Moog synthesizers

[tomg]

> I was wondering if anyone could give me an idea of moog synths that  seem to 
> offer something original or worth having around in terms of sound. 

I started to reply to this several times. My first instinct is was not to touch this
with a 10 foot probe. But what the hell....

IMO all moogs sound "good" but it's not that simple. Anything later than the
minimoog is a mutated moog. After muSonic became part of the picture moogs
were never the same again. Instead of leading the industry they played catch-up
most of the time. I think the muSonic purchase was the beginning of the end, it
just took a long time. The moogs sounded like moogs that's why they continued
to sell despite the fact that if you spent your money on a moog you got less
synthesizer in most case.

The other half of it is moogs are not known to be easy to repair. Some are
worse than others but generally they are no fun and that has to be taken into
account. The most unrepairable is the Sonic followed closely by the Memory-
moog. They both use parts NLA (no longer available). Anything with a control
strip probably has bad foam, avoid a flaky polymoog like the plague. Minimoogs 
can be an unending nightmare, a really bad one may never live again. The top 
of the list as far as serviceability has to be the Prodigy and Rogue. 

There was a thread on the synth-site a while back called "the worlds best synths".
The minimoog and Memorymoog were the only two moogs that consistently made
everyone's list. There were a few rare 55 mentions ( I guess there would have been
more but how many people actually have a 55??). Everybody seems to love the 
Memorymoog despite not being able to keep it out of the shop...

As a side note: I think the p5 was the most favored of all. They are known for
their unreliability...but they sound great...and BTW were modeled after the
minimoog sound from what I understand.

I could have left all of that off but this was more fun. The way I "feel" about it
is... If you can't come up with a 55 or mini the Prodigy probably has more of 
the "moog" sound than most of the others, but they are all fun and neat to
have.

-tg