"Moog Synthesizer, Stearns 2035. This particular instrument has the distinction of being the first commercially produced Moog synthesizer.It was commissioned by the Alwin Nikolai Dance Theater of New York in 1964 after being demonstrated at the Audio Engineering Society convention in New York in October of that year. Nikolai used the synthesizer to compose recorded musical accompaniments for his dancers.
Later, the instrument was acquired by the Collection. In 1989, Robert Moog gave a demonstration lecture using this synthesizer—a lecture jointly sponsored by the Stearns Collection and the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan."
Title link takes you to more info and shots.
The Stearns Collection
Via thnkyr in the comments of this post.
Bottom section is the old stuff.
ReplyDeleteTop section has newer stuff.
I don't think I've ever seen a Moog keyboard built into a console like that. I wonder what those controls to the right of the keyboard are? Unfortunately, there's not a pic of them.
ReplyDeleteThere's one thing about the writeup that I didn't like: the description of the synthesizer as being a follow-on development of the organ. As we all know, synthesizers get lumped in with the keyboard instruments only as an accident of technological progress. In an alternate universe, one where technology made it easier to build a pitch-to-voltage converter in 1960, the synth might be considered a string or wind instrument.
It's easier to stick a black & white keyboard on a synthesizer & get results. It's a natural outgrowth of the organ. Heck, even analog sequencers are largely used for auto-accompaniment patches, especially on Moogs. Yamaha had the right idea... the GX-1 was part of the Electone series.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, pitch-to-voltage converters are for instruments that already make acoustic sounds. Wind synthesizers are just buttons with breath controllers (the technology was available in 1960), and vibrating strings are inherently more complex & expressive in the acoustic realm than they are when driving a couple oscillators throught a lowpass filter.
Even given the choices, it makes more sense culturally to slap an equal-tempered keyboard on the thing. The pipe organ, metal-framed piano & hammond organ were all marketed as all-in-one devices where the keyboardist would have a world of tone colors at his fingertips. That's the kind of lineage the synthesizer could naturally fall into.
last I saw it, that synth sits inside a glass display case along with old harpsichords and viola da gambas and stuff in the main entry area of Hill Auditorium. Meanwhile, the only modular synth the music school actually has plugged in is some clunky custom job from godknowswhen that barely works.
ReplyDeleteBrings up a different question, actually...anyone know if any of Alwin Nikolai's music that he did with this instrument has ever seen release anywhere? I know that back in the day, none of it came out, but I'd think that by now, some of it might've surfaced SOMEwhere...?
ReplyDeletethat is the most punk rock Moog i've ever seen. the LPF, spring reverb, and some mystery module even have hand-written legends. i especially like the bizarro-Moog ticmarks on the 901-Bs.
ReplyDeletethose early systems make me feel all gooey inside looking at them ... but this thing is so unique i'm not sure if it shouldn't _stay_ in that case, despite the fact that the students should have access to a decent modular system.
makes me miss this ... which all sold on ebay to some guy who apparently ripped the guts out of them, put them in cigar boxes or something, and threw away the panels.
just. wow.
ReplyDelete