From the Archives: An Interview with Bob Moog

In honor of Bob Moog’s birthday, we’re sharing a transcript of our interview with Bob that took place at Sweetwater in 2003. Bob Moog’s pioneering synthesizer designs still influence how we make music today, and we’re pleased to reprint these insights that he shared with us.

How would you define the Moog sound?
Bob Moog: I don’t think you can define the Moog sound with any sort of precision. You can say it’s “fat,” it’s “warm,” it’s “rich,” it’s “smooth” — you know, words that describe feelings — visceral feelings — that don’t tell you exactly about the sound. What gives rise to the Moog sound is just hundreds of small details that we’ve taken care of in designing synthesis equipment. And in all, any one of these probably wouldn’t be noticed, but you put several hundred together and suddenly, you have something that feels right. Sounds right.


What prompted you to enter the field of synthesis?
Well, I entered what you call the synthesis world in 1964. Ah, well probably then was to have a good time working with a musician. I’m an engineer, and I’ve always liked working with musicians. I got together with a composer who wanted to have equipment to make new sounds for electronic music. That was the beginning. Out of just a few weeks of working together, ideas came for the basic, what we now call the Modular Moog Synthesizer.


Why is analog synthesis your preferred choice of technology?
Well at this point in my technical career, I know quite a bit about analog. When I began, it was vacuum tubes and transistors and integrated circuits. I’ve been active every step of the way, so I know quite a bit about it. The technology that I’ve developed has turned out to be musically useful, so rather than abandon that and start on something new, we’re just satisfying demand for what we know how to do.


What are the differences between Big Briar and Moog Music?
Big Briar was a company name that I used when I left Moog Music back in the late ’70s. At that time, the company I left was called Moog Music, a division of Norlin, and they owned the Moog trademarks, so in order not to create confusion, I just thought I’d continue Big Briar. Sometimes in the following years it was a part-time operation, sometimes it was a full-time operation, sometimes a sizable business. But I operated under the Big Briar trade name up until just last year. Last year I managed to get the Moog name back somehow. What used to be Big Briar is still products that I’ve designed, people that I’ve worked with. Now the company’s called Moog Music.


What are the limitations of today’s digital synthesizers?
Well, to the extent that there is a limitation, they, they’re different than analog. Like the description of analog, the descriptions of what the differences is are hard to pinpoint because they result from hundreds of small details about how the sound of the digital is stored, about what sort of artifacts come into the sound. I would describe the difference in very general terms as being thinner, rougher, not as smooth, but I can’t say, “Well, they don’t have the same frequency response,” or “They don’t have the same dynamic range.” It’s nothing that simple; it’s just hundreds of small details that are different. Some of them aren’t present at all in digital that should be present, that are present in analog. Or that are present [laughs] are just different than analog.

Moog’s Subsequent 37 is a fantastic combination of classic tone and modern functionality.

What prompted you to produce the Voyager?
The thing that prompted us to produce the Voyager is very simple — that the last, oh, I don’t know, 5, 6, 7, 8 years, we’ve been getting an increasing number of requests from musicians to bring back the Minimoog. The Voyager is a Minimoog. Minimoog is a trademark of the old company, and I look on it as a line of products beginning with a classic Minimoog going out to the Minimoog Voyager. And whether we’ll have additional Minimoog products in the future is certainly a possibility, but we haven’t made any plans. So Voyager is just, very simply, we responded to the demand from people who are interested in our products.


How have your design philosophies changed over the years?
I don’t think our design philosophy has changed that much.

The circuitry, it’s very easy to recognize the influence of the circuitry that we designed in the mid-’60s, of course, the beginning of synthesizers, in today’s instruments. Of course, manufacturing techniques have changed quite a bit. Different components are available, so those two things together have influenced the way our circuits are completed. But the very basic ideas of how you build a voltage-controlled oscillator or a filter, make an envelope generator, they’re pretty much the same. We’re lucky that we [laughs] we got it right early on, and our customers seem to agree with us.


Is the classic Moog sound alive in the Voyager?
The classic Moog sound is different than the present (in this instrument.) If you take the individual parts, the individual parts are different, but the way they’re put together is the same. What’s probably most important is that my ears are not the same. Of course I’m older, but what’s important about sound, to be about the way the instrument responds, is the same now as it was 40 years ago. So do people generally say “Yup” [nods head] “they held the classic Minimoog sound,” or “they held the Moog sound.”


What new products are you working on?

We constantly talk about what new products to do, and a lot of people out there have asked about can we bring back the Taurus Pedals, can we bring back the Memorymoog, can we bring back you name it. We can’t do everything. We want to do something which satisfies the greatest demand. We want to do something that will surely make a profit, so we can keep going and make high-quality instruments. And we’re a small company, so we do one thing at a time. We haven’t decided on what we’ll do next, but rest assured we’re listening to our customers, trying to figure out what’s best both for them and for us.

Could you explain the benefits of using control voltage and physical modular design vs. other current methods of control?
Well, whenever you introduce digital control of an analog circuit, what you’re introducing is a series of numbers that change every so often that contrives the steps. The best you can do is filter out those steps with analog circuits, but if you don’t filter them out completely, you still get steps to the sound. The more analog control voltage circuitry you have, and of course the more analog sound producing circuitry you have, the smoother it’s gonna be, and the freer it’s going to be of steps that are created by digital technology.

Thereminist Alexandra Stepanoff rocks the theremin for RCA Radio in 1930.

How do you view the role of the computer in today’s music production environment?
Oh, I think in general the computer is the greatest thing in music that’s been invented. It’s such, making music is a hierarchy of steps, you know, from making a single vibration into a sound, all the way up to making a huge symphonic work — it’s all these layers of complexity and size, and you can address all those layers with computers. The computer is a great tool, score writing to sound editing, sequencing, you name it. You can even use a computer to synthesize sound — to make individual sounds. Now, when you do that, you make enormous demands on the computer, and most of us are using laptops now; we’re using personal computers. The music software that enables us to cover all the musical bases taxes the capabilities, and you try to do everything on the computer, you know, chances are you won’t get as high of quality of work because there’ll be some latency, and things won’t come in at the right time, won’t have the right tone color; there’ll be jumps and artifacts in the sounds. So that’s my reservation, that as time goes on, of course, our computers are going to become more powerful, and if [laughs] if the software people don’t continue to add functions, we may eventually get the computer to do nearly everything. But right now, the computer can’t do everything — it can do some things; we still need hardware and real instruments instead of the computer to do things.

Animoog for iOS brings the Moog sound design power to portable devices.

Looking forward, what do you see as the next evolution of synthesis?
At the present time, we can make any sound that can be imagined. We can make between analog and digital, hardware and software synthesis. We have all sorts of algorithms. If there is a sound that can’t be made, then the reason it can’t be made is that we don’t know how to specify it. So I think sound producing capability is very highly developed right now using electronics. What’s not highly developed are control devices — what you put your hands on to change the sound. It’s taken a long time, but little by little, [inaudible] are becoming available now that allow you to shape sounds, not only from a keyboard, but devices like this touch pad on the Voyager, and of course, the wheels which we introduced back 30 years ago. Musicians are finally becoming more interested in this, and the technology is being developed to create user interfaces that are natural in a sense that they’re easy to play and work well with electronic sound. I see the future as being focused on that.


What is your impression of Sweetwater?
Today, Mike Adams and I had an opportunity to talk to the sales staff at Sweetwater. And we had an opportunity after that to have a tour of the facilities. We’re just amazed at what a customer-centered operation this is — what a unique type of retail establishment. This is [laughs], I just feel very lucky that we are one of the lines now that Sweetwater is carrying. We feel very good about our customers, which of course are Sweetwater’s customers, having the sort of service they need when they buy our product.

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