4th May 2004 - Turnkey Music Store
- Richard Lawson
Had you considered a lower cost equivalent to what was the Prodigy or the Rogue to compliment the Voyager range?
- Dr Robert Moog
Yea, we’ve considered a lot of things - among them a simpler, low cost basic monophonic instrument, with basic features. It’s not something that we are developing right now. Our development schedule is full right now but it’s something that we may do in the future. When I say “may do” I don’t mean to create a mystery out of this, there are always more products than we have time to do - we do one or two at a time and, at any one time, there seem to be more reasons to do one than to do the other. We have to wait until that time before we know. So, we haven’t decided yet but that’s certainly one possibility to produce a lower cost, simpler monophonic instrument.
Do you think you are more market driven or are you trying to set the standards in the market with your products?
We are not market driven in the sense that we send market research people / team out to tell us what to do. I have ideas for what would make good instruments. Some of the ideas are very closely in line with what’s selling today and some of the ideas are not but the ones that are not, I think are good ideas because once people see them they might understand more what there good for and make more sense. We are market driven in that we have to be concerned what people think for instruments that we build. We have no trouble at all building “dream” synthesizers, does everything: does more than this (points to a Voyager) or does this but has 32/16 voices. That’s technically no problem at all.
I guess leading on from that – also the Taurus 1 Bass Pedals. I have such a lot of interest in supplying these, the list is almost endless and there’s very few in the market, certainly in good condition, so please bring it back!
Okay, first of all I would like to understand – I’ll interview you now – I’ll ask you the question: Is it the sound of the instrument or the fact that it’s a solid pedal board with nice big buttons that you push with your feet, what’s important about the Taurus?
I think its two things fundamentally; the first thing is it’s an instrument a guitarist can use to have a bigger presence on stage and introduce new tonal qualities to sound. Obviously there’s a historical interest because of big bands like Genesis, Rush and Asia used to use them but, as a unit it’s very useful for keyboardists and Guitarists so it has a dual purpose. Secondly, and most importantly, is THE sound. The interface was easy and very robust and even today stand’s up very well, but the sound was uniquely tailored to do the job it did. If you look at it compared to the Voyager, It’s very limited in terms of potential but that’s not necessarily the issue, it’s getting that absolutely humongous/enormous bass sound coming over on stage and the people that are buying them are picking them for live use – live bands using them on stage – it’s not for home and a glass case in a studio, its very much a current product.
The reason I’m interested in differentiating between the package aspect and the sound aspect is that the package is inherently expensive. There are very few places in the world now where you can go and buy a pedal board or a mechanism like that. You cant make them, it just takes far too much tooling to produce the number of Taurus’s so we have to use somebody else to tool them which means we have to go to a keyboard mechanism manufacturer and there are very few in the world and because there are very few, and we’re a small company, we’re a problem from them and there a problem for us and that’s not a comfortable position to be in. So, I’m trying to understand if a manual keyboard rather than a pedal board, would be acceptable and you’re saying no - you can’t play up here (keyboard) if you’re playing guitar.
Absolutely, and if you have a pedal board you can play keyboard and pedals so its aimed at the performing musician as apposed to the home market or professional studio.
So you’re saying it has to have pedals?
That’s what I’m told!
Okay now here’s a question for you, a standard little home organ pedal board goes from C to C. Guitars and Basses don’t go from C to C they start at E. How much better would it be if we could get a pedal mechanism that started at E?
I think for guitarist it would be fundamental but for Keyboardist they would probably prefer it in C so the answer is yes to both.
How about an octave and a half?
The perfect compromise perhaps – yes.
How many do you (RL Music) have on you’re list waiting for Taurus 1’s?
At any one time, 15 people globally and that’s people who will buy now, there’s always another 50 people waiting …
At what sort of price?
The Original Taurus 1’s about £2000 UK Pounds – a restored original version so around $3500 US Dollars.
Wow, that’s about five times as they cost new!
This is what’s happening and at any one time in the world they may be only one available every six months. Do you remember how many were actually made?
No. A big distinction is made between the Taurus 1 and Taurus 2, do your find that too?
Absolutely.
The Taurus 1 is a better sound?
Absolutely yes, the Taurus 2 will sell for about £500 Pounds but generally nobody buys them.
Is it because of the sound or because of the fact that…. (points to the floor . . . it's a floor unit)
I think the sound is different and people will recognise it as a different sound and the design is less interesting. As a package, the Taurus 1, like the original Minimoog, is just right.
With so many of my customers buy vintage analogue equipment, why do you think in your opinion has this interest in vintage equipment come back to today’s home & professional studios – why is there such a resurgence of interest?
It’s a question that’s asked so frequently, I could be flippant and say “oh it’s just fashion” I have a sense it’s a lot more than that. I have a sense that now that musicians have a lot of experience of digital instruments, in particular, have bumped up against the limitations of digital instruments when it comes to getting really great sound or getting there heads in there and shaping the sound. These very basic evangelist of analogue stuff are becoming clear. In the early years they were enamoured with all the novelty of all this digital stuff like the DX7 being a polyphonic synthesizer with new sound for $2000 dollars. That was a very distracting thing. Then the sample playing instruments- the EMU stuff and the Kurzweil Stuff and all the long string of digital stuff from Roland Korg and Yamaha came out with. There was a certain amount of excitement because it was so new but that’s died down now & musicians are missing really this sense of being able to connect with the sound. I think it’s much more difficult to do that with digital instruments. There is a tactile nature that’s a part of it but it’s also a uniquely human thing that goes on that has to do with more than just how it feels or the harmonics.
It’s interesting that the new Korg product – the Legacy, is perhaps the compromise. Maybe that’s the technological compromise between virtual analogue or virtual technology and the hardware interface. Could that be a possible route that you think Moog would go into?
Anything’s possible but at this point we don’t have plans to do that. It’s just very hard to know what we are going to do in the future there’s so many variables.
If you were to go back in time, and without any worries of commercial reasoning, what product would you have designed that you haven’t?
(laughs) It’s hard for me to think of what I would do if there weren’t commercial reasons. You know, I’m an engineer - I’ve a fairly classical engineering training and classically engineers work those things in the most effective way & always having to worry about what things cost. In fact when I began engineering school on the first day, in this group of engineering student - the teacher said to us “Let me tell you guys, what’s an engineer, an engineer can do with 2 cents what any damn fool can do for 3 cents.” So, I’ve always thought of myself or a part of my job, is being very concerned about what it costs so the people didn’t have to pay more than necessary for what we build. I really can’t imagine building something without thinking about what it’s going to cost.
Philosophically difficult to do then?
Yea. If somebody said to me today, you don’t have to worry about anything else and all the engineering responsibilities on a day to day basis will be taken care by somebody else, go off & design something, I would probably design something very inexpensive but it would be very good for what it cost.
You still produce the Moog Theremin, which is interesting because although it’s within the genre of synthesis its quite a different product and I know this historically is the beginning for you so why are you still involved in that instrument?
Well it’s a very interesting user interface and by this time I know quite a bit about how to design & build Theremins and a lot of musicians want them. We’ve made about 10 thousand Theremins in the last 6 years!
That’s incredible – what kind of people are buying them?
All kinds. Rockers are buying them, Jazz musicians, Classical musicians, people who want to have fun at parties and people who want to play religious music. Just everybody I know who play a Theremin seriously has a different view of what the instrument is good for.
As an engineer, you must enjoy challenging the convention of music technology design and probably what you are recognised for more than anything else – the original “step-ladder” filter is certainly recognised as the most famous and the most copied and I think certainly the Holy Grail, so have you ever considered designing a different filter that would equal that in character but deliver something quite distinctly different…is it even possible?
It’s not impossible; we’ve experimented with different filter configurations the new MURF (Multi Resonant Filter) is going to be something people haven’t heard. It’s not design of an individual filter but more the filters are arranged that give it its character.
It sounds more like a modular in nature in terms of the character of it?
Yes.
With your involvement with analogue synthesis over the last 40 to 50 years, is it safe to assume that you must have played just about every possible vintage synthesizer over that period?
No. I played a few but my day to day activities don’t usually include evaluating or reverse engineering other people’s instruments.
But just having access to other people’s studios, you may have seen equipment over the last 2 or 3 decades?
You may be surprised but I’m not that familiar with them.
Leading on to: what would have been you favourite Synthesizer of that time…is it a Moog?
I think so. The Modular instruments were nice for one reason and the original Minimoog’s nice for another and the Minimoog Voyager. I think that if I could take one instrument over another with me to a Desert Island it would be the Voyager.
The very early RA Moog Minimoog’s are without doubt the most popular ones that I can find and sell and they have a very unique character in sound and sound so much different to the later models & I guess that’s because the design improved and they got much more stable for whatever the various reasons are. Have you ever considered producing a synthesizer that has designed in or produces “that” early character? It’s an ironic question but this is what I see and from people telling me that they want this… a little bit unstable and I want that sound because and doesn’t track right etc.
We haven’t no but it’s an interesting idea but no we haven’t
The last question I have for you, having been involved with musicians over so many years, is have you ever performed and recorded you own music?
No – I’ve made guest appearances from time to time but it hasn’t amounted to much music. I’m not a musician, I’m a tool maker, I like working with musicians.
Do you still keep in touch with people like Keith Emerson & Rick Wakeman?
We manage to keep in touch & we see each other at shows I’ve helped Keith with a couple of things.
He’s (Keith Emerson) has been out touring this last year hasn’t he & their playing at the Moog fest on the 18th (May), Keith & Rick are playing….
Yea –
Bob, thank you very much…..
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