Moog Music News

New CD Showcases The Moog Guitar

2010-02-24T20:41:56+01:00

DISCOVERY - Garaj Mahal & Fareed Haque present The Moog guitar
The new CD by Garaj Mahal is a sonic tour de force and an audio textbook on the unlimited possibilities of The Moog Guitar. Take the guitar considered by many to be the most innovative instrument of the decade; put it in the hands of a musical visionary and you�re sure to embark on a voyage of discovery. Moog Music did just that and the soundtrack to this musical journey has been captured on DISCOVERY, Garaj Mahal and Fareed Haque Present The Moog Guitar. Buy DISCOVERY on iTunes or the Moog website. DISCOVERY - Garaj Mahal and Fareed Haque present The Moog Guitar by moogmusicinc DISCOVERY was inspired by Garaj Mahal�s exploration of the Moog Guitar�s sonic palette and the limitless ways that it can be incorporated into traditional and modern playing and production styles. The result is a vibrant, eclectic yet coherent body of work from players at the top of their game. The songs span a range of styles from clubby euro/electro and jazz/rock to traditional jazz and classical. Whether overdubbing seven Moog Guitar parts to recreate a Vivaldi lute concerto or sampling, processing and remixing The Moog Guitar with Ableton Live (by Garaj Mahal keyboardist and Moog synth wiz, Eric Levy), Fareed and company never sacrifice musical expression for technical showmanship. In addition to his work with Garaj Mahal, jazz, classical and world music virtuoso Fareed Haque has played with a stellar list of top artists including Sting, Joe Zawinul and Medeski, Martin and Wood. Throughout his career he has balanced a love of guitar tradition with a spirit of sonic exploration, making The Moog Guitar the perfect musical vehicle for him. Introduced at the Summer NAMM tradeshow in 2008, the Moog Guitar has received numerous industry honors including Guitar Player Magazine's 2009 Reader's Choice Award, Electronic Musician Magazine's 2009 Editor's Choice Award, 2008 Summer NAMM "Best In Show" honors, a 2008 �Best of What�s New Award� from Popular Science magazine and a 2009 Mix Foundation TEC Award. The instrument�s unique ability to control string vibration opens the door to another musical dimension without sacrificing traditional guitar tone and playing techniques. Along with Lou Reed and Vernon Reid, Haque was one of a handful of top musicians given access to The Moog Guitar prior to its launch. During a Garaj Mahal tour, a brief stop at the Moog factory in Asheville, NC led to his first encounter with a Moog Guitar prototype. After a short session in the Moog sound room, the band continued their tour and Fareed�s mind filled with musical possibilities. By the time they reached Atlanta, plans were already underway to immediately secure a Moog Guitar for recording. When Moog could not ship their only prototype to Atlanta, the band did a 4 hour U-turn back to Asheville. Borrowed the Moog guitar prototype that evening and then drove all night and all day to their next gig in Florida. The song Moog Improv #1 from that session appears on the DISCOVERY CD.

The Making Of DISCOVERY ---Fareed's Notes--- DC SWING That opening swell is ONE gtr! Melody one is Moog Guitar in controlled sustain mode. Wah effect is moog gtr with classic filter. Then rhythm gtr comes is, using classic filter mode as well...arpeggio gtr on one side, arpeggio keyboard on left. Can you tell which is which??? I can't!...melody over arpeggios is keyboard. That long descending chord is gtr chord bent WAY down slowly, since sustain gives us all the time we need, using trem bar. Philly Electronic This entire track is MOOG GUITARS. Background pulsing chord is achieved using MOOG Multipedal set on a random CV wave generator, set using tap tempo. Bass line is MOOG gtr w/ low E tuned down a fifth. "4th-y" chords use controlled sustain mode. Fat jazzy tone is neck pickup with tone rolled off just a bit... Never Give Up This is a rockin line from Bassist Kai Eckhardt. The opening is two, then four Moog guitars using the piezo - this creates a great shimmering hybrid acoustic tone. The lead line is The Moog gtr straight thru a Bogner head and cabinet. For the solo I'm using the gtr in Controlled sustain mode, using trem bar for some effects, using the expression pedal to play with overtones. For the clean rhythm playing I uses the expression pedal to control the moog filter in classic filter mode, as well as some 'pads' in controlled sustain mode. Other than a little delay there is no processing on the gtr. For the drum solo, I'm counting and praying...Sean Rickman PLEASE SAVE ME! Sea and Sky Sustaining note is of course controlled sustain mode. Strum gtr is piezos, 'Rhodes chords' gtr, is simply neck pickup played with fingers. Vibrato from trem bar. Background chord notes changing is from sweep of harmonics with expression pedal. Repeating theramin-like melody is moog gtrs played LEFT HAND ONLY in full sustain mode, harmonics turned down, and trem bar for vibrato...I can make this unbelievably tasteless and Halloween with a little distortion and delay - just you wait, Scary Robo-funk man is on his way. Make a Hippy Happy You'll hear mostly different uses of the classic filter and articulated filter here...pretty funky, even for a 1/2 paki 1/2 chile...the little 'mouse' squeeking on the right is the classic moog filter, Using the pedal as 'psycho wah'. The bridge melodies are played using the articulated filter, sort of a hippified envelope filter from one of the outer moons of Jupiter. You can hear me landing behind Eric Levy's funkship, using a bit of controlled sustain and fuzz. Not distortion, FUZZZ. Guitar solo is articulated filter AND controlled sustain. Towards the end of the solo I step in a pile of stank, so I gotta slide the guitar into middle pickup mode, a very funky, nasal and especially naughty setting. Last bridge after guitar solo is played using classic filter and pedal sweeping the filter. Coda is two guitars played two whole-steps apart, another trick from the outer moons of Jupiter. Here on earth we call this interval a Major third. But up there - you don't even wanna know. It Goes Up Your Nose All Moog guitars here. Bassline is Piezo pickup with a little bass boost. Two rhythm guitars, Right side is piezo rhythm, Left side is classic filter 'Psycho wah', center is a bright jazz tone using bridge pickup, and a bit-o-controlled sustain, and articulated filter. And of course I'm using a little Be Bop, which does not come with the Moog Guitar, at least not the one I have. But Cyril tells me they'll have some on the new models. I CANT WAIT! Artorius Folky south asian guitars are using mute mode to create hybrid ethnic guitars. I like to call them 'Ghuitars'. Background guitar is in controlled sustain mode. PAD that comes in is gtr in full sustain mode. Then in comes articulated filter in middle pickup position. Two handed tapping while sweeping the expression pedal in classic filter mode. AND no its not panning you are hearing, but me RUNNING around the room, tapping with two hands and working the pedal. WOW. The little bebop solo at end of the track is gtr in articulated filter mode. The Lick at end is trying real hard to be an augmented chord. Moog Improv #1 This is in fact the very first piece of music I ever played on the Moog guitar. So be forgiving. It is in a romantic and trancey 7/8 time. I'm holding the melody with one finger and playing the line underneath with the fingers left over. The soaring sustain is full sustain mode, where harmonics will dance of their own accord, full of surprises and richness. Largo from Vivaldi concerto in D for Lute and Continuo. 7 moog guitars - 2 on cello line, 2 on first violins, 2 on second violins, 1 playing lute part. Most of you who know this piece will know it from its inauthentic versions with huge orchestras and classical guitar. This version is even less authentic, yet adheres to principles of authentic baroque performance practice - loosely. Ornamentation is improvised. Band is small. For each part I used 1 gtr to swell each note in controlled sustain mode and the other gtr to sustain a bit more, creating the feeling of bowed intstruments, esp in celli. Some notes are allowed to ring out, in keeping with the practice of many baroque guitarists and lutenists useing re-entrant tunings and cross string fingerings specifically chosen so that notes ring over each other. Of a Simple Mind Pretty tune. I wrote it. So what? Got my heart on my sleeve that's all, a sensitive guy. Heart up my sleeve, head up my...who knows where. Once again the Moog guitar piezos create a great shimmering acoustic gtr texture. Melodies are CLEAN tones using controlled sustain. Solo is where I can't deal with all the love anymore. Just gotta to bust out with some Macho. Kaplah. Bobolink More folky "Ghuitars" in mute mode. Arpeggio Guitar is using articulated filter, and fancy fingerings. Then in comes guitar using classic filter with pedal sweeping filter. The Tibetan muskrats at end of track are all Levy. The Captain and T. would be proud!!! Anyway, I still think Toni is hot. Round Midnight Improvised chord melody solo, using the controlled sustain mode to help hold out, bring out certain voices, and play SLOW.- Something we don't do that often as guitarists. When we play songs with lots of long notes we tend move things along when notes die away on conventional guitars... not so here, subtle and musical sustain are infinitely available. Give me another year on this thing and Ill be better at it. Promise. ---Eric's Notes--- The first thing I needed was a "sample library" from the rest of the band, so I chose four tempos, attached four corresponding keys, and suggested them to the guys. Once I received their audio files, I opened them in Ableton Live and began combing them for clips. I didn't give my band members much direction, and I'd never asked them to do anything quite like this before, so I was pleasantly surprised at their results. Fareed gave me over three hours of raw guitar, which fortunately was well labeled! I went in and isolated segments of audio, sculpted them into loops (and occasional one-shot samples), and rendered them as new clips. I started on the 90bpm G major track, which I ultimately named Sea To Sky. The opening guitar note on the track is a very long sustain of a single note. This sample is repeated in the middle and at the very end - it is the last note remaining and falling off, so it ties the track into a sort of long symmetry. Other sustaining notes fill the remainder of the song. I found myself very excited about the role of these clips! The drums and percussion effects are allowed space to play 32nd notes, and they are counter balanced by the long guitar sustains, which I'd define as the "atmosphere". There's a guitar melody clip that enters at 2:18 which I'd labeled as "Alien Chorus", because looping it soloed up sounded to me like an alien preacher for the first seven notes, and its congregation the last three. This and a high melody clip give the track a bit of an interlude, while the main theme is a combination of a fat chordal melody over bars one and two of the four bar phrase, and a short acoustic sounding clip in bar three. There's also a nice little open fifth guitar chord that drops from time to time. There are no keyboards until 4:09 when a synth solo comes in, played on a Moog Voyager Old School, and that's the only keyboard on the track. Also of note is that I used exclusively the direct signal on all of the guitar clips on the track (the other three tracks use amp tone). Artorius is the name of the 100bpm C minor track. The guitar loop that begins at 3:31 contains long filter sweeps that Fareed played in his original performance. There's a slowly shifting auto pan on the clip, which was also quantized to 100%, a ping pong delay is there as well. I should point out that this amount of processing (along with eq, compression and reverb) was as much as I did with any guitar clip on these tracks - I stayed true to the natural timbre of the guitar. At 5:17 a guitar enters that I'd labeled "Zelda", the tone reminded me of the Nintendo 64. 1:55 marks the entrance of synth, a Voyager OS. It's followed by a synth bass, provided by a Moog Little Phatty, with an LFO on the filter cutoff tempo synced to the track. Artorius picks up steam and evolves over time, ultimately as a result of my finding two very different sounding song sections while playing around with the clips. I loved the eerie and sad guitar chords which enter at :38, the way the harmonics become more aggressive in a linear way across the 8 bar loop, so I built the section around that part. By midway through, I incorporated what I'd found on Sea To Sky, with an extremely slow guitar melody over 32nd notes, this time represented by a guitar loop as well as percussion. By the end, there are very distinctive and different tones for melodies as an earlier middle eastern melody clip makes a cameo appearance - these helped me to establish the jazz / filter sweep tone of the guitar solo which closes the tune. Bobolink started out as 120bpm D harmonic minor (over A). Among the first loops I created was a 4 bar cowbell and kick drum loop from Sean. He'd been playing in 3/4, and the resulting kick drum pattern was interesting but unsupported. I wrote a Little Phatty bass line to strengthen the part, but both are out before the tune is half done. The theme of three is later picked up by a Little Phatty melody, which plays a nine bar loop divided in three (A A A'); there's a 16th note arpeggiation played on the Little Phatty as well during the latter stages of the song, and it's a long clip - besides delay, all the effects were generated in performance by the instrument. Other than these synth clips, bass and drums, everything is guitar. There's another couple 16th note quantized arpeggiating guitars, lots of middle eastern type melody loops, and long sustained guitar notes for atmosphere. There's a lot of percussion programming on this one too - I used dunbek and djembes samples to give the 16ths a little swing, reinforced the marching bass line with kick and snare, and layered in loops from Sean's sample library. DC Swing was first 130bpm E minor. There's a Voyager Old School melody, bass and drums, everything else is guitar. The "Intruder Alert" which enters at 1:22 is all guitar harmonics and wah, all I did was loop and quantize (plus a little delay). The craziest guitar event is the one off the top, and that was also a natural, single performance. The two harmonized arpeggiating guitars highlight the closing segment, those are again filter effects from the Moog Guitar itself, as are all the guitar filter effects on these tracks.

LIVE AT MOOG episode 8 featuring MOE. now online

2009-12-11T22:28:50+01:00

Moog Music and Paste Magazine Debut a New Performance Series
Moog Music and Paste Magazine have launched an innovative new web video series featuring performances filmed at the legendary Moog Music factory in Asheville, North Carolina. The series kicks off with a performance from quintessential rock innovators Yo La Tengo. Bands were given access to the Moog factory to explore and experiment with the dozens of synthesizers, guitars and effect pedals designed and manufactured here. Often the artists rearrange their songs to showcase the otherworldly sounds of Moog's instruments, yielding a performance unlike any other. Each week a new session will debut on Paste's homepage. The first season features Brooklyn indie rockers White Rabbits, reggae star Matisyahu, New York jazz trio Medeski, Martin and Wood, songwriters Erin McKeown and Jill Sobule, live-electronica artist Pretty Lights, Widespread Panic keyboardist Jojo Hermann, jam-rock stalwarts moe. and the aforementioned Yo La Tengo. The series will continue with a second season debuting in the spring. Each episode features multiple songs, behind-the-scenes footage, and exclusive info on each band. Here's a taste. Go to liveatmoog.com for more.

Moog Music Inc. Donates Moog Guitar Played and Signed by Lou Reed to Benefit the Bob Moog Foundation

2009-12-02T20:47:08+01:00

Own This Historic Instrument and Benefit a Great Cause
Moog Music and the Bob Moog Foundation announce a once in a lifetime eBay auction to begin Monday December 7, 2009 and run through December 17, 2009. Moog Music Inc.is donating a Collector Edition (1 of only 300) Moog Guitar serial #005, signed and played by Lou Reed. The guitar will be auctioned on the Bob Moog Foundation's eBay page beginning at noon (EST) on December 7 and concluding at noon (EST) on December 17, 2009. The strikingly beautiful instrument is a maple top Tiger Eye Flame with an ash body, maple neck and ebony fret board. Reed has signed the front of the guitar; his labels for the guitar's controls remain on the instrument as well as the brackets for his guitar strap. Lou Reed, best known as the former guitarist, vocalist and principle songwriter for the experimental rock band Velvet Underground, has enjoyed a prolific career as a solo guitarist known for the pioneering of many sound effects including distortion, high volume feedback and nonstandard tunings. He currently owns two Moog Guitars and uses them extensively in his performances. His love affair with the innovative Moog Guitar began early, as he played the instrument in its prototype phase. Reed experiences the Moog Guitar for the first time in this YouTube video. Upon hearing the guitar for the first time, Reed exclaimed �This changes everything�. Reed performed on the Moog Guitar on the David Lettermen Show in the fall of 2008. Mike Adams, President of Moog Music, states �Our thanks to Lou Reed, who experienced the Moog Guitar in its earliest evolution and inspired us to continue our development efforts. Gratefully, the proceeds from this auction will support the Bob Moog Foundation. Both the Bob Moog Foundation and Moog Music serve to honor the genius of Bob Moog.�

12 Moog Guitars Onstage

2009-11-17T16:03:53+01:00

Historic Moog Guitar Performance
On November 21st, Mike Einziger, guitarist/co-founder of rock super-group Incubus will premiere a new work featuring twelve Moog Guitars! This performance is part of the Los Angeles Philharmonic�s opening of their West Coast, Left Coast festival and marks the largest performing ensemble of Moog Guitars yet assembled. Don't miss this historic event. "The new Moog Guitar opens up an astonishing array of possibilites for creating texture. Between the sustain (built into the pickups) and the depth of the filter section, this guitar can emulate many of the sounds created by analog synthesizers...but uniquely characterized by the unmistakable sound of a vibrating string. I'm totally in love with it." - Mike Einziger When/Where: Saturday, November 21, 2009 WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL 111 S. Grand Avenue, Los Angeles CA Click here for more information and to purchase tickets. Use the promotion code "EUREKA" for a 25% discount on the ticket price.

The Moog Guitar Wins Mix Foundation TEC Award

2009-10-28T23:30:49+01:00

On A Winning Streak
Moog Guitar Team (L-R Eric Church, Project Manager; Paul Vo, Inventor of The Moog Guitar; Mike Adams, President of Moog Music; Cyril Lance, Moog Chief Engineer) The Moog Guitar has won the 2009 MIX Foundation TEC Award for Outstanding Technical Achievement, Musical Instrument Category. This prestigious award takes its place alongside the many others in The Moog Guitar's list of honors, including the Guitar Player�s Reader's Choice Award, Electronic Musician's Editor's Choice Award, Popular Science's Best Of What's New Award and NAMM Best In Show honors. Our thoughts can best be summed up by a few words from those most deeply involved. �I was honored to receive the 2009 TEC award for the Moog Guitar for everyone at Moog Music. I guess you have to do something right to get this award. As the inventor, I figure I did two things right. One was to not give up on the technology that makes the Moog Guitar possible - I've worked on it for many years. The second was to join up with the great folks at Moog Music to bring this product to market. Without their solid and constant support this would not have been possible� said Moog Guitar inventor, Paul Vo. �I'd particularly like to thank Mike Adams, who made the decision to do this and never wavered, Cyril Lance, for his wise guidance, and Eric Church, who enthusiastically worked harder than I did when we were putting in those 100 hour weeks developing the Collector Edition.� Moog�s Chief Engineer, Cyril Lance added, �The Moog Guitar represents an incredible amount of innovation, hard-work and dedication from our whole team here at Moog and I want to acknowledge that first and foremost. The opportunity to create a whole new paradigm for an instrument comes along rarely and is an essential part of our mission here at Moog. The result is quintessentially Moog - organic, intuitive and immediately expansive, using the strings as our oscillators instead of transistors. We are all very proud of this instrument and honored to gain the TEC award. Most of all, we are excited to hear what musicians will create in the years to come.� In addition to the awards the Moog Guitar is receiving, the innovative new technology is also garnering a number of patents from around the world. To date, six patents supporting the technology have been issued and another seven are still pending. The Moog Guitar's tradition of excellence continues with the new Model E1. The E1 is the production model of The Moog Guitar and uses the same innovative electronics and pick-ups as the Paul Vo Collector Edition. Priced at $3,000 less than the Collector Edition, the Model E1 brings The Moog Guitar's incredible expressive powers to a whole new world of guitarists.

Moog Featured Artist Fareed Haque

2009-10-21T15:31:45+01:00

Moog Guitar Maestro
You can catch Fareed with his solo project, the Flat Earth Ensemble or with his group Garaj Mahal. We recently had a conversation with Fareed and here's what he had to say... How has the Moog Guitar expanded your musical palette? Well, in so many amazing and yet kind of subtle ways. I think the most unusual aspect of the Moog Guitar to wrap your mind around is the availability of sustain. At first glance that seems sort of obvious, but the real problem is not the Moog Guitars� sustain at all, the problem is that we guitarists tend to spend years training ourselves to play with no sustain. So we have a tendency to take our hands off the guitar when we know that note's gonna end anyway. And so we've developed a whole playing style built around getting our hand off the guitar when the note is gonna die anyway and kind of hide the fact that the note is dying with vibrato, with bending, with whatever other kinds of techniques, effects pedals, delays�so many things we use to obscure the fact that the note is actually a corpse, as we like to say�the moment you hit it. We've developed this playing style that works around that and all of a sudden with the Moog Guitar, you don't have to do that anymore. And so the only way to truly realize the potential of the instrument is to stop thinking like a guitar player for a minute and start thinking like a musician�what I want to hear, and I can do that now. There are a lot of little quirky things you can do with this instrument, and a lot of amazing wild things you can do with this instrument. The possibilities are there, you just have to rethink the way you play guitar. So right away, there was the tendency for me to always play a note and then stop and then leave that note, and now over the course of a year, I'm at the point where, not just intellectually but subconsciously and intuitively, I'll play a note and just hang out! And be like, yeah, that's great. Cool, I can play a chord and just hang out. And then manipulate that. And then there's a moment, you're hanging out with a note for awhile, you begin to think �well, what can I do to this note while it's sustaining here for the next twelve minutes?�, and that's yet another layer of palette and color that guitarists don't usually deal with. And the nice thing is you don't have to take a huge pedal board with you. I mean, I don't know how much those pedal boards I see guitar players traveling around with weigh...And y'know, with some of these guys you see like 3 flight cases coming out of the truck. I remember one of the very first things I did on the Moog Guitar...another guitarist who was really into effects was like �How are you getting that sound man, and how are you getting it to hold like that and those voices, man? What kind of processing is that?� I didn't tell him anything and I said �Well, it's just a guitar and a chord." It definitely changes things. The strange thing is then you go back to a regular guitar and you've conditioned yourself to have certain expectations. I hit a chord and I just sit there. And that's all, and it's like, where'd it go? Where did it go? And then you go ahhh... ...I miss my Moog Guitar... Yeah, exactly! At what age did you start playing? And did you play any other instruments? I started playing piano when I was 8, upright bass when I was 10, and then a guitar when I was around 11 or something. I played all three for a long time. I don't really play piano that much anymore, although I still fiddle around with it whenever I need to, teaching and stuff. I can play a little piano. And I can play a little upright bass still. Mostly walking bass lines from my student improv classes and stuff. I've got the blisters to prove it... And then guitar, y'know, I was bitten by the bug so I was playing pop and rock music a little bit and into Led Zeppelin and into Thin Lizzy and Foghat when I was a kid in the 70's. Nice. I love Thin Lizzy, I just bought their box set about a year ago. It�s great! It's such big guitar playing... And at the same time I had been listening to classical guitar players�A lot of flamenco music from my mother�s side, and a lot of Indian movie music from my dad's side. And then jazz, of course. So I'm definitely a product of my influences. It's such a beautiful merging of cultures too, flamenco with Indian music and jazz. I mean, it's all kind of related in a way. Yeah, it definitely is. So I was playing rock and jazz and then I started studying classical formally. And then over the course of a handful of years, I sort of dove into all the different aspects of the guitar that I could wrap my brain around. Right, and you're still doing that! It's so great to see (and hear). The full sustain mode and controlled sustain mode of the Moog Guitar free your right hand for a wider range of expressive techniques. How have you been taking advantage of that? I think I kind of addressed that in the first question a little. But I can revisit that. Definitely things like playing a chord and moving a voice and doing that over time. Even two handed technique, though I suppose, just playing a note while you're holding a chord� I definitely do some of that. Definitely vibrato with the left hand, something that now I can do in minutes, not just seconds. And different kinds of vibrato�you know, tremolo bar. You can do all sorts of things to the pitch while you're holding a note. And then there's sweeping the filters while you're holding a note that gives it some kind of modulation effect, but it's really something that's controlled with your foot. And things like holding notes and then bending it and then holding it again, just like Tenacious D. Hold a note, bend it a little, back and bend it a little more. It brings out the Tenacious D in us all... You've used the on board Moog filter to take funk guitar playing to a new level. How does having an individual filter for each string contribute to that? Or have you noticed a difference with that? Well, definitely having the filter creates a very different kind of sound than a wah wah pedal. Much different�It's very cool, kind of like a wah wah pedal for the new millennium. It really sounds different. You just have to hear it. And then of course it's very expressive. There are a lot of ways that you can tune the center point to whatever frequency you want and so you can make it wah or filter in many different places, and that's pretty slick. And then of course, you have the built in articulated filter aspect of the Moog filter which gives you a sort of, I don't know if you'd call it a touch wah or envelope follower kind of feeling, but it's a lot more under your control. And then it just sounds different, it's just really cool. And so the other thing that's really important here is that you can couple all the stuff with mute mode or sustain mode and one of the other things is that if you want to go for that dry Strat sound, for like a chicken pickin' kind of thing, well you put the filter on, put it in mute mode, and it doesn't get much drier than that. It really sounds like it's got almost a gate on it or something. The note really is sucked away in a way that is rhythmic so you can start to work with the timing of that. Again, the thing about the Moog Guitar that I think most guitarists don't get is that the Moog Guitar in and of itself will sound just like a regular guitar if you play it just like a regular guitar. And so if someone is interested in the instrument, doesn't radically rethink and isn't willing to rethink the way that they physically play the instrument, you're not going to notice any difference. It's really not about that. Like any Moog instrument, the demand is not on the instrument, the demand is on the player to explore the possibilities of the instrument. And there are so many possibilities. There are so many ways. And it's not even things you can describe like push this button here and set this tone there, it's �Well, when I hit this string and I pull my finger off, it does this, but when I put it in mute mode and play it and hold the chord down, and pull it off just a millisecond after it dies, it gets sucked out by the mute mode. That will create a certain sound. If you pick it really lightly, it'll bubble in a certain way. There's a million little subtle things that the player has to discover, and that's the beauty of it. What's so amazing is that it does really draw motivation from the player. There are so many ways to play it. And some nights I'll be amazed, I'll be playing it and be going for something and I'll find something totally brand new, all of a sudden I'll be on a new path. And there are so many sounds, there are even times when I've been like �oh, I forgot to do that one today. I was going to do this thing with that, oh but I forgot because I was wrapped up in this other area of the instrument.� You do some interesting things with the control pedal while using the filter. Can you fill us in on that? Well yeah, that's where it gets down to it�I mean, I'll play a whole song where I'll just leave the filter pedal on and I'll work with it. And again, a wah wah pedal gives you wah, and that�s about it. You've gotta realize that this gives you wah of a kind, but with a note that will last as long as you want it to. ...and as many colors as you want to be in there too, I mean the moment you move the pedal in one little place, it changes the whole feel and sound of that note. Exactly. And then you can, of course change that over the course of the life of the note. So, if you imagine a great singer holding a note, and that note will change over the course of the length of that sustained vocal note. Well you can do that on the Moog Guitar as well. In many ways you've almost got the possibilities of creating some kind of talk box kind of sounds but they're not limited by the sustain. You can continue manipulating the envelope and the filtering of the note for ten minutes if you wanted to. Well, what pickup positions do you find yourself using the most? Is there a preference? Actually, I use them all quite a bit. I use the piezo quite a bit, it's really crisp and fat for certain funk sounds. Of course its great for the imitation of acoustic guitar, I like to even say hybrid acoustic because it really does do what an acoustic does but in a kind of a hybrid way. The lead pickup is very fat and sustaining. The one in the middle, it's very kind of--not even out of phase but kind of nasal sounding, which is really great for some rhythm parts�Fatty kind of out of phase sound. And the neck position is very warm and jazzy. So there's a lot of variety there. You can do anything you could do with a Strat or a Les Paul with this guitar, though it does lean towards the Strat sound, I would say. Like a fat Strat. Just because of the bridge and the way the bridge comes off the instrument. I've also played the E1 recently and I thought that was very cool also. What I've found is that since that is an all alder body. I find it to be brighter. And in some ways not as sustaining, in terms of the instrument itself. I actually in some ways prefer it, because I hit the string really hard most of the time. And it's good for me to have a guitar that has a pop to it because then I don't hit the string as hard and it's a brighter sound. Also, since the instrument sustains itself, to have a whole lot of sustain in the instrument is nice, but it's not necessarily that crucial. But to have the pop of the alder is really nice. I kind of think they're two flavors, and they're both really viable. So between the Moog pickups, the piezo pickups, the Moog filter, you're getting a really wide range of tones from the Moog Guitar. What do you use to amplify? Because of the fact that I'm on the road, in the jazz world, there's a lot of times where I don't really get a choice in amps. So what I do, is I have a little multi-effects unit that I just use for a little reverb and some delays. Once in a while a phaser, but nothing really major. And distortion, depending on the situation. And what I'll do is I'll send one side to my amp, and I tend to chose a really clean amp, that's just my preference because I also play acoustic guitars. Sure, and if you want to distort, you use a distortion pedal? Right, which is in some ways not ideal, but in this day and age, forget about it. So I have a few different pedals which are really nice. But, I'll just send one side to the amp on stage and one side direct to the house, and then mix them together. It's a real nice combination because more of the acoustic and clean sounds direct really gives you some space and some air. And then the amp gives you the mid range and the chunk, and even with the distortion sounds, I find having a little of that direct in there, especially in live situations, for some reason the direct doesn't sound sterile like many directs do. It sounds pretty warm, and obviously I don't use the direct by itself unless I'm playing acoustic guitar, and then the sound man will just pump up�usually it's a blend. So maybe 80% amp and 20% direct for distortion sounds and vice versa for the clean sounds. Y'know maybe 60-40 on the clean sounds. 60 direct, 40 amp. And it really transforms the way you're dealing with�y'know one of the things about guitar amps particularly, which is why I lean away from the guitariest guitar amp like a Marshall or a Boogie. They tend to be punchy. It's great because the idea is that the note punches out and then it sustains, but you've got this great sustain and what you need is sort of a smooth transition between the attack and the sustain aspects of the instrument. And so in many ways a more, shall we say more like a PA system or a keyboard amp is best for that aspect, but obviously guitars don�t necessarily sound that great through a keyboard amp. So I use a Polytone with an extra cabinet, I have a trace Elliot that�s a hybrid tube and transistor, I often use just a big ol' Fender Twin. The best for me is to be able to have a lot of wattage and a low volume. So if I have two Twins or two Fender Deluxes, I might split that and then send one to the house and one to each amp. And that gets some great guitary tone but with a nice sustain to the end of the note and good clean power to hold the sustain and the high end of the acoustic sounds. Can you give us a brief history of your musical career to this point? I know it's a loaded question... I went to North Texas State University on the jazz guitar scholarship, then I transferred to Northwestern to study classical guitar and began playing with Paquito D'Rivera the jazz saxophonist. I played with Paquito for 10 years and did a whole bunch of records with him. But, during that time, Sting heard me and was creating a new label, Pangea Records, so he signed me to his label and I did two albums for him and his label and did bits of touring working with him. After that I was on the road for a while with Bob James, Dave Holland, with Devon Jackson, the tenor sax player. I did a bunch of touring with Joe Zawinul and his Zawinul Syndicate for about a year...and a fair amount of touring, was signed to Blue Note Records, did 3 albums with Blue Note; �Opaque�, �D�j� vu�, and �Sacred Addiction�. And then in about 2000, I founded the group Garaj Mahal with Alan Hertz and Kai Eckhardt and Eric Levy, and at the same time was touring with my own group. So, Garaj and my own group the Flat Earth Ensemble have been sort of working for the past 9 or 10 years touring. And that time I have also been working with Zakir Hussain and the group Summit with George Brooks and Steve Smith. I got commissioned to write a couple of concertos for orchestra and guitar and another one for orchestra and sitar guitar. And all this time I've also been teaching at Northern Illinois University teaching classical and jazz guitar, and that�s the long and short of it! ...and you still teach, right? I still teach, yeah, and still tour, about 200 dates a year. Garaj Mahal just won an independent music award a year back and then this year my Flat Earth Ensemble record has been number 1 on the Jazz charts for a couple months. And what was that Guitar Player thing? I was chosen best world guitarist in Guitar Player Magazine. Oh, I also did a bunch of records with Goran Ivanovic, the Balkan guitarist, and we won the acoustic guitar album of the year in '06 in Acoustic Guitar Magazine or something like that. He's a great composer and a great musician. Last question...What inspires you about music in this day and age? Well, to me, I think in general what moves me and inspires me is, I think we're in a golden age of music. I think people who are always saying �Oh, the music world sucks,� I think they're crazy. I think these last, y'know, the mid 50's to now, is a golden age of music and art. There's so much great music out there�so much great playing out there. I think if there's one mission that I have, that is in bringing together the traditions that I have spent so much time studying and bringing to life, classical music to life, classical music traditions, jazz music traditions and bringing those traditions into modern music, Indian music traditions, folk music traditions and keeping them alive through their connections to new music. That's sort of what is my thing. Like when I'm playing a guitar solo, I'm still thinking how does this relate not only to Hendrix, but how does this relate to Charlie Christian. How does this relate to Mark Montgomery or Pat Martino. When I'm playing acoustic guitar, I'm thinking how does this relate not only to Michael Hedges but how does this relate to Paco de Lucia and Andre Segovia and John Williams, most of the classical world and most of the finger style acoustic guitar world owes huge debt to Hector Villa-Lobos. And so few people are even aware of his music, and yet when you really get into it you're like man, this guy was writing the coolest finger style acoustic guitar music a hundred years before anyone else even thought of it. Those kind of traditions are really important to me, and that's sort of what keeps me always inspired, I'm always working on both new music and old. You can find out more about Fareed Haque Here. For more info on the Moog Guitar, Click Here. ...And, to hear one of the first songs ever recorded (by Fareed and Garaj Mahal) on the Moog Guitar, Click Here.

Moog Halloween Theremin Video Contest

2009-10-12T15:31:21+01:00

Get your freak on and win some Moog Gear.

CONTEST NEWS: The deadline for posting your entry has been extended to 12:00 Noon EST, Tuesday, November 3, 2009. This gives you the opportunity to film on Halloween night.
In addition to its more serious side, the Theremin has a long history of use in horror/sci-fi movies. In celebration of this history, we�re awarding prizes to the videographers who do the best job of re-creating this experience. Rules & Regulations: Videos must be at least one minute in length. Theremin(s) used must be manufactured by Moog Music. Participating is easy: 1. Create your best Theremin video with a Halloween Theme. 2. Upload it to your YouTube channel. 3. Post the YouTube URL for your video on the Moog Music Forum www.moogmusic.com/forum in the Theremin Forum, under the Halloween Theremin Contest topic by 12:00 Noon EST, Tuesday, November 3, 2009. If you are not already a Moog Music Forum member, you must register. An online poll will be set up on the Forum On Tuesday, November 3 at 5:00 EST. Videos judged by Moog Music not to have significant Theremin or Halloween content will not be entered into the poll. On Monday, November 30, at 12:00 pm EST, the video with the most votes in the poll will be the 1st prize winner. At that time, the judges will also check to see which video has the highest number of views on YouTube. The video with the highest number will be the 2nd prize winner. If a video wins the poll and has the highest number of views, the lucky winner will receive both prizes! Winners will be contacted through their YouTube account. Moog reserves the right to unilaterally remove any video which it, at its sole discretion, deems to be unsuitable. Prizes: 1st prize � Best Video � MF-104Z Analog Delay 2nd prize � Most views � MF-102 Ring Modulator All contestants whose videos make it to the poll will receive a Moog t-shirt. Limit one t-shirt per video. The Fine Print: Eligibility: This Contest is open to persons 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. Employees of Moog Music Inc., or its affiliated or subsidiary companies, and their immediate family members and/or those living in the same household of such persons, are not eligible to enter Contest or to participate in the voting process. Contest is governed by the laws of the U.S.A. All federal, state and local laws and regulations apply. Void where prohibited. Videos cannot be sexually explicit or overly suggestive, unnecessarily violent or derogatory of any ethnic, racial, gender, religious, professional or age group, profane or pornographic, or contain nudity; Cannot promote alcohol, illegal drugs, tobacco, firearms/weapons (or the use of any of the foregoing), any activities that may appear unsafe or dangerous, or any particular political agenda or message; Cannot be obscene or offensive, endorse any form of hate or hate group; Cannot contain patents, trademarks, logos or trade dress owned by others, or advertise or promote any brand or product of any kind, without permission, or contain any personal identification, such as license plate numbers, personal names, e-mail addresses or street addresses; Cannot contain copyrighted materials owned by others (including photographs, sculptures, paintings and other works of art or images published on or in Web Sites, television, movies or other media) without permission; Cannot contain materials embodying the names, likenesses, photographs identifying any person, living or dead, other than participant(s), without permission; Cannot depict, and cannot itself, be in violation of any law; and Cannot contain personal contact information about contributor or other individual including name, address, city, state or country, email, phone, IM or any information that would allow the contributor to be contacted.

MIDI MuRF Pattern Editor software released

2009-09-28T16:36:26+01:00

Polyrhythmic Patterns, Playlists & more...

Since its launch in the summer of 2009, Moog�s newest Moogerfooger, the MF-105M MIDI MuRF has been an instant success. With eight analog filters under MIDI and CV control, the MIDI MuRF is one of the most powerful and flexible sound design tools around. Now for the icing on an already very sweet cake, Moog is releasing the MIDI MuRF Pattern Editor. Available as a free download to MIDI MuRF owners, the Pattern Editor software allows players to create, modify and save their own patterns. Its point-and-click user interface makes pattern creation a breeze and the on-screen knobs and sliders let users optimize patterns to real-world settings without taking their hand off the mouse. The MIDI MuRF Pattern Editor provides easy access to parameters only available through MIDI CC commands and saving and storing patterns on a computer allows for an unlimited number of available variations. �With a possible 64 steps per band and the ability to create polyrhythmic patterns, the MIDI MuRF Pattern Editor lets users tailor their patterns for a sound that�s uniquely their own� said Moog Applications Engineer, Amos Gaynes. �You can store up to 22 custom patterns at a time on the MIDI MuRF itself, so you can take your unique grooves with you anywhere.� The MIDI MuRF is already being snapped up by guitarists, keyboardists, producers and DJs worldwide. With the new Pattern Editor they�ll be able to take their explorations further; faster and easier than ever before. Go to the MIDI MuRF page and click on the "Software" tab to download.

Play The Moog Guitar at Guitar Player Live

2009-09-10T23:27:48+01:00

While you're there, register to win a MIDI MuRF

If you're in the San Francisco Bay area Sept 12-13, 2009, stop by the Guitar Player Live event and check out the new Moog Guitar Model E1. Look for this sign and the smiley guy. (He'll only be there on the 12th and 13th) WHEN: September 11�13. The weekend kicks off Friday night with a live Shrapnel Records concert featuring astounding shredders from this renowned guitar label. Saturday and Sunday will feature clinics, exhibits, live performances, contests, and great food and wine. Saturday night is Guitar Player's Guitar Superstar competition, where ten finalists will perform for judges Elliot Easton, Steve Lukather, Jennifer Batten, producer Greg Hampton, and a surprise guest to win the title of Guitar Player's Guitar Player Superstar 2009. WHERE: Beautiful Livermore, California, is located just 50 minutes east of San Francisco, and is host to more than a dozen annual events and weekend festivals. Guitar Player LIVE! will be held in indoor and outdoor venues throughout beautiful downtown Livermore�all of which feature state-of the- art sound and production equipment. Click here for more information.

Moogfest - Italy 2009

2009-09-10T18:43:12+01:00

La prima 'Moog Fest' europea.

Un evento interamente dedicato a BOB MOOG, universalmente riconosciuto come uno dei padri della musica elettronica. La prima data del Moog Fest europeo sar� all'Auditorium Parco Della Musica il 27/9 Biglietti 10� LINE UP: FLAVIO PREMOLI (ex PFM) VITTORIO NOCENZI (Banco del Mutuo Soccorso) CLAUDIO SIMONETTI (from GOBLIN) Riccardo Fassi Pierpaolo Spirangle Caputo with Oxycrat Enrico Cosimi Vov (Davide Arneodo dei Marlene Kuntz e Marta Mattalia) Vincenzo Vasi with Sabina Meyer, Gak Sato e Matteo Ciminari Beatrice Antolini Nō (Fabio Perletta e Matteo Meloni) Timeless Sonic Factory ( ErMan e Luke from The Transistors e Margoo SPECIAL GUEST Regia e Grafica by Ernesto Romano PROGRAMMA MOOG FEST 25/26-9 Seminari Moog @ Saint Louis College of Music 26-9 DJ SET @ Glub Via dei Filippini 4/7 from 7 pm 27-9 Live Moog Fest@ Auditorium Parco della Musica from 6 pm Info: info@moogfest.it info@tillthelastdrop.com info@midiware.com BIGLIETTI E PRENOTAZIONI http://www.auditorium.com http://www.listicket.it/

Moogfest-US Postponed Until Fall 2010

2009-09-01T18:42:49+01:00

A Bigger, Better Moogfest
Due to a variety of scheduling complicatiions, Moogfest is being postponed until Fall 2010. We are happy to announce that Moogfest 2010 will be organized by AC Entertainment, the creators and producers of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival, the Big Ears Festival, and numerous others concerts and special events throughout the country. We�re looking forward to working with AC Entertainment to make MoogFest 2010 the most exciting MoogFest ever!

Moog Featured Artist Chris Kilmore

2009-08-28T21:49:47+01:00

Chris Kilmore Brings it Home
Chris Kilmore is a driving force in the band Incubus. From his amazing DJ skills to his synth and keyboard savvy, Kilmore has wowed audiences all over the world. He recently took some time during his tour with Incubus (in support of their new greatest hits album that hit the streets in July) to answer some questions for Moog Music... When were you first turned on to Moog synthesizers? That's a great question, because it takes my mind to a specific person and place that I haven't thought about in a while. When I first moved to LA in October of '95, I met a friend named Danny. He was the boyfriend of a girl I knew and was in LA to attend Cal Arts film school. We hit it off because we were both into music and film. I had just graduated from the George Washington University with a radio/tv/film degree. I moved to LA to get into foley work or some kind of film related job. I used to go up to Danny's place in Valencia. It was like E.T. meets blacksploitation. I wish I had a pic of his place. It was black lights, lava lamps, b-rated film posters, zodiac signs, Star Wars sheets and Parliament records... oh and Minimoogs!!! It was like the ultimate clash of pop cultures. I would bring my decks and samplers, and we'd just sit around and dissect funk records looking for cool samples. We would smoke a lot of weed, and he would go off about Bernie Worrell and his sounds. And in no time we'd have the Minimoog hooked up to the decks. It was sci-fi heaven after that. I was into the sounds we were making. We would sample ourselves, make our own songs (some better than others) and have a lot of fun just experimenting with the sounds. I spent a lot of time on his Minimoog. It definitely was like learning a new language. I had no clue what I was doing, sometimes I would turn the thing on and couldn't get any sound out of it (what I now know wasn't only my problem). I eventually figured it out and started making my own scratch records that were heavily Moog influenced. Those records played a big part in my early years with Incubus. At what age did you start playing/performing music? I�m not exactly sure. I'm gonna have to call my mom about this. I think it was first grade. You know the whole piano lesson thing. I also played the trumpet at an early age. I think my parents knew I was into music. How? I'm not sure, but they definitely guided me in the direction they saw fit. So I'm guessing my first performance was either a recital or some band concert at school... not too exciting and definitely a little embarrassing. Do you use your Moog gear with software programs? You know...I don't use too many different software programs. I use a program called Serato Scratch Live for my turntables and Protools for recording. The rest of my gear is a mix between rack units and the real thing. How have you incorporated the MP-201 Multi-Pedal into your rig? I just recently started messing around with the Multi-Pedal not too long ago, and I love it!!! I incorporated it into my rig as I was rehearsing for our summer tour, and it opened up all new sonic possibilities for me. I'll send you a pic of my rig so you can see what I've got going on. When you see my set up, you'll see why I'm always wishing for more arms or legs. Well, the Multi-Pedal sort of does that for me. It takes what I can only do with at least four hands and puts the control at my feet via a gas pedal. The Moog gear in my live rig is all set up in a chain...out of the Voyager and through the Moogerfoogers. I use the four outs of the Multi-Pedal sort of like a patch bay. I have a four channel snake that runs from the Multi-Pedal to my Voyager or any one of my Moogerfoogers. I try not to limit myself, especially while I'm getting familiar with new gear. I love the mobility that pedal gives me, especially when coupled with the CP-251. Do you use the same setup in the studio as you do live? The answer to that would be no... at home or in the studio, I'm always experimenting with different set ups. When we're on a tour, my time with my rig is pretty much limited to soundcheck and the show. That doesn't leave me too much time to switch things up. Setting the Multi-Pedal up the way I do gives me a lot of freedom to change parameters on the fly, but my gear is pretty much set up the same everyday on tour. Do you run your turntables through Moogerfoogers? No..,although I've dabbled with that at home and it sounds great...especially scratching through the Analog Delay. I'm sure I'll figure that piece of the puzzle out soon. What aspects of music inspire you the most these days? I'm always inspired when I hear music that resonates inside of me, but I would say that right now what most inspires me is playing music and developing as a musician. On tour and at home, I am surrounded by all kinds of insane musicians. I love picking their brains and trying to understand how they approach music. I could be totally off on this one, but in my experience most DJ's have a different perspective than players. There's a lot of thinking and planning ahead involved when DJing. Whereas players tend to focus that energy into the now. Of course, the two worlds overlap, but combining both of these into one seamless entity is something that definitely inspires me. What has been the biggest challenge for you in the music world? Besides keeping up with my band members, I would say that telling people I'm a DJ and getting respect as a musician is my biggest challenge. Most people don't give us the respect we deserve. If i say that I play keys, there's no questioning of musicianship. I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, "Oh, you're a DJ? That's not a real musician.". Yeah right�I just want to put my DJ rig in front of them, cross my arms, stand back and say...have at it. It's definitely frustrating. Do you remember your first concert? Barely�it was in the early 80s. I was probably around 10 years old when my parents took me to a Pink Floyd concert. My dad was a big fan. We used to listen to a lot of Pink Floyd together, but I remember the light show most vividly. At that age, I thought lasers were so cool. Just say the word laser and I would get all excited. In fact, I still do. Growing up in central Pennsylvania, you don't get the privilege of seeing too many concerts...only the big ones. I also remember seeing Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince at an early age. It wasn't until I got to college that I started going to concerts on my own. How has Moog changed the way that you approach music? I don't know if I would say Moog has changed the way I approach music, but they have definitely been an enabler. I based most of my early scratch records off of Moog sounds. I would create (for lack of better words) a Moog soundscape and then press that to vinyl. I would then later figure out how to incorporate that into whatever I was working on. Nowadays, I try to play all my Moog gear as much as possible. Whether I�m sampling some cool sound or playing the gear live, it has been a key element in my music making process. Did you find yourself using more of the Voyager on �Light Grenades� than on the previous albums? Actually, I don't think so... I think I used the Voyager most on the album before that one...�A Crow Left of the Murder�. I put a lot of Rhodes and B3 on Light Grenades. The Voyager is still in there a lot, but I was crazy with it on Crow. I really explored the sonic qualities of the Voyager on that one. Although the opening track on �Light Grenades� called �Quicksand� has the Voyager all over it. It�s a track that is slow, moody, has a weird time signature, and layers of Voyager synthesis. The Voyager has become a mainstay in my rig and plays a huge role in Incubus. To learn more about Chris and Incubus, Click Here. You can view more pics of Chris's rig in our Photo Gallery.

The Moog Guitar nominated for Mix Foundation TEC Award

2009-07-28T23:29:25+01:00

Recognized for Outstanding Technical Achievement, Musical Instrument Category
The award-winning Moog Guitar has been nominated for a 2009 MIX Foundation TEC Award. The nominations are made by a panel of more than 100 audio industry professionals. The winners of the 25th Annual TEC Awards will be announced at a ceremony to be held Friday evening October 9, at the 127th AES Convention. The Convention is being held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. Previous awards for The Moog Guitar include Guitar Player Magazine's 2009 Reader's Choice Award, Electronic Musician Magazine's 2009 Editor's Choice Award, 2008 Summer NAMM "Best In Show" honors and a 2008 �Best of What�s New Award� from Popular Science magazine. Founded in 1985, the Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards is the foremost program recognizing the achievements of audio professionals. Presented annually by the Mix Foundation for Excellence in Audio, the TEC Awards honor the individuals, companies and technical innovations behind the sound of recordings, films, TV shows and live performances.

Moog Featured Artist Roger O'Donnell

2009-06-07T19:19:48+01:00

Roger and Moog
This is the first in a series of Moog Featured Artist profiles, which will highlight the work of musicians making innovative use of Moog gear. Roger O'Donnell is a luminary in the world of music and we are very proud to have him as our first Moog Featured Artist. We recently asked Roger a few questions to find out more about his creative process. Moog- Roger, you have been involved with some of the most influential bands of the 80�s and 90�s, including The Cure, The Thompson Twins, Berlin, and Psychedelic Furs. How have you seen your approach to music and gear change over the years? Roger- My approach to gear hasn't changed. I still want everything, but I suppose now I'm lucky and have most everything. In the old days I would perhaps be more inventive. Maybe I have come full circle now, though, as most of what I do is with just one instrument...my Voyager. My approach to music has definitely changed as everything does with age. I am more comfortable with what I can do, yet at the same time much less comfortable with doing things within my comfort zone. The only thing that really interests me in music is going forward and discovering, creating and doing things differently. One of the biggest revelations to me on stage was that my instruments were my friends and when I stepped on stage and looked down at the pattern the keys made, I was no longer intimidated. I was there with old friends. It was a strange feeling, but very warming. Moog- At what age did you start playing/performing music? Roger- I think I probably started playing piano as soon as I could walk or stand...there was one at home. As I grew up, I was never very far away from a piano and whenever I am, I feel uncomfortable. I started performing in my late teens, but my first real show was when I was 21 in Oxford with Arthur Brown, a quite eccentric English rock icon. Moog- How do you use your Moog gear with other software programs? What software do you use? Roger-Well I don't, not in any kind of syncing or controlling way. Since the day I realized the Voyager wasn't multi timbral I stopped using midi (hahahah). I use the librarian software for back ups and transferring my sounds to other instruments. The weird thing with that is they never ever sound the same on two different instruments and I love that. I use Logic in the studio for recording and remixing and Ableton Live for the stage. The most important thing for me in software is that it is transparent and allows me to record my ideas easily, if the Voyager is my paint palette, then the software has to be the canvas and I need it to be clean and white and take the colours without changing them. Moog- What Moog gear do you use? Roger- My most important instrument is an Anniversary Edition Voyager which Amos and Cyril (of Moog Music) modified for me. It has red backlighting and the most incredible touch sensitivity and after touch. It transcends electronic. It is an organic acoustic instrument to me. I have another Voyager which Moog custom painted powder blue for me which I use on stage, an LP (Little Phatty), which I am honoured to have been involved in the design process of. I own all the Moogerfooger pedals, an Etherwave Theremin....and in my vintage collection a Mini Moog Model D which has a midi retrofit, a Micro Moog which is the first Moog I ever owned. A Moog Source, a Memory Moog and a Moog 4 band Parametric Equalizer. I made a video demoing all the Moogs which you can see below. To be honest though, I don't use the old synths. The tuning is diabolical ! Moog- Do you use the same setup in the studio as you do live? Roger- On stage, I use two Voyagers running into a MOTU Ultralite interface into my MacBook Pro and I use Ableton Live software to loop. Without Live I couldn't play a show, so it's an amazing piece of software which just keeps getting better. I also have a range of tiny midi controller boxes called FaderFox which allow me to control everything in Ableton. In my studio I generally only use one Voyager...my AE, and that's always hooked up in stereo to a Focusrite Platinum preamp into my MOTU 828 interfaces and into my MacPro running Logic software. I use everything inboard, the software with no external effects. I love working like this, everything is instant recall, apart from me, that is .... Logic is an incredible applicatioin. I try to recreate on stage what I do in the studio, but its very different and very difficult and am rethinking my approach. I may just improvise entirely on stage from now on. There's no real point in trying to copy something you may have written in a moment of inspiration years ago better to try and let that moment happen again in a new way. I spend way too much of my career playing 20 year old songs every night. Moog- What aspects of music inspire you the most these days? Roger- Not a lot, I have to be honest. I despise the way old bands rest on their laurels and new bands seem content to reprocess and reissue what was done years before. I honestly don't see where we are going musically unless people are prepared to take risks again. However, I believe that we will soon see the end of the music business as we know it and I find that inspiring. The fact that the control of it will be removed from the hands of the few and democratised. Music instrument technology on the other hand I find totally inspiring, the new possibilities that instruments put in the hands of musicians. We just need a new breed of musicians that are prepared to step up and use it. Having conversations with people like Cyril and Amos and hearing what they have planned is very very exciting. Moog- What has been the biggest challenge for you in the music world? Roger- Leaving the comfort and security of a big band and going out on my own. Reminding myself of why I started playing music in the first place. Right now, trying to keep up with how things are changing so quickly in the industry. I have also just recently started managing a band and I am finding that really stimulating and hugely rewarding. I love the idea of giving something back. My biggest challenge when I started was making enough money to pay the rent but now it's a much more internal thing, it's about saying something new. Not saying the same thing differently, really striving for the new. Moog- Do you remember your first concert?

Yes I do. It was at a folk club on a Friday night and I was completely blown away by hearing music played live. I have to recapture that feeling, thanks for reminding me. Moog How has Moog changed the way that you approach music? Roger- I was lucky enough or rather old enough (haha) to know what music was like pre-Moog , pre-synthesizer. For a keyboard player, it was another world and one dominated by guitar players. When Jan Hammer came along with his Minimoog, it took keyboard players out of the shadows and placed them centre stage. It allowed us to express ourselves... For me over the past 5 years it has been an amazing transformation rediscovering synthesizers. The Voyager has given me a voice and a way to express myself in a unique and emotional way. I'm not bound by sound designers or engineers. I can make any sound I imagine...I am totally without boundaries. I have created two records entirely with a Voyager and to me they are just gifts. They came at the exact right moment in my life and I can never thank Bob enough for his creation. I remember a jazz drummer explaining why he didn't have keyboards in his band saying that keyboard players think to linearly. Moogs have always broken down the lines, its not black and white when you look at a Moog keyboard it is totally technicolor.~ We have posted a sample of "The Crow Flies" by Roger on the Moog Music Myspace Page. Moog's Jason Daniello was lucky enough to add The Moog Guitar to his song. Click Here to listen. For more information about Roger, Click Here

Rhythmic Filter Modulation - New Video on the Moog YouTube Channel

2009-05-15T15:36:15+01:00

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Three NEW Moogerfooger All In Ones at less than $1000 each.

2009-05-11T22:05:24+01:00

Moog All In Ones- A Sure Way to Save
Moog Music is proud to present 3 new All in One Moogerfooger Packages...all under $1000 ! You can Purchase three award-winning Moogerfoogers at a real savings! Plus, get a FREE EP-2 Expression Pedal and a Rack Kit to mount them in. If that isn't enough, we're also including a Moogerfooger Training DVD so you can learn the ins-and-outs of Moogerfoogering. For more information and options Click Here

Tour the Moog Factory on the Moog YouTube Channel

2009-05-02T17:19:56+01:00

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Please use the "Share" buttons throughout our website to share this and other Moog info with your friends. You know they'll thank you for it.

Moog Music Launches The Official Moog Twitter Channel

2009-03-31T15:38:10+01:00

Stay in touch with Moog Using Twitter

Subscribe to our Twitter Channel and keep up to date on all the latest Moog news. We'll be Tweeting next week from The Frankfurt Musikmesse. Subscribe now and stay connected!

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Moog Appoints Source as New UK Distributor

2009-02-10T22:22:45+01:00

UK�s Leading Distributor of High-Technology Tools for Audio and Music Production
Members of the Source Distribution team, pictured left to right � Howard Jones, Steve Fisher, Sheila Synnott, Chas Levin, Caroline Cook, Chris Hawkins
Source Distribution is the new distributor for the legendary Moog brand, covering the territories of the UK & Ireland. Effective immediately, Source will supply all Moog products to the market - including the Minimoog Voyager & Little Phatty keyboards, the Etherwave Theremin, the Moogerfooger effects processors and the innovative and multi-award winning Moog Guitar. Commenting on the appointment, Source�s Director of Distributed Brands Howard Jones said: �We�ve always greatly admired Moog and are absolutely thrilled to be working with the Moog team. For Source, this is an important step in our development, since Moog is our first 100% out-and-out musical instrument line, but one that dovetails perfectly with our existing pro audio brands. With so many �me-too� products out there, there is something refreshingly unique and individual in each and every one of Moog�s offerings. We�re really looking forward to raising the Moog profile even further in the UK & Ireland.� Moog�s President, Mike Adams added: �With the considerable financial turbulence we�ve seen in the UK market over the last 12 months, we�re delighted that our new partnership with Source means that we�ll now be working with the most stable and professionally run distribution outfit in the UK. We�re all looking forward to a long term and very fruitful relationship together.� Visit the Source Distribution website for more info.

Moog Guitar Wins EDITORS CHOICE AWARD from Electronic Musician Magazine

2009-01-30T23:13:37+01:00

The awards just keep rolling in!
Fresh from winning 2008 Summer NAMM "Best In Show" honors and a 2008 �Best of What�s New Award� from Popular Science magazine. The Moog Guitar has just received the prestigious EDITORS CHOICE AWARD from Electronic Musician magazine for Most Innovative Product. All of the winning products were field-tested by EM's editors and a select group of authors. The final selections were made by EM editors Gino Robair, Mike Levine, Len Sasso, and Geary Yelton. Some of Moog's finest attended the awards ceremony in Anaheim during NAMM. Pictured here from left to right are Moog Marketing Manager,Chris Stack and Senior Engineer Cyril Lance, EM's Gino Robair, Moog President, Mike Adams, and Moog Guitar inventor, Paul Vo. Click here for coverage on the Electronic Musician website.

NEW VIDEO - DJ/VJ Mike Relm meets the Multi-Pedal

2008-11-07T21:09:37+01:00

Innovative Multimedia Artist Visits The Moog Factory

A few months ago, while watching Mike open for The Blue Man Group, we realized that we had to show him the Multi-Pedal. The day after his Halloween show in Asheville, we got a chance. Check out the video... Click here to watch on YouTube Click here to watch MySpace

POLYSICS & The Multi-Pedal

2008-10-30T21:27:53+01:00

Tokyo "New Wave of New Wave" band are First Japanese Artists To Receive Multi-Pedal
POLYSICS, currently touring the US in support of their new album "We Ate The Machine" (featuring the single, MOOG IS LOVE) recently played a show in Charlotte, NC. Since it was so close to the Moog factory, how could we not stop by and thank them for honoring the Moog legacy with their song. It was also a chance for them to become (to the best of our knowledge) the first Japanese artists to receive an MP-201 Multi-Pedal. We can't wait to hear what they create with it. Don't miss their live show. They're a high-energy blast! Check out www.polysics.com for tour info. Moog Is Love!

Moogfest 2008 Videos

2008-10-27T21:24:48+01:00

The Moog Guitar Makes Its Moogfest Debut

Our good friends at Electronic Musician magazine have posted some great videos from Moogfest. The Moog Guitar performance was one of the many highlights of this incredible evening. The Moog Guitar is introduced to NYC Jake Cinninger talks backstage about the Moog Guitar's capabilities, and performance clips from Umphrey's McGee featuring Jake wailing on the Moog Guitar. click here to go there Backstage and behind the scenes Musician interviews and performance clips from Prison Shank's set. click here to go there P-Funk's Bernie Worrell performs Bernie receives Lifetime Achievement Award from Moog (presented by Paul Shaffer), Worrell and Shaffer play "Flashlight," and more. click here to go there

Moog MySpace Page Reaches 10,000 Friends

2008-10-27T20:18:37+01:00

The popular social networking site helps bring you more Moog

With the "add" of our 10,000th friend, the Moog Music MySpace page has reached a rewarding milestone. www.myspace.com/moogmusicinc The Moog MySpace page is a great source for even more Moogy music, photos, videos and more. It's also a great tool for introducing your friends to the Moog World. A big thanks goes out to all of you who have helped make our MySpace page a success. On to 20,000!

The Moog Guitar - An Interview With Paul Vo and Mike Adams

2008-07-22T21:25:26+01:00

More Information On This Ground-Breaking Instrument
The following is excerpted from recent interviews with Moog Guitar inventor, Paul Vo and Moog Music president, Mike Adams: Moog is known for its analog synthesizers. What made the company decide to venture into the guitar market? [Paul Vo] I�ll have to defer to Mike Adams on this question. From my perspective, I�m just very glad they did. The people at Moog have been wonderful to work with. Moog�s culture is very receptive to innovation, yet also quite down to earth and realistic - just the right environment to develop the Moog Guitar. [Mike Adams] We have been in the guitar market for years with our Moogerfooger line of analog stomp boxes. Introducing a guitar with innovations this guitar brings to the player is really the culture here at Moog. We have a criterion for any product that Moog introduces and this guitar met every element. To which styles of music is the Moog Guitar best suited--i.e., rock, jazz, country, etc.--and why? [Paul Vo] My personal hope is that the Moog Guitar will be best suited to music that has yet to be written and styles yet to be defined. The more innovative the music, the more the guitarist should benefit from the new sonic perspectives made possible by the Moog electronics. However, underneath the unique electronics it is a boutique-quality standard two-pickup electric guitar; you can play all kinds of music on it all night long. And it also has a really fine authentic acoustic sound - probably better than any other piezo-equipped electric because gentle use of electronic muting can make it actually feel more like an acoustic. [Mike Adams] Every player in every genre who has had a chance to play the Moog Guitar has pulled something musical from it and that something has been different for every single one of them. It's one of the most gratifying aspects of introducing a new product and our Marketing Manager, Chris Stack, did a wonderful job capturing some of this raw emotion on video - the 'a ha' moment. That's been a ton of fun! Is the guitar more suited to lead or rhythm players? If both, which features might be more appealing to which type of player and why? [Paul Vo] It�s definitely both. The �Mute� modality is going to be perfect for rhythm work; the sounds are short and punchy. It also brings out the rhythmic character of finger-picking, something that often comes out blurred on a standard kind of electric guitar. The sustaining modes are going to be great for all kinds of lead work and also for slide guitar. Which famous guitarists do you see as ideal candidates for switching from their current guitars to Moog's new model? [Paul Vo] Guitarists love to grow their guitar collection and will often use more than one instrument, so I don't know that they would switch completely away from the instrument they like to play. I do hope that, over time, some players will make their Moog Guitar their favorite instrument, but I�d have no idea who�d be more likely to. You can never tell what a great musician will discover when they have a new instrument to play. In lay terms, what are the advantages of the guitar's capacity to sustain and mute notes at the same time? [Paul Vo] Imagine trying to play a clean single-note line on one string when all the other strings start to vibrate loudly all by themselves. You've got to spend more care keeping the strings quiet than playing your melody. In Controlled Sustain Mode, the internal circuit is able to distinguish between un-played strings and played strings: how is it possible? [Paul Vo] Several tests are applied to bias a string either towards being muted or being driven. Deliberately played strings cross an amplitude threshold that varies according to a proprietary algorithm. Please understand: The strings are not either "on" or "off"; it does not work like that. Everything is gradual. A tendency towards sounding louder is "rewarded" with more energy; a tendency towards being muted is encouraged with active muting, etc. The muting is not absolute; we still allow sympathetic vibrations when they are strongly related to the basic pitch of the played string or strings. With 'Controlled Sustain', the player finds it about as easy to govern the strings in the presence of strong sustain as it is to play an ordinary guitar that doesn't have sustain. Sonically, what is different or unique for listeners when they hear guitarists simultaneously employ this mute and sustain? [Paul Vo] Listeners will hear a cleaner, more musical performance, and maybe of material that wouldn�t often be attempted on the guitar - perhaps some challenging music written for the cello or transposed from the violin, or something entirely new. Once again, using terms that a layperson can understand, how does the guitar's harmonic blend control work and what does it mean, in terms of sonics, for listeners? [Paul Vo] The harmonic blend is a way of favoring some harmonics over others in a note. It changes the color, the tone or timbre of the instrument. This is a difficult question to answer in words. Listeners are going to hear some sounds they have not heard before. [Mike Adams] In laymen terms, the harmonic blend works by using the foot pedal to shift the sustain and mute power (we call it Vo Power) between the neck and bridge pickups. What makes the Moog Guitar different from other guitars? [Mike Adams} Only a very few guitars have the capability of sustaining notes indefinitely and none at all have the ability to electronically mute the strings. The Moog Guitar is completely unique: It makes new sounds by acting on the strings themselves, changing the way they vibrate or stopping vibration altogether. It's not some subtle difference; it's beyond obvious, when you play it. How is the technology adopted in The Moog Guitar different from other guitar sustain technologies? [Mike Adams] Our technology differs in several important ways. First, the energy applied to the strings is "coherent" energy. Coherent energy is energy that is applied in an intelligent way. When applied positively, the string sustain is very powerful and very responsive. When applied negatively (reverse power - which is not possible with existing technology), the string stops very quickly giving a staccato effect to guitar (similar to a banjo or koto). Additionally, the guitar has circuitry which senses which string the player is playing and sustains those strings while actively muting the strings that are not being played. Can you tell me something about the Moog Guitar Strings? Why are they special? [Mike Adams] The Moog guitar technology works using the physics of electro-magnetic energy. The Moog Guitar strings have a higher metallic content than most strings and is more responsive to the elector-magnetism than most other strings. In an emergency situation, most metallic guitar strings will still work they just will not be as responsive. Is the Moog Filter used into the Moog Guitar the classic 24dB/LowPass? [Mike Adams] The Moog ladder filter is a vintage 24dB/oct filter built with individual transistors in the classic way. Is Moog planning to develop any other guitars? [Paul Vo] That�s up to Mike Adams - but I hope so! [Mike Adams] This technology has a lot of legs. I see the introduction of the Paul Vo Collector Edition as the very beginning. History will judge, but I have been told it is a historical innovation. Is there anything that either of you would care to add? [Paul Vo] I�d like to add two points: In this day of digital everything, the Moog Guitar is an entirely analog instrument - and yet it is cutting edge technology. That might be worth noting. Today, just about any sound imaginable can be produced or reproduced on just about any instrument. Although the Moog Guitar will create some sounds never before heard, making new sounds wasn�t really our main goal. After all, as soon as those new sounds emerge, they can be sampled and reproduced without the guitar; that�s the reality today. What can�t be sampled and reproduced is the experience of playing the Moog Guitar. The really unique thing is that the instrument feels different according to the different sounds it produces. With a MIDI guitar for example, you pluck a string, �plink� and MIDI gives you a piano. Change the preset and - you get a violin sound. Yet all the while a MIDI guitar feels exactly the same; it�s just �plink� each time. That�s what is different here: The Moog Guitar feels the way it sounds. How do you really get that across in words? To really understand it you�ve just got to play it. [Mike Adams] Paul's explanation encapsulates one of the criteria for the development of a Moog product - it must be an inspiration to the musician's creative process. The Moog Guitar is incredibly inspirational.

RUSH (and the Little Phatty) appear on The Colbert Report

2008-07-17T21:26:18+01:00

Live Performance Of TOM SAWYER
July 16, 2008 - RUSH made a rare (1st in 33 years) US television appearance on Comedy Central's THE COLBERT REPORT. After an interview, they performed an excellent rendition of TOM SAWYER. Watch and listen for the classic Moog lines, now done with a Little Phatty. The song starts about 5m25s into the clip.

New Voyager Operating System V3.4 is Here!

2008-06-30T21:26:32+01:00

New Touch Surface Features
The new Voyager operating system V3.4 is now available on our website in the"Software" tabs on all Voyager pages (excluding the Old School, of course). - Individual Local ON/OFF assignments for the Keyboard, Pitch and Mod Wheels, Aftertouch, Touch Surface, Pots and Switches. - Enhanced pot resolution when multiple pots are adjusted at the same time. - LFO Sample & Hold capability for the Touch Surface, plus four selectable Amounts (OFF, 25%, 50%, 100%) for the X, Y and A axis. - Global Reset of selected parameters (Category, Pitch Bend, Pedal Amount, and Touch Screen LFO S&H) So, what are you waiting for? Go get it and have FUN!

Moog Guitar debuts in Nashville

2008-06-17T17:46:24+01:00

at 3rd and Lindsley
The Moog Guitar is showcased this Friday night, June 20th, in Nashville at 3rd and Lindsley. Garaj Mahal featuring Fareed Haque on the new Moog Guitar along with Eric Levy on Moog synth followed by Kenny Vaughan and his trio, Funkwrench, for what should be a very exciting night of music and fun. Doors open at 5:00PM; show starts at 7:00PM. Dinner is available at 3rd and Lindsley. Tix are available online until the day of the show and then at the door only.

Little Phatty Demo Videos By Jordan Rudess

2007-10-26T17:41:45+01:00

Renowned Synthesist Gives TEC Award Winning Instrument A Workout
Fresh from its win at the 2007 TEC Awards... we have some excellent new Little Phatty videos by Jordan Rudess online now. Jordan highlights some of the LP's great features including control voltage interfacing with the CP-251 and FreqBox, advanced filter techniques, octave switching, chops building exercises and more! You can view them on the Moog Music website... http://www.moogmusic.com/detail.php?main_product_id=254
...and at the YouTube and MySpace links below... http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MoogMusicInc http://www.myspace.com/moogmusicinc There are more to come. Stay tuned!

How to Stay Informed?

2005-11-11T18:42:17+01:00

Be a Moog Subscriber
What's Moog coming out with next? Where might I learn more about Moog products? Moog events in your town? The answer to these and other burning questions can be sent to you via email by simply becoming a subscriber to one or more Moog eNews letters. Moog Music promises not to sell or tell your email address to anyone else and we promise not to deluge you with emails - we all have enough of that. But we will keep you informed about news we think you will find interesting. Click the "Subscribe" link at the top of the page and you will find several categories of interest to choose from. Enjoy and thanks for being our customer! Moog Music Inc.