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U.S.News & World Report

March 13, 1997
Back to music's future
By Brendan Koene

As an engineering graduate student in 1964, Robert A. Moog created the world's first synthesizer out of home-made circuit boards. By the time he built his first portable keyboard- the legendary MiniMoog- seven years later, avant-garde musicians were mad for the instruments.
In 1968, Walter Carlos's Moog-powered Switched-On Bach became one of the bestselling classical albums of all time. Rockers Emerson, Lake, and Palmer made the surreal sounds a signature of the early 1970s. But cheaper, sleeker digital technology soon consigned Moog's creations to garage sales. His analog synthesizers, with their baffling array of dials and oscillators, were viewed as too cumbersome and too expensive. "In the '70s, when retailers got a load of all those knobs, they said, 'My God! Who's going to be able to play that?' "recalls Moog, 62. He stopped designing keyboards in 1977 and is now the world's leading maker of theremins, instruments played by moving one's hands through an electromagnetic field.
But Moogs are back, led by chart-toppers like Weezer and the Cardigans; and mint-condition units that once went for $50 in pawn-shops can fetch $12,000. The renaissance represents "a return to mainstream values;' says Tom Rhea, professor of music synthesis- a field that wouldn't even exist without Robert Moog- at the Berklee College of Music. "There's a certain warmth and fatness to the sound," says Rhea, "a certain romance." In this ultra high-tech era, the Moog now seems quaintly old-fashioned. -Brendan L Koener