Minimoog
| Minimoog | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Manufacturer | Moog Music |
| Dates | 1970–81, 2016 |
| Price | $1,495 (new, 1970) $4,000 to $9,000 (used, 2015) $3,495 (new, 2016) |
| Technical specifications | |
| Polyphony | Monophonic |
| Timbrality | Monotimbral |
| Oscillator | 3 VCOs, white/pink noise |
| LFO | Oscillator 3 can function as LFO |
| Synthesis type | Analog subtractive |
| Filter | 24dB/oct, 4-pole lowpass filter with cutoff, resonance, ADSD envelope generator, keyboard tracking |
| Attenuator | ADSD envelope generator |
| Effects |
Frequency modulation using oscillator 3/noise |
| Input/output | |
| Keyboard | 44-note, low-note priority |
| Left-hand control | Pitch bend and mod wheels |
| External control | CV/gate |
The Minimoog is a monophonic analog synthesizer, invented by Bill Hemsath and Robert Moog. It was released in 1970 by R.A. Moog Inc. (Moog Music after 1972), and production was stopped in 1981. It was re-designed by Robert Moog in 2002 and released as Minimoog Voyager. In May 2016, Moog announced a limited-run "pilot production" reissue of the Model D, to be launched at Moogfest. It has subsequently gone into full production.
The Minimoog was designed in response to the use of synthesizers in rock/pop music. Large modular synthesizers were expensive, cumbersome, and delicate, and not ideal for live performance; the Minimoog was designed to include the most important parts of a modular synthesizer in a compact package, without the need for patch cords. It later surpassed this original purpose, however, and became a distinctive and popular instrument in its own right. It remains in demand today, over four decades after its introduction, for its intuitive design and powerful bass and lead sounds.
At its most basic, the Minimoog control panel can be broken up into three sections:
The Minimoog is monophonic (only one note can be played at a time) and its three-oscillator design gave it its famous fat sound. Four prototypes were made over the years before a final design was decided upon to release as a commercial product. The Minimoog Model D adapted some of the circuitry (such as the filter section) from earlier modular instruments, but designed other circuitry (such as the oscillators and contour generators) from scratch. To produce a sound, the musician would first choose a sound shape to be generated from the VCO(s) and/or the type of noise (white or pink). The VCO provides a choice of several switchable waveforms:
The signals are routed through the mixer to the VCF (voltage-controlled filter), where harmonic content can be modified and resonance added.
The filtered signal is then routed to the voltage-controlled amplifier (VCA), where its contour is shaped by a dedicated ADS (attack, decay/release, sustain) envelope generator. Part of the appeal of this instrument over the early modular Moogs was that the Minimoog required no patch cables; its signal and control voltage path is hard-wired, or "normalled". While this imposed the signal flow limitation outlined above (VCO → VCF → VCA), there are ways to tweak the sound. For example, in reality, the Minimoog has six sound sources. Five of these sound sources pass to a mixer with independent level controls:
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