how your approaches. Let's demonstrate. 0:24:57.000 --> 0:24:59.320 While I was touring the Maxim and playing around with 0:24:59.359 --> 0:25:02.160 a synthesize, I got to try out a few sequencers. 0:25:02.840 --> 0:25:31.160 Listen for all the different patterns they can create. SEP 0:25:31.359 --> 0:25:56.480 SEP sep SEP sequencers are just one of the many 0:25:56.560 --> 0:26:01.240 innovations Bob mog developed specifically for musicians. As Michelle Moke 0:26:01.280 --> 0:26:06.000 said earlier, Bob was devoted to serving musicians. August agrees 0:26:06.080 --> 0:26:10.160 with that entirely. From the mid sixties to the pretty 0:26:10.240 --> 0:26:13.600 much so. When the minimal came along, sequencers were big, 0:26:13.720 --> 0:26:18.439 expensive and complicated, and we're only available to the very 0:26:18.560 --> 0:26:22.520 wealthy or to large universities or organizations recording studios, that 0:26:22.720 --> 0:26:25.000 sort of thing. And then by the time the seventies 0:26:25.080 --> 0:26:29.800 came along, there was a certain credibility associated with the synthesizer, 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:33.520 and it looked like people were actually using these creatively. 0:26:34.520 --> 0:26:36.760 Mogul is exceptional and that we did listen to the 0:26:36.920 --> 0:26:41.840 musicians what the musicians were looking for, always informed the design, 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:44.879 you know, just trying again make these more available for 0:26:45.400 --> 0:26:50.040 common musicians in order to give them the tools. With 0:26:50.200 --> 0:26:53.639 the success of the first move, the Moke modular business 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:57.920 was good throughout the mid sixties, but by around nine 0:26:58.640 --> 0:27:02.240 nine it became obvious that people needed something that was 0:27:02.880 --> 0:27:06.760 more affordable, that was more portable. Here's Michelle Moog again. 0:27:07.720 --> 0:27:10.560 At the same time, Arimko was having a hard time 0:27:10.960 --> 0:27:14.639 supporting itself because there was a huge cell of modulars, 0:27:14.720 --> 0:27:17.399 but then it kind of peaked and declined and the 0:27:17.480 --> 0:27:21.040 company was in financial trouble. So while my dad was 0:27:21.119 --> 0:27:24.199 actually out looking for someone to invest in his company 0:27:24.280 --> 0:27:28.040 to help it survive, a couple of his engineers started 0:27:28.080 --> 0:27:30.240 coming up with the idea of building something that was 0:27:30.359 --> 0:27:34.360 much smaller, that was very basic. So they came up 0:27:34.520 --> 0:27:39.159 with what would become the prototypes for the Minimog. In 0:27:39.240 --> 0:27:42.120 an analog synthesizer like this, we start out with an oscillator. 0:27:42.240 --> 0:27:48.440 Oscillator produces a steady pitch sound, and then this synthesizer 0:27:48.880 --> 0:27:51.320 we can control the oscillator sound from either the keyboard, 0:27:53.440 --> 0:27:59.720 from a pitch wheel, or automatically through modulation real Roo Roue. 0:28:01.960 --> 0:28:04.960 The mini Mog would essentially be a smaller, more condensed 0:28:05.080 --> 0:28:07.800 version of the Mog modular. It could almost fit in 0:28:07.840 --> 0:28:10.360 your lap, and it had only a fraction of the features, 0:28:11.080 --> 0:28:15.440 but it was more accessible. Bob initially did not like 0:28:15.600 --> 0:28:19.640 the idea of taking these glorious modulars that had over 0:28:19.680 --> 0:28:23.080 two hundred and fifty thousand different sounds and minimizing it 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:26.280 down to something, you know, much much less than that, 0:28:26.960 --> 0:28:29.800 but his engineers realized that if the company were to survive, 0:28:29.840 --> 0:28:32.399 they had to make something smaller. The result was the 0:28:32.440 --> 0:28:35.960 Mini Mooge, which later became the best selling analog synthesizer 0:28:36.000 --> 0:28:38.680 of all time. Twelve thou two hundred and sixty nine 0:28:38.760 --> 0:28:45.080 units were produced between nineteen seventy and two, and that 0:28:45.480 --> 0:28:50.400 basically set a course for MOG synthesizers after that to 0:28:50.560 --> 0:28:54.160 be accessible. There was a variety of things that happened 0:28:54.200 --> 0:28:58.240 to MOG synthesizers after that. They became smaller and smaller, 0:28:58.760 --> 0:29:02.600 some of them with less capability but still very robust sound. 0:29:03.160 --> 0:29:07.160 Just trying to address different needs in the marketplace, they 0:29:07.280 --> 0:29:11.800 started incorporating things like small ribbon controllers so that there 0:29:11.960 --> 0:29:16.040 was different ways to access to sound. After that, the 0:29:16.200 --> 0:29:20.600 memory Mouge made use of stored presets, which some of 0:29:20.640 --> 0:29:24.640