Robert Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into sound, revolutionizing music in the 1960s and opening the wave that became electronica, has died. He was 71.
Moog died Sunday at his home in Asheville, N.C., according to his company’s Web site. An inoperable brain tumor had been detected in April.
| Robert Moog’s electronic synthesizers were a favorite among musicians. Some of the places where its revolutionary sound turned up and the musicians who used them:
* The Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album * The soundtrack to the 1971 film “A Clockwork Orange” * The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again” * Stevie Wonder, “Living for the City” * Manfred Mann * Yes * Pink Floyd * Nine Inch Nails * Pearl Jam * Beck * Phish * Sonic Youth * Widespread Panic * Wilco |
A childhood interest in the theremin, one of the first electronic musical instruments, would lead Moog to a create a career and business that tied the name Moog as tightly to synthesizers as the name Les Paul is to electric guitars.
Despite traveling in circles that included jet-setting rockers, he always considered himself a technician.
“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 doctoral student in engineering physics at Cornell University, Moog, which rhymes with vogue, in 1964 developed his first voltage-controlled synthesizer modules with composer Herb 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.
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 eerie sounds 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.
Among the other classics using a Moog: the Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and Stevie Wonder’s urban epic “Living for the City.”
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