[Dixielandjazz] Private opinion re Moog.

[Fr M J (Mike) Logsdon]

Forwarded with permission from Joseph Byrd

At 04:15 PM 8/22/2005, you wrote:

>  "I'm an engineer. I see myself as a toolmaker and the musicians are 
> my customers," he said in 2000. "They use the tools."
>
>  As a Ph.D. student in engineering physics at Cornell University, 
> Moog - rhymes with vogue - in 1964 developed his first 
> voltage-controlled synthesizer modules with composer Herbert 
> Deutsch. By the end of that year, R.A. Moog Co. marketed the first 
> commercial modular synthesizer.
>
>  The instrument allowed musicians, first in a studio and later on 
> stage, to generate a range of sounds that could mimic nature or 
> seem otherworldly by flipping a switch, twisting a dial, or sliding 
> a knob. Other synthesizers were already on the market in 1964, but 
> Moog's stood out for being small, light and versatile.
>
>  The arrival of the synthesizer came as just as the Beatles and 
> other musicians started seeking ways to fuse psychedelic-drug 
> experiences with their art. The Beatles used a Moog synthesizer on 
> their 1969 album, "Abbey Road"; a Moog was used to create an eerie 
> sound on the soundtrack to the 1971 film "A Clockwork Orange".
>
>  Keyboardist Walter (later Wendy) Carlos demonstrated the range of 
> Moog's synthesizer by recording the hit album "Switched-On Bach" in 
> 1968 using only the new instrument instead of an orchestra.

There are a great many aspects of this obit I might argue with.  For 
example, Moog's synthesizer was anything but "small, light and 
versatile."  It required a heavy wood cabinet system wherever it was 
set up.  It was modular, and to get all the cool Walter Carlos sounds 
required a lot more than the minimal number of modules.  If not 
hardwired, it had to be rebuilt every time, and in any case, 
cumbersome patches connected.  Routing was done by the most ancient 
of methods, cables of various lengths.

Bob Moog was never in it to help "the musicians," as he is quoted, he 
was in it unabashedly to make money.  A lot of money.  He certainly 
had a right to profit from his very important research in voltage 
control of wave-forms and other musical applications he developed. 
But the reality is, Moog was never available to people with less than 
a fortune. 

When I was first attempting to work in electronic music in the mid 
60's, he had awarded exclusive West Coast distribution rights to a 
rich dilettante named Paul Beaver, who archly informed me that if I 
didn't have $20,000 to spend, I shouldn't bother him.  Consider what 
$20,000 in 1965 would be in today's dollars, and you begin to 
understand the venality with which Bob Moog surrounded his products.

This is not the kindly, eccentric, professorial picture Moog would 
have liked, but it effectively portrays his vastly limiting access to 
his instrument to the very rich, which is to say, The Beatles (who 
truth-be-told were far more innovative using "old" technology like 
the tape-loop Mellotron, tape-reverse and speed-change, etc., than 
they were with the Moog) and Walter Carlos, who equipped himself with 
a million-dollar studio.  Yes and Pink Floyd, probably had money to 
spend, but if they got "a deal," it was well after their success made 
it moot....wealthy and successful trumped innovative every time.  

There is not one serious contemporary, avant-garde, or experimental 
musician represented in the first 15 years of Moog's dominance.  He 
had no interest in musical innovation unless someone like Stevie 
Wonder was doing it.

Even the limited-capability "Mini-Moog," came along well later, after 
Bob Moog had eked every penny out of the top universities, the rich, 
and the rock stars.  By then, Moog had been partly superceded by the 
ARP and the Oberheim.  Other than the Mini, I'm unaware of any 
development since the 60's beyond what was in the original.

So any pretense that Bob Moog was interested in anything but his own 
wealth is myth.  There is, of course, the technological wizardry, and 
at that he was briefly brilliant.  I think we should let the claims 
of anything more die a peaceful death.  Greedy people are not 
intrinsically evil.  But when they try to turn their greed 
retroactively into a virtue, I think we must call them on it.

Joseph Byrd

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