The Beautiful Singer

The Minimoog, introduced in 1970, was the instrument that brought the sound of the synthesizer to popular music and set the standard for all that followed. The first synthesizers Bob Moog invented were modular systems that filled whole rooms and were financially out of reach for virtually every musician without a huge record contract.

The legend goes that an engineer at Moog Music took his lunch break to experiment and take some of the modules lying around on his desk, join them together in a small enclosure and connect them with a fixed signal path (with the large modular systems you had to have a deep understanding of how things work together and basically create your synthesizer for the desired sound out of all the modules provided using lots of patch cords).

Bob moog now brought this idea of a compact and easy to use synthesizer to actual musicians who were exited about it and made suggestions for features they would need for live usage. So Moog worked together with i.e. Herb Deutsch, Rick Wakeman and Keith Emerson to develope the ideal music synthesizer at the time. And most peaple will agree, that they were very successful with that.

Besides its sheer sound quality and the ability to screamingly cut through every possible mix of instruments, I particularly love the Minimoog for its design and conveniant layout. With some experience it is possible to know from a quick glance at the controls what it will sound like before playing a note. The big knobs are very precise and so appealing to touch and control the sound while playing that you can really merge with the instrument as if it was a Cello where you have a direct connection to the sound with your fingers and bow to mold a richt pallette of sounds.

Above all that, I would say on my behold the Minimoog is easily the most beautyful synthesizer of all times.