MOTM

I'm just sitting here thinking... Boy, there's an awful lot of "Stooge
Larry" in my modular.

 

He helped me pick out and wire up my bigger power supplies. We discussed
modifications to the Moog Etherwave and PAIA Theremins. We tossed around
all sorts of ideas that gelled into some DIY projects. In fact, he and I
traded probably about 200 e-mails years ago discussing ways to modify
the Blacet Research 'Frequency Divider' module which we'd both just
purchased, to convert them to MOTM format - our first real "mod
project," I think. We probably traded three dozen e-mails just regarding
what capacitor values worked best to expand the filter on that thing...
We worked out different methods of doing front panels for the FD module
which eventually pushed him into the whole 'Stooge Panel' cottage
industry to replace our paper, glue, & lacquer methods. Somewhere in all
that, we became electronic friends.

 

His interval switch modules, which quickly followed our Freq Divider
mods, I think came largely out of a long series of e-mails that we
traded on that subject (he was probably conversing with others about it
as well, I'm sure). Come to think of it, we never did get around to
doing one of the "mods" to that project that we discussed a lot at the
time, which was to make a version with resistors selected so that each
turn of the rotary switch moved the pitch of a VCO up, not a semitone,
but a harmonic interval, so that you could tune your VCOs together and
then "dial in" a precise harmonic relationship, not a chromatic
interval. He got so involved with panels, cabinets, rails, panel
brackets, and patchcords for everybody that we never got back to those
early ideas. He seemed to always be trying to think of ways to help out
the MOTM community. He never just worked on his own synth; everything he
did to it, he was always thinking, "How can this help out everybody
else?" He didn't just make a cabinet for himself; he wanted to make
cabinets available to everybody! And absolutely not for the money,
that's for sure.

 

Boy it's going to be hard to look at all those panels and multi-colored
patchcords and not think of him all the time now. Here I am still
depressed about Bob Moog and now lightning strikes our little family
hard.

 

All the more, I want to go to some of these gatherings and meet more
MOTMers, put faces to the names on this list while we're all still
together on this Earth. I was just _lucky_ that he happened to be
passing through my area on his bike a few years ago. Otherwise I never
would have met him.

 

Sorry about the rambling... just thinking out loud. I think it's going
to be a day for that. Can't help it.

 

KT