Synthesizer comeback

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Today is Thursday, March 23rd.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Mary Reichard.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: analog synthesizers in the digital age.

One of the most notable instruments in the soundtrack of our culture almost went extinct…but now it’s showing up in surprising places. Recent midcareer WJI graduate Lindsay Wolfgang Mast has the story.

LINDSAY WOLFGANG MAST, REPORTER: Moog Music employee Jim Genaro doesn’t need to apologize. You probably couldn’t play the theramin very well either. It’s originally from Russia, some say it’s the first electronic instrument. It’s notorious for being virtually impossible to play.

GREG HAMMAN: Absolutely loved the music. I couldn’t believe what people can get out of these instruments.

Yet people like Greg Hamman drive from all over to come see it.

That and many more electronic instruments are on display here in a century-old brick building in Asheville, North Carolina.

HAMMAN: It’s the music that speaks to you. These are just the instruments, this is just the voice that one would use to get the music to you.

He’s brought his wife along to tour the Moog store and factory. It’s named for its founder, Bob Moog—spelled M-O-O-G. He was a reluctant musician who loved tinkering with electronics way more than taking piano lessons. He built his first theramin from a kit … back in the 1940s when he was just a teenager.

Twenty years later Moog connected with a composer and came up with a new electronic instrument: a synthesizer—this one, an analog.

SOUND: [Modular Synth]

His first synthesizer looks like a cross between a telephone switchboard and the Death Star controller with too many knobs and cords and blinking lights to count. It wasn’t the first synthesizer, but it caught on.

Musicians loved it. It’s all over the Beatles’ Abbey Road album:

AUDIO: [MAXWELL’S SILVER HAMMER]

Problem was… it was expensive. It took a thousand hours to make and cost about as much as a small house. Big artists and studios could afford it, but that was it.

SOUND: [Outside Inside Factory]

Here in the Moog factory, you can see the solution…make it smaller and cheaper. And so the Minimoog was born. It needed to be portable and rugged. The prototype featured keys from a larger keyboard, and a few basic components, built into a sturdy wooden case. The durability test was practical: sliding it off tables right onto the floor.

This smaller, and less expensive synthesizer changed music forever. It was 1970 and everyone, it seemed, got in on the Minimoog, from rock bands…

AUDIO: [RUSH CLOSER TO THE HEART]

to disco artists…

AUDIO: [FUNKYTOWN]

to the King of pop.

AUDIO: [BEAT IT]

Nearly every bass line on Michael Jackson’s Thriller was pounded out on a Minimoog.

But problems were brewing.

JIM DEBARDI: Building a company is not easy and for someone like Bob Moog who’s the engineer and inventor, not the business man, it’s a lot of starts and stops.

Jim Debardi is a product manager for Moog Music. In 1983 Yamaha introduced its digital synthesizer. It was cheaper. Digital technology was hot.

And so within 4 years Moog closed up shop. He moved to North Carolina from New York for a quieter life.

But by the mid-1990s things started to change.

Musicians got tired of digital technology. They wanted the rich Moog sound again.

SOUND: [Factory]

Here in the current Moog factory, guys with beards…wearing beanies and graphic tees use drills and soldering irons to carry on Bob Moog’s vision of making tools for musicians. They’re working on new synthesizers with names like “Matriarch,” “Grandmother,” the “Theramini” and yes, a re-creation of the Minimoog.

In 2002 Moog took four employees and launched a new synthesizer. Today, Moog Music offers nearly 20 others. They’re all handmade…known for meticulous quality control, and just like old times—musicians love them. A Minimoog even showed up on Taylor Swift’s latest album:

AUDIO: [MASTERMIND]

Sadly, Bob Moog never got to see this new success. In 2005, he died of a brain tumor.

But his vision carries on. Today it’s estimated more than 100 people work at Moog Music. It’s employee-owned and sources more than 80 percent of its material from the U-S.

JOE RICHARDSON: On stage he’s got a Moog 1, a Voyager, a matriarch, a grandmother, it’s an incredible setup.

Joe Richardson, the current company president, is an imposingly tall man. He has a long, well-trimmed white beard … and says the focus is the same as when Moog was alive. Standing on the creaky hardwood floors of the factory store, he says it’s not about making strange, sci-fi noises … but about serving people who want to express themselves creatively.

RICHARDSON: What was important to Bob was making tools for musicians. I think he would be overwhelmed with how grand this vision was, to just make tools, really has become central to the culture and the kind of music we support. I think that would mean a lot to him.

AUDIO: [HERE COMES THE SUN]

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Lindsay Wolfgang Mast in Asheville, North Carolina.

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