ARP 2600 Reference Sheet, 1971

ARP 2600 reference sheet from approximately 1971.

How far synthesizer manufacturers have come when it comes to reference sheets.

And to prove this point, I've scanned this ARP 2600 reference sheet from approximately 1971 so you can compare it to the 1980 Moog sheets I've recently blogged about (Minimoog, Polymoog). Down right primitive.

But it does have a lot to say.

Lets start with the paper choice - a medium-light blue. Maybe they picked this colour because early 2600s were known as 'Blue Marvins', but even ARP must have realized this makes it harder to read and converted over most of their later reference material to the almost-universal standard of black text on a white background for good readability.

And speaking of the text, you can tell ARP was having difficulty trying to decide whether this was a 'specification sheet' as they refer to it, or a marketing piece. To me, most of the tiny crowded text on the page is a sell-job to live performers and educators, sugar-coated as reference information.

I'm not saying marketing material was non-existent in reference sheets, but usually the more flowery text was saved for 2- or 4-pagers like this two-page SRM CAT sheet. Lets face it, ARP just didn't have the room for all that text on one page. Especially with that honkin' big image.

I do dig the two images of the 2600-P and 2600-C. The fact ARP chose to use a larger 2600-P image tells me that ARP was really pushing the 'portable' version of this machine to musicians that were playing live gigs. The text on the sheet also leads off with the live performance aspect, then education, and finally studio composition.

Although there isn't a date on this sheet, the photos of the 2600s also provide clues as to when this reference sheet was printed. If you look really really closely at the larger photo of the -P, it looks like the logo in the left speaker grille is the 'Tonus' logo. I'm not that familiar with 2600s, but my understanding is that early -Ps had the 'Tonus' logo like this one posted on the gearslutz board, and later V.3 and V.4 models had the more common "G-clef' ARP logo.

Also, there is no power-indicator lamp on the front panel of this 2600-P, leading me to believe it is either a *very* early unit or a photo of a pre-production or prototype model. All the other -Ps I've seen have the lamp.

The keyboard in the photo also looks to be the earlier 3604 model with the three controls for portamento, tuning, and scaling - here's a close-up image of the 3604 keyboard controls from a MATRIXSYNTH auction post.

The smaller 2600-C photo in the bottom left hand corner looks like the earlier Blue Marvin model to me due to the lack of 'multiple' jacks next to the left speaker grille. The small photo makes it difficult to see, but I'm pretty sure they are not there.

Putting these facts about the images together leads me to believe it was probably printed in 1971. Of course, you can draw your own conclusions - retrosynth.com has an ARP 2600 page with a lot of great photos of the different models and revisions... definitely check 'em out.

Moog Minimoog synthesizer reference sheet, 1980

Moog Minimoog synthesizer reference sheet from 1980.

This sheet is a member of the family of Moog reference sheets from 1980. I blogged about the Polymoog reference sheet from the same series last February.

Similar to the Polymoog sheet, I've seen links to low resolution scans of the front of this Minimoog reference sheet around the Web (everyone loves a great picture!), including synthmuseum.com. But not the back of the reference sheet- which in my opinion, contains all the juicy nuggets of great information that we love.

And when I say 'we', I do realize I am probably referring to me and two other people. Maybe that person in Churchill, Canada that keeps showing up in my stats. And maybe the person from Kiev, Ukraine. Seriously, though - I really do appreciate everyone for taking time out of your busy schedules to read my blog.


Back to the scans.

The front of this reference sheet stands out for one reason (well, apart from the great photo) - the ad copy includes the term 'musically engineered'. Moog had been using the term 'musical engineering' to describe their gear for quite a while by this point, including this 1977 advertisement, and in my opinion, at least partly in response to ARP's buzzword 'human engineering'. Even Octave Electronics got in on the 'engineered' action with their Cat SRM reference sheet.

But the back of the reference sheet is where the fun begins. Unlike the Polymoog sheet, the top of the Minimoog sheet includes a wire frame outline of the front panel, pitch/mod wheels, and top view. I really dig wire frame outlines but unfortunately only some of the reference sheets in this series included them. They seem all scientific or something. Even the Octave Cat SRM reference sheet I mentioned above also included a wire frame outline.

Most two-sided reference sheets I've come across include a wire frame image on the backside. Probably because it is a lot cheaper than printing another colour photo. Plus, there just isn't the room for a close-up of the panel in a two-pager. Many of the four-pager fold-out reference sheets I've come across like the one for SCI's Prophet-5 (will post in the near future) had the space to include a close-up of the panel on the inside pages rather than a wire-frame outline, while one-siders like ARP's Odyssey sheet (another future post :o), only included the front photo due to even greater space constraints.

I can't explain the two-sided ARP Soloist Mk II sheet I've posted in the past - it definitely had the room on the back for a wire frame outline, even though it doesn't really follow the standard 'reference sheet' format.

But definitely a missed opportunity in my opinion.

Aries Music Inc. Modular, July 1977

Aries Music Inc. modular synthesizer advertisement from page 48 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine July 1977.

Between spending time doing a stint at a tradeshow booth, attending an art auction (that included eating lots of cupcakes) and some marathon Fallout 3 sessions, it has been a busy week. But I remembered coming across this quarter-page advertisement from Aries while flipping through CK the same time I had come across that Oberheim SEM Evolution full pager earlier this month. This ad only appeared once in the July '77 issue.

I had overlooked this advertisement when I blogged about this early Aries ad, so I was quite excited to come across it. I haven't seen it online either - maybe because, surprisingly, the ad doesn't include an actual photo or image of an Aries modular.

But it does include my very favorite thing about Aries advertisements...

THE LOGO!

To me, the prismatic-inspired 'A' symbol really did a great job positioning Aries both artistically and technically. Robert Leiner, owner of the most comprehensive Aries Web site I've ever come across, calls the logo 'spiffy'. I have to agree.

There is one problem with this ad that really gets under my skin. You see, the logo pulls my eyes upward, directly to the only ad-copy in the advertisement.

From a design perspective this is great - Zenbecca commented on this aspect of the logo in my previous Aries blog post. But from a grade-10-grammar-teacher perspective, the sporadic use of capital letters would get your hand slapped with a ruler pretty quickly.

Send One Buck for our New catalog

It may be the smallest text in the ad, but now, whenever I look at this ad, all I see is this sentence.

My irritation with capitalization disasters is a pet-peeve that I picked up over twelve years ago when I first started working in a communications and public relations department. My boss used to get mad at me all the time for not capitalizing properly. I don't claim to know all the rules... but I know the text above is breaking a few of them.

I'll even admit that I have trouble with my own blog posts. I changed the capital letters in this sentence back and forth a number of times before deciding which words should be capitalized:

Aries Music Inc. modular synthesizer advertisement from page 48 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine July 1977.

And don't you dare go back to old blog posts to see if I have been consistent. Because I probably haven't. But then again, my boss doesn't see these posts.

EML ElectroComp 101 Brochure, 1976

EML ElectroComp 101 brochure from 1976 (estimated).

Okay - I think I've let enough time pass that I've gotten over my little obsession with EML advertisements that I blogged about in December 2009.

This ElectroComp 101 brochure has definitely seen better days, but since I've only ever seen the front page of this brochure online, I thought some people might find the rest interesting - especially those interested in the specs of this machine.

But, before I get to the specifications listed on the inside of the brochure, I just have to make a few comments about the front page.

First - take a look at the image of the ElectroComp 101 on the front (and on the inside). They look normal enough, but, if you do a quick Google-images search for this synthesizer, you will notice that many of the other images of ElectroComp 101s that you see on the 'net have one extra feature. You will notice two cords running out of the bottom left-hand corner of the front panel.



Check out these images and compare:

• Vintagesynth.com photo
• Gearslutz photo
  
• Sequencer.de photo
• This flickr photo has at least one other customized cable running from it.
• Even the EML advertisements I've featured on my blog have that second cable.

I'm not at all familiar with this synthesizer, so someone else is going to have to clue me in. Mark Vail's book 'Vintage Synthesizers' does suggest that over the ten-year life span of the 101 there were some internal improvements made, but "the functionality of the instrument remained about the same from day one".

So, what is this second cable?

Second, and more fascinating, is the style of writing used on the front page. Even EML admits it - the text on this page is very 'cocky'.

Best this..., best that.... EML 'gives' us the best... .

That is a far cry from the ad-copy that is found in the advertisements in Contemporary Keyboard magazine where they are much more laid back - kinda like 'hey, if you are checking out synthesizers, you may want to check us out too'.

Normally this kind of talk would turn me off. Especially since they admit in this brochure that they are not really sure if they are 'number 2 or number 3 in synthesizer sales...'. (Are they just guessing...?)

But, read through the specifications section on the inside of this brochure, and you start to think that maybe they have reason to be cocky with all the features they have crammed into this little beast of a synthesizer that went for under $1500 at the time. Four oscillators. Sample and hold. Multi-mode filter. External input. And most importantly - a patch panel!

This really is quite the synthesizer!

Who knows... maybe I'm just too easy on 'em.

End note: before I sign off, I just have to comment on the fonts used in this brochure. I've stated before how much I love the font used for company name - 'electronic music laboratories inc.'. You can see this font in action on the back page of this brochure.

But, I gotta say, the font used on the bottom of the front of this brochure for the text 'ElectroComp 101 $1495' is also fantastic. Seriously. If nothing else, EML was a funky company.

I don't think I've seen EML use this font before, so I'll have to check my other EML reference sheets/advertisements for more evidence of the use of this font.

Stay tuned for more scans. :o)

Oberheim Four-Voice/Polyphonic Synthesizer, Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Oberheim Four-Voice Synthesizer/Polyphonic Synthesizer advertisement from page 4 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine May 1977.

In my last blog post I featured an Oberheim SEM 'Evolutionary' advertisement from July 1977 where I threw out the theory that that ad was in response to a Moog chest-pounding advertisement that ran two months earlier (May 1977).

BUT. It wasn't like Oberheim was always on the defense. They had their own hard-hitting advertisements as well, and this one, located opposite the Letters section of CK (awesome real estate!) is one of those ads.

Although the ad-copy doesn't mention Moog and the Polymoog specifically, it is definitely implied as using the lesser method of producing polyphony in a synthesizer (mentioning 'synthesizer on a chip' - a direct connection to Moog's description of the Polymoog). Plus, the journal article text mentions the Polymoog in particular.

I find this ad particularly interesting for a few reasons.

1. Where Moog often pushed in-house resident expert Bob Moog out front to promote their brand, Oberheim, in this case, used external expert James Michmerhuizen, founder of the Boston School of Electronic Music, to promote the advantages of the Oberheim polyphonic system.

James Micherhuizen.... now where have I heard that name? To be honest, I couldn't recall right away, but a quick Google search jogged my memory rather quickly. Among other things, he wrote the ARP 2600 Owner's Manual that is still well-read today!

2. Basically, while Moog and ARP were name-dropping famous rock and jazz greats like Chick Corea, Kansas and Genesis in this issue of CK, Oberheim decided to name-drop the author of an equipment field test article to help promote the more scientific aspects of their Oberheim polyphonic system. An interesting marketing approach.

Even more interesting than this advertisement though, is the article on Tom Oberheim that appears in this issue of CK!

The article, written by Dominic Milano and simply titled "Tom Oberheim, Designer of Synthesizers) is about three pages long and really shows Tom's unique (and in my opinion humble) view of the synthesizer manufacturing world of 1977.

Like any good article from the 1970s dealing with one of the major players in the synth-building game, it starts out with a bit of history, most interesting of which I found was that Tom wasn't into rock music much until he heard the Beatles' 'We Can Work It Out' - he 'was hooked after that'.

The article then covers Tom's voyage from building amps for bands like The United States of America (USA), to discovering ring modulators and building one for Leonard Roseman, a composer working on the score for 'Beneath The Planet Of The Apes'. Soon enough, Chicago Musical Instrument Company (CMI), later Norlin Music and then later Gibson) was distributing Tom's ring modulator, and then his Phase Shifter and Universal Synthesizer for guitars ("...really sort of a turkey"), under the Maestro name.

Aside: In an email exchange with Tom Oberheim a couple of months back, he mentioned that he shakes his head whenever someone says he worked for Maestro. Quote from the email:

"Maestro' was not an actual entity, just a trade name applied by Chicago Musical Instrument Company, later Norlin, later Gibson, to various products made by a number of different companies. When Oberheim Electronics was still my company (1970 thru 1975) I designed and manufactured several products for CMI/Norlin under the Maestro trade name, including the Maestro Phase Shifter (the first phase shifter available for the performing musician), as well as several other effects pedals"

The article then goes through the history of Oberheim Electronics products that I know and love. First the digital sequencer, then the SEM, and finally, the addition of Emu's keyboard to create the 2 and 4-Voice synthesizers.

While speaking about Oberheim's connection to musicians, the article states that Tom met many musicians as an ARP dealer starting in the early 1970s, selling three to four ARPs per year to people like Frank Zappa, Leon Russell, and Robert Lamm. In fact, his first experience with a synthesizer made by someone else was the ARP 2600:

"I took it home one night, put it in my bedroom, and let it run on sample and hold all night".

Tom also admits in the article that one are of weakness for himself is tactile interfaces such as controls for pitch-bending wheels and modulation controls:

' "At the time I designed the units" he explains, "it was a matter of just going ahead. I hoped that I could get by without every little thing that would make them perfect." '

' "One of my past attitudes was that the only controller for the left hand that I liked was the Moog wheel," he admits. "I've always felt that it was so unique that it would be an out-and-out ripoff to use one. I've felt that way for a long time, but who knows? Maybe I'll sell out one day and copy it. A lot of guys do alright with the ARP knob, but I don't think it's right." '

Tom's humbleness comes through when talk of the 'big three' comes up.

'There is little question but that they're one of the big three. "It took me a long time to accept it," Tom relates, "but I think people talk in terms of ARP, Moog and Oberheim. Of course, I spend a little time thinking of how nice that is, but most of the time, I'm seeing how crude the 4-Voice really is. You don't need all those knobs now". '

In the article, Tom also comments on the growth of the synthesizer industry and the beginning of what is now commonly referred to as the gear-lust phenomenon:

"... the guy who makes his living playing, is taking more of his earnings and putting them into equipment. Let's face it, ten years ago a guy could buy a Twin Reverb and think that's all he needed for the rest of his life. Now, how many people you know with just one keyboard instrument?"

"I get people asking me if they buy a 4-Voice, can they get rid of their ARP 2600 or Minimoog? I have to say 'God no. You need that, too!"

Still with me? Great stuff. Thanks for reading!

Oberheim Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM) Evolution, Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Oberheim Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM) Evolution advertisement from page 31 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine July 1977.

I was flipping through CK looking for something different and boy, did I find it. Another great advertisement from Oberheim. And rare - looks like it only appeared once in CK and I have never come across this advertisement online.

So, Oberheim had been doing quite well with the look and feel of their late '76 ads like the Polyphonic Synthesizer Programmer and SEM, so why mess with a good thing?

Here's my theory - Moog had just started some gorilla chest-pounding in the May 1977 issue of CK with their 'blunt and totally biased viewpoint' ad and I would bet this ad was the sound of Oberheim howling back through the jungle foliage.

Check it out - one of the main themes flowing through the Moog advertisement from two months earlier is 'First'. How they started it all with their voltage control. 'First came the multiple waveform voltage controlled oscillators...' and then 'the first four-part ADSR envelope generator'. Finally, near the end, they talk about their 'first polyphonic synthesizer'.

The same word - 'First' - appears in every instrument box of this Oberheim advertisement as the time line runs through the evolution of their system. And after this ad ran once, Oberheim went right back to gear ads. It's like that little sixteenth note in the Oberheim logo took a swing back at Moog and then kept walking on its merry way. I love that logo.

And while I'm on the subject, I wouldn't be surprised if this Oberheim advertisement inspired Oberheim's 10-Year Anniversary advertisement three years later. The same theme - 'First' - runs through the ad-copy there as well.

Okay, maybe it is just coincidence. There were a lot of 'firsts' coming out of the synthesizer scene at the time. But it is fun to wonder.

As far as the ad itself goes - for the most part I really dig it. I love reading through the evolutionary time line they provided. Even better, it also lets us in on the next piece of gear to come out while leaving two future boxes blank to help build anticipation that there is more coming on the horizon. Anyone guess what those two future items were?

The only thing I don't like about this ad is that it feels a bit too crowded, mostly because the text in the middle is hard to read. I bet most people didn't.

But you should. One nugget of text I did like in the ad-copy was the fact they admit that it was 'quite by accident' that the SEM's modular design 'lent itself perfectly to the evolution of the most versatile live performance synthesizers'.

Gotta love honestly in advertising.

ARP Avatar Brochure and Sound Sheet , 1977

[PDF version]

ARP Avatar Brochure from approximately 1977.

Oh, come now - calling me predictable? Okay, I admit it. I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon and can you guess which movie I hope cleans up at the Academy Awards?

But, back to the blog post...

What you see here is an apparently rare four-page ARP Avatar brochure with a sound sheet attached to the third page. Bits of the imagery, photo and text from this brochure appeared in magazine ads around the same time period.

You will notice that I've gently bent back the sound sheet on page three (looks like a black bar in the scan above) so that you could get a good look at the full text and, even better, the 'rock god' image with 'play like a god' written below it. And what an image it is.

In fact, what a brochure it is. Looking at the imagery really gives you an idea of what ARP was thinking when they launched this guitar synthesizer. The pseudo-biblical imagery and text throughout the ad-copy tells us that ARP really thought this was the big ticket. The next big thing. Or they were at least hoping guitar players would.

David Friend, a bigwig at ARP, is quoted in the book 'Vintage Synthesizers' as saying:

"Everybody thought it was going to be the hottest thing since the wheel."

ARP risked millions developing the Avatar and in the end it was "imperfections of the pitch-voltage converters" (the mechanism that converts the vibrations in the strings into signals for the synthesizer) that brought the instrument, and according to many, the company, to its knees.

Maybe, like the imagery in the brochure, they were looking to God to provide a little divine intervention for the company's bottom line at this point in time. :o)

Sure, the high price tag put the instrument out of the hands of many guitarists, but I'm wondering if it was also ARP's marketing department's perception of guitarists too. Take the first line of text on the third page:

"And so it came to pass that guitar players would have the same performance potential as keyboard players, for the new ARP Avatar would provide it."

Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure most ego-centric guitarists, at a time when synthesizers were just starting to take away some of the spotlight, may have thought they had much more 'performance potential' with their axe, jumping around the stage and such, than a synthesizer could provide. To me, it is not an in-your-face diss, but it is a subconscious (albeit not intentional) one. Maybe even a touch condescending (again, not intentional) on the part of ARP.

Don't get me wrong, I still think the idea of a guitar synthesizer is a good one. But whether the Avatar should have been the one to bring it to the studio is the question - so judge for yourself. Joseph Rivers from the Audio Playground/Synthesizer Museum has ripped the same sound sheet that is attached to this brochure on the synthmuseum.com Web site.

Also questionable about the brochure is the fact that there isn't an ARP logo to be seen on the front page and the 'ARP AVATAR' text on the back of the instrument in the image is pretty dang small. Maybe they thought 'ARP' wouldn't be recognizable to guitar players, but then it would probably be even more important from a branding perspective to get your logo out in front of your new audience. One other thing - if you look closely at the audience on the front page, you will notice five or six guitars comp'd in there. Pre-Photoshop even.

Incidentally, the first two songs on the song sheet are credited to Ned Liben at Sundragon Studios in New York. Ned Liben was one half of the band 'Ebn Ozn' - I was just listening to their hit song 'AEIOU' on my MP3 player at the gym!

According to Wikipedia, Ebn Ozn's claim to fame was that they created 'the first American album ever recorded in its entirety on a computer - a Fairlight CMI - and the only band to have written and produced their own videos in their time'. Huh.

End note: Yup - it wouldn't be a blog post without me mentioning that it wouldn't be an ARP brochure without the term 'Human Engineering' showing up. :o)

Now, time to watch the Oscar red carpet.

Moog Satellite Reference Sheet, 1970s

Moog Satellite reference sheet from the 1970s.

Seen this reference sheet on eBay a couple of times recently - but I haven't run across a higher-res scan of it on the InterWebz. It is a great piece - from the stylized photo and rounded font used on the front side, to the creative use of text (crazy adjectives and name dropping!) and reference information on the back!

There is unfortunately no date on this reference sheet, but the opening text introduces this keyboard as their 'newest dimension in sound' suggesting it may have come out early on in the Satellite's production run. Comparing it to other Moog sheets, the design doesn't match Moog's family of reference sheets from 1975 or 1980.

The Satellite is a single VCO preset synthesizer that was apparently built by Moog to compete with the ARP Pro-Soloist (read my blog posts on the Soloist, Pro-Soloist, and Soloist Mk II if you are not familiar with that run of keyboards). Surprisingly, the Satellite's production run went from approximately 1974-1979, while its more powerful dual VCO sibling, the Minitmoog, was introduced in 1975 and only lasted for a year or so.

The Minitmoog didn't just offer up twice as many VCOs either, it also offered up more than twice as many presets. The Satellite's presets included Brass, Reed, String, Bell, and Lunar, while the Minitmoog up'd the ante by including Trumpet, Oboe, Clarinet, Sax, Taurus, Violin, Piano, Guitar I, Guitar II, Aries, Lunar and Flute.

So why the quick demise of the Minitmoog? Just a few minutes on Google will tell ya - it just wasn't built very well and there were major issues with its aftertouch.

But, enough about the Minitmoog - and back to the Satellite.

The book 'Vintage Synthesizers' by Mark Vail (the chapter 'The Rise & Fall of Moog Music' written by Connor Frerr Cochran & Bob Moog) offers up a great anecdote about the Satellite and how it fit into the sale of Moog to Norlin.

As the story goes, when Moog Music showed the Satellite at NAMM in 1973, it was definitely a hot product but wasn't in the production queue yet. So Moog Music decided to sell the rights to build Satellites instead of building them in-house. The Thomas Organ Company bought the rights to build 5,000 Satellites for a royalty of $75 a piece, and also built Satellites into its organs for $15 a piece. This apparently came out to a wholesale royalty of around 40% - astonishingly higher than the usual 5% seen in the industry at the time. $375,000 of income from the royalties showed up on Moog's income and expense statement that year creating an operating profit of 25% for Moog Music. Again, astonishingly high. Norlin, not realizing this was a one-time event, apparently ended up buying the company based on these numbers.

I love a good anecdote.

For some great close up shots of a Satellite in great condition, check out this Web site . You can also find some more information on the combo organs that sported the Satellite on, where else, but combo-organ.com. The Satellite was slapped on to at least a couple of different models, including the extremely space-age looking Cordovox CDX 0652 as well as the not-so-space-age looking Thomas/Moog organ.

Credit should go where credit is due - I got a lot of the information above at the usual spots:

• Vintage Synth Explorer
• Synthmuseum.com
• The book Vintage Synthesizers by Mark Vail

All are great resources.

Moog Minitmoog, Contemporary Keyboard 1976

Moog Minitmoog preset synthesizer advertisement from page 29 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine September/October 1976.

This advertisement seems to have run only a handful of times in CK towards the later half of 1976. And, if references on the Web are accurate, the Minitmoog itself is almost as rare as this ad - apparently only 2500 or so Minitmoogs were made during its brief 1975-1976 life span.

Moog's ads in CK were very recognizable during this time period, and this Minitmoog ad followed the template to a 'T'. Like Moog's 1976 Micromoog and Polymoog ads, it starts with the name of the instrument and the tag line both in that comfortingly familiar font. Underneath is the feature photo, followed by text-heavy ad-copy with smaller photos peppered throughout.

Even the ad-copy between these ads were similar in the sense that they hit home the same two or three key messages (whether on purpose or not). These key messages really give us a glimpse into the problems synthesizer musicians were facing at the time, and more importantly, how Moog was helping them solve these problems.

1. Expressiveness
2. Oscillator stability
3. Ease of use/programming

This Minitmoog ad hits on all three key messages - expressiveness through its modulation features and touch sensitivity, the 'ultra stable oscillators', and the ease of programming through presets.

If you read through the '76 Micromoog ad you will see the same key messages in the ad copy - lines such as 'freedom of expression', 'pitch drift is a thing of the past' and 'easy to buy, easy to play'.

The Polymoog ad hits two out of the three - ease of use through '32 instant sounds' and expression through 'true piano touch' / 'literally moving sound'. They don't mention stable oscillators, but in their defense, Moog did need to spend considerable text to promote that fact it was polyphonic. :o)

Key messages aside, I like these Moog ads for one other reason. Next to the Norlin logo is the text "write us for a free copy of the Moog publication, IMOOGINATION". Moog placed an Imoogination advertisement in earlier issues of CK, and kept the promos running throughout the Moog advertisements that followed. Check out my Imoogination blog post for some more information on the publication.

End note: While doing some online research I came across Don Tillman's Web site. He has a page devoted to Moog patents, including this one for the Minitmoog and Satellite preset synthesizers.

Don describes the page as such:

"I think it is interesting how the guts of some great synthesizer circuitry is described so well in patents, yet not covered in books or articles to any great extent. Sure, patents are the way to protect this sort of intellectual property in a business with some competition, but these patents speak volumes about the approaches the engineers were taking in creating some breakthrough musical instruments. At the very least the patents, as well as other synthesizer patents, supply remarkable lessons in not only how to design analog circuitry, but also in how to build a great musical instrument."

I've never actually taken the time to look at a synthesizer patent - and it was quite interesting to read one (PDF). If that link doesn't work, go to Don's Moog patent content for the Minitmoog, click on the pat2pdf.org link, and type in the patent number (if required). Up comes the PDF.

Neato. I think I might spend a lot of time here.