Video Story Historically, the Minimoog is considered the very first synthesizer for musicians! Compact, affordable, simplified and based on the megalithic modular Moog synths, the Minimoog became the most popular synth of all time, and still is to this day! Prior to the Minimoog, synthesizers were custom built to order, and required a great deal of technical knowledge to be able to wire up and create a sound. The Minimoog changed all that by hard-wiring the most basic but essential of components into a compact keyboard any musician could not only play, but dial up some great sounds on! Thus, the Minimoog was the first synthesizer to show up on the shelves of music stores around the world. Though its design impacted the industry in a way that set the stage for all the synthesizers that came after it, the Minimoog is probably most famous for its excellent analog sound and arguably the best filters in a portable synth. It featured three oscillators (one of which can be used as an LFO) that could be individually tuned and offered multiple waveforms. The Minimoog is monophonic (only one note can be played at a time) so the three oscillators allow for an incredibly rich sound - three de-tuned oscillators each playing a different waveform can create some pretty thick analog sounds! There are also some very cool modulation possibilities when using one of the oscillators as an LFO. But you can't talk about the Minimoog without mentioning its filters. The Minimoog uses a 4-pole (24 dB/oct) low-pass filter with cutoff, resonance, ADS envelope, and keyboard tracking controls. Amazingly, Dr. Moog's filter design has yet to be surpassed by a better sounding filter. It's a filter that sounds so warm and smooth that Moog's rival, ARP, tried to copy it for their 2600 and Odyssey synths. The Minimoog's internal wiring configuration and front panel layout has defined the general synthesizer configuration for decades. Every adjustable parameter is so clearly laid out on the front panel that the Minimoog makes a great teaching tool for anyone interested in classic subtractive synthesis. It even has a built-in A-440 tone generator so you can manually tune the oscillators-which is nice since (like mosts analog synths that heat up) the tuning of even this machine can be a little bit unstable. Though input jacks allow you to run your own external audio through the Minimoog's filters, modulation and amplifier circuits too. The Minimoog is responsible for some of the warmest and best analog synth bass, lead and whistle sounds ever. Its control panel can lay flat or propped up perpendicular to the keyboard. It also has a great wood casing. Very rugged. A very versatile synth, useful in all styles of music and easy enough for anybody to operate! It is used by The Chemical Brothers, The Orb, Kraftwerk, Jan Hammer, Nine Inch Nails, Vince Clarke, Gary Numan, Add N To (X), Rick Wakeman, 808 State, Air, Future Sound of London, Bushflange, Chick Corea, Überzone, Depeche Mode, Recoil, Tangerine Dream, Mouse on Mars, Apollo 440, Ultravox, Dave Holmes, Jean-Michel Jarre, George Duke, Blondie, Rush, Toto, Jimmy Edgar, Keith Emerson, Yes, Vangelis, Pink Floyd, Joe Zawinul and Herbie Hancock. Specifications Polyphony: Monophonic Oscillators: 3 VCO's Memory: None Filter: 24dB/oct, 4-pole lowpass filter with cutoff, resonance, envelope generator, keyboard tracking VCA: ADS Envelope generator Keyboard: 44 keys, single-trigger, low-note priority Arpeg/Seq: None Control: CV /GATE Manual Download Manual
