Moog Polymoog Synthesizer reference sheet, 1980

Moog Polymoog Synthesizer reference sheet from 1980.

Someone asked me if I had any type of reference sheet for the Polymoog Synthesizer. I love requests! :o) This one is part of a large family of reference sheets that Moog printed in 1980.

I've seen scans of the front of this reference sheet on the Web in a few places, including dubsounds.com and isaotomita.net, but the back of the sheet is harder to come by. Sure, the front of this reference sheet has a beautiful photo of a Polymoog Synthesizer, but it is the back of this sheet that provides all the juicy reference information you have ever needed. All in one location.

If the saying 'more than the sum of its parts' is true, then the Polymoog must be one hell of an instrument. Of particular interest to me, and apparently a few others, is the very very unique Resonator section (section 13 in the reference sheet).

Ken Elhardt describes it as a "3-band 'Resonator' section that allows Formant-Filtering in addition to its dynamic Filters". And he should know. He took the Resonator section out of his Polymoog (Gaah!) to create a stand-alone unit. And although it hurts me plenty to see the guts ripped out of any synthesizer, his Youtube video is a great demonstration of a disembodied Resonator in action.

Jürgen Haible went one step further and created a printed circuit board that recreated the Resonator circuit. The page also includes an audio sample he made with his prototype. Check out some of his other projects (PCBs, synthesizers and music!) on his Web site.

So, you may be asking - what did Ken do to the rest of that Polymoog once the guts were ripped out and sold off? Well, Ken made it into a coffee table.

No, seriously. It even has drawers. You can find more links to pictures of it on MATRIXSYNTH.

I just don't know if I find this beautiful or horrific. Probably both. My crafty-blogger girlfriend described it as an excellent example of 'down-cycling'. :o)

Moog Polymoog Synthesizer, Contemporary Keyboard 1977

Moog Polymoog Synthesizer ad from page 5 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine June 1977.

This is the second Polymoog ad to show up in CK, running in a few issues between June and September 1977, during the time that Moog had a monopoly on page 5 (which was most of 1977). Great real estate if you can get it - right across from the "Letters" section. I scanned and uploaded the first ad back in June of last year. That post also included the description of the machine from the Spec Sheet section of CK.

While recently speaking with an acquaintance at my local music store hang-out, we got onto the topic of the Polymoog. How cool it was that the Polymoog was *fully* polyphonic and had a touch sensitive keyboard. But when we started talking about the editing features, I soon realized we were talking about two totally different instruments. When I asked him to clarify whether we were talking about the Polymoog Synthesizer or the Polymoog Keyboard, he looked at me with a blank face.

We took over one of the audio editing demo computers and started surfing around so I could show him the differences.

Wikipedia's Polymoog page is quite good for some basic info (compared to some of Wikipedia's other synthesizer pages) and pretty much sums it up. Basically, the name Polymoog can either refer to the original Polymoog Synthesizer or the largely pre-set Polymoog Keyboard. The latter was basically a stripped-down version of the first, similar in appearance and sharing the same case and keyboard.

You can compare the image of the Polymoog Synthesizer from this ad and the one on Wikipedia with an image of the Polymoog Keyboard from this blog post. You can definitely tell there are quite a few differences.

In short, the big differences I found on the Web are:

Model number:
Polymoog Synthesizer - 203a
Polymoog Keyboard - 280a

Release date:
Synthesizer- 1976 (some sites say 1975).
Keyboard- 1978.

Price:
Synthesizer: $5295.00 US
Keyboard: $3995.00 US
*According to synthfool.com's 1979 Moog price list.

Pre-sets:
Synthesizer- Eight: strings, piano, organ, harpsichord, funk, clav, vibes, and brass.
Keyboard- Fourteen: vox humana, string 1, string 2, electric piano, piano, honky tonky, clav, harpsi, brass, chorus brass, pipe organ, rock organ, vibes, and funk.

Controls - right side of panel
Looking at the right-side of the front panel, the Synthesizer had a full section of controls that the Keyboard was missing. This included extensive controls for loudness contour, resonators (low, medium and high controls) and voltage controlled filter (cutoff, Q, modulation and envelope controls).

Controls - left side of panel
The left-side of the front panel had a few controls in common. Both had pitch and beat controls, as well as octave balance (volume for low, middle, and high octaves of keyboard). But that is where the similarities ended.

The Synthesizer had a host of other editing controls in the right-hand side: external keyboard glide control, master gain controls, and extensive oscillator modulation sections that included controls for sawtooth FM/rectangular FM/PM, rectangular (pulse width) shape/mod, and sawtooth levels.

The Keyboard version only had some simple hi-pass filtering, attack rate, and basic modulation controls.

There are a number of Web sites out there with some good basic information, including Vintage Synth Explorer and synthmuseum.com.

But the *best* Polymoog site I have ever found has got to be Dubsounds Polymoog Owners Club, "dedicated to owners and enthusiasts of Moog Polymoog 203a and 280a synthesizers". It has the most comprehensive history of the Polymoog that I've seen anywhere, a great scan of the manual, and much more.

Definitely check it out.

Oberheim Synthesizer Expander Module, Contemporary Keyboard 1976

Oberheim Synthesizer Expander Module (SEM) from page 17 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine November/December 1976.

This ad ran only a handful of times in CK magazine with the last appearance I could find occurring in September 1977.

As mentioned in my previous blog post, I'm kind of playing catch-up with older Oberheim ads, mostly because of my inexperience with their early polyphonic systems. But this ad strips the system down to the 'basic component' - the Synthesizer Expander Module, aka SEM. And I've always loved the SEM.

Vintagesynth.com has an SEM page with a bit of tech info if you want to learn more about the module, but basically the SEM was a keyboard-less monophonic synthesizer module, used to beef up the sound of other manufacturer's synthesizers. I always loved the sound of the SEM - and I can still recall the first time I heard one in my friend's basement. That same basement where I came across many of my first synthesizer catalogues and a certain someone's custom built modular synthesizer.

More importantly though, The SEM was also the building block to begin your journey to creating a polyphonic Two-, Four- and Eight-voice system. And as mentioned in the ad, if you already had one SEM and were ready to take the polyphonic plunge - no problem - you could even buy the entry-level Two-Voice system with only one SEM installed, so you could pop your SEM right in next to it.

According to synthmuseum.com's Two-Voice page, the original Oberheim Two-Voice started out as an incomplete Four-Voice with two SEM modules missing. The 'fixed-configuration' Two-Voice, as seen in the ad photo, didn't make it into production until 1976.

End note: I know I mentioned it before in a blog post I wrote about Oberheim's Ten Year Anniversary advertisement from 1980, but I thought I would expand a bit on Tom Oberheim's jump back into the synth business by reissuing his SEM module. To quote from his Web site:

"The new SEM is pretty much the same as the original, that is to say 100% analog! True voltage controlled oscillators, the classic SEM multi-mode filter, analog VCA, analog envelope generators and LFO. Did I say it is 100% analog? In fact, I made the circuitry as close to the original as possible."

According to the audiomidi.com Web site, a new SEM module, with midi-cv conversion, goes for $899.00 US. This ad tells us that an SEM in 1976 went for $695 - that converts to approximately $2200.00 US today.

Not a bad deal - time to pick one up! :o)

Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer Programmer, Contemporary Keyboard 1976

Oberheim Polyphonic Synthesizer Programmer from page 19 of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine September/October 1976.

This ad was the first by Oberheim in CK magazine to feature the Polyphonic Synthesizer Programmer. And it must have been a very new addition to the Oberheim family of add-ons for their polyphonic systems because the programmer wasn't included in the Oberheim family ad that ran just two months prior. But Oberheim must have known it was coming because they left a nice little square of empty space (with the most awesome logo in the business) on both the Four- and Eight-Voice synthesizers in that earlier ad photo.

I've really been ignoring my early Oberheim ads lately - probably because most of their early ads were for the Two-, Four-, and Eight-Voice systems, and even though I've played with SEM modules over the years, I've never known much about the complete polyphonic systems, and in particular how the programmer integrated into them.

The February 1977 issue of CK included a description of the programmer in the Spec Sheet section:

"Designed to function with the Oberheim 4- and 8-voice polyphonic synthesizers, the programmer allows the performer to store patches in a memory unit. The controllable parameters can be set and stored separately for each Expander Module in the synthesizer. Sixteen complete programs can be stored."

Mark Vail's Vintage Synthesizers book adds that it "enabled the user to store the knob settings of the voltage-controlled parameters of each module. It was the first programmer of its type made available to the public".

The book also gives a bit of technical detail about the connections, stating that SEM modules connected to "some sort of master programming device" through colour-coded connectors located on the circuit board.

I took a look on the Web to try and find some photos of the circuit boards, and Google search didn't disappoint. Siliconbreakdown.com has some good hi-res shots of the innards of a programmer - but I didn't notice any colour-coding - but I don't know much about circuit boards either :o)

Now, some might say that this is quite the round-about-way to get polyphonic sound/patching out of individual monophonic synthesizer modules. And according to the book Vintage Synthesizers, it was. Initially, Oberheim considered themselves in the accessory business with the SEM - figuring musicians would use it mostly as a tone generator for the their sequencer or to fatten up other manufacturer's synthesizers. But circumstances with cash flow dictated that they come up with some new products rather quickly, and so they combined the SEM modules with a keyboard, simple sequencer, and later the programmer.

And, like any good marketing department should have done, the ad copy really plays to the strengths of this type of system:

"Complaints about the inability to patch quickly while on stage or in the studio, the creative barriers of pre-set instruments, and the burden of carrying six or more keyboards are now over."

Not a bad way to get started in the polyphonic synthesizer business.

Moog Interface newsletter, Vol. 1 Sept. 1980

[PDF version]

Moog Interface newsletter, Vol. 1 Sept. 1980.

I've been scanning some newsletters slowly over time so I could draw on them when I'm having a busy time at work. And, it is perfect timing since I recently saw a flurry of activity when a few of these went up on eBay.

This is a fabulous newsletter - from the font used for 'Interface' to the paper it is printed on. But, content is king, and this newsletter contains some great stuff. Here's my top 10 list:

10. Liberation 'action' shot on the front page
9. Describes Moog's process of pre-aging integrated circuit boards in ovens as weeding out "infant mortality"
8. Chick Corea's hair
7. Pushin' synths on school children - "for the cost of a sax, you can own a Micromoog"
6. Font used for 'Interface'
5. Photo of Marty Jourard from The Motels.
4. You can tour their Buffalo factory
3. The Los Angeles Times cartoon - "Thank you. But 'our song' needs a Moog synthesizer. MINE REALLY DOES!
2. Photo of Devo on the set of their 'Girl U Want' video
1. Contest to win a Moog Satin Flight Jacket

While writing that top 10, I did a quick comparison to the ARP newsletter I blogged about late last year. The first thing I noticed was that both are strictly a black and white print job on a thicker stock paper. Start reading, and you find very similar content too, including Q&A sections, news and photos of famous users (name droppin'!), and a splash of technical info.

But, not sure if that is a fair comparison - a 1980 Moog newsletter to a 1974 ARP newsletter.

So, I decided to pull out an ARP newsletter from June 1980 and see how they stacked up. I don't want to give too much away, since I'll be posting that ARP newsletter in the near future, but one thing did make me a little jealous for the '80s... both newsletters are giving away flashy SATIN JACKETS!

I may have to sport my flashy satin jacket at work tomorrow!