Google Doodle Celebrates Bob Moog
Bet you can't say "Moog Doodle" 15 times fast.
Robert Moog, inventor of the Moog synthesizer, grandfather of electronic instruments, and North Carolina dweller for much of his life, would have been 78 years old today had he not died of brain cancer in 2005. To celebrate this iconic man's life and influence on the world of music, Google's daily doodle is a fully-functional Javascript "analog" "Moog" synthesizer, complete with envelopes, filters, LFOs (low frequency oscillators), and much more. It also features a four-track recorder, with which you can create your own miniature synth jams and then share them with your friends.
Throughout his career, Robert Moog spent countless hours engineering and pioneering electronic instruments, using his discoveries, inventions, and innovations to articulate a space for electronic instruments in the realm of mainstream music. His inventions set the groundwork for all electronic music, and Moog inventions encouraged the widespread acceptance of electronic instruments as "real" instruments.
It's...so...pretty....
Moog started building theremins, touchless instruments which are played by waving one's hands to manipulate radio frequencies coming from the instrument body, as early as 1948. He used his theremin company as a platform for his experiments in synthetic music, and throughout the 60s created and patented dozens of technological breakthroughs in waveform synthesis such as voltage controlled oscillators, ADSR (attack/decay/sustain/release) envelope generators, and more.
Robert Moog's groundbreaking work continues to influence music around the world, and his inventions have already had a permanent affect on the direction and sound of popular and experimental music. To play with the awesome Google Doodle honoring Bob Moog, head over to Google and record us some tunes.
