Synthesis of Sound
I recently acquired a Moog ‘Minimoog D‘ Synthesizer, which apart from being quite a trophy vintage piece to have, is an endlessly entertaining toy, and an amazing musical instrument. It requires more patience to ‘play’ than most instruments I have experimented with. I found a historical timeline of synthesizers in my research, it is very informative. I also needed an owners manual as the instrument needs to be tuned- counter intuitive to the contemporary electronic musician but a relatively simple operation.
So… I bought this from a guy who was selling some paperback books and assorted junk off a folding table around the Upper West Side… Umm, I can’t tell you how much I paid or you might hate me. As soon as I got this instrument home I recorded it and edited a little something for you to hear (listen/download an MP3 here) Basically several hours of blips, roars, washes and no small amount of beautiful and complex tones. That night the studio (Beat Hollow) was a head-to-head Synth Battle Royale: 1 coffee table, 2 vintage synthesizers, 2 headphones, and 1 reel of Ampex tape.
This keyboard I found is the same one used by the likes of Sun-Ra, YES’s Tony Kaye, Geddy Lee (I looked for something cheesy but this is actually a great photo)! and many, many others.
I read that only a few of these were made (in electronics that means in the thousands) right here in New York!
You can also identify when it was made; between the years of 1972 and 1981; you can tell by this little badge. I love the idiosyncratic American engineering of this whole time period.
Update to this page: There is a way you can turn your Moog “up to 11″ and I thought to make it easier for others to find out, too.
On the back panel where the main output jack is located, you can create a controllable feedback (oxymoron?) loop with the external input feature:
So, once you get the output patched into the input, you activate and adjust the trim for the input channel (see the next image) until you see the light begin to blink rhythmically -don’t overdo it! I don’t know what will happen. I do know that you will hear your tone take on an edge and crackle that adds quite a bit of dimension to your overall sound.
Happy Synthesis!
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