Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer


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Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer

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Though ubiquitous today, available as a single microchip and found in any electronic device requiring sound, the synthesizer when it first appeared was truly revolutionary. Something radically new--an extraordinary rarity in musical culture--it was an instrument that used a genuinely new source of sound: electronics. How this came to be--how an engineering student at Cornell and an avant-garde musician working out of a storefront in California set this revolution in motion--is the story told for the first time in Analog Days, a book that explores the invention of the synthesizer and its impact on popular culture.

The authors take us back to the heady days of the 1960s and early 1970s, when the technology was analog, the synthesizer was an experimental instrument, and synthesizer concerts could and did turn into happenings. Interviews with the pioneers who determined what the synthesizer would be and how it would be used--from inventors Robert Moog and Don Buchla to musicians like Brian Eno, Pete Townshend, and Keith Emerson--recapture their visions of the future of electronic music and a new world of sound.

Tracing the development of the Moog synthesizer from its initial conception to its ascension to stardom in Switched-On Bach, from its contribution to the San Francisco psychedelic sound, to its wholesale adoption by the worlds of film and advertising, Analog Days conveys the excitement, uncertainties, and unexpected consequences of a new technology that would provide the soundtrack for a critical chapter of our cultural history.

(20021114)




    Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer Reviews


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    19 Reviews
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    8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars Scholarly, yet entertaining..., December 27, 2002
    By 
    T.G. (Newcastle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
    Published by Harvard University Press, this is unquestionably a scholarly and serious work... yet at times it reads almost like a novel. Kudos to Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco for making this material educational, accessible and enjoyable in all the right ways.

    As a "serious" collector of Moog LP's (from "Switched on Bach" onward through the late 1970's) with a lot of interest in the history of the Moogs (specifically) and analog synthesizers in general, I found this book to be enlightening in a number of ways, clearing up many things I'd been wondering about. For anyone interested in "the invention and impact of the Moog synthesizer" (and analog synths in general), this book is a must. Highly recommended.

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    8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars If You Moog It They WILL come, May 11, 2003
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    From the first moment I heard Switched-On Bach, I was hooked. I loved the sounds, the technology, the possibilities of electronic music. I even saved up and bought a Minimoog when I was thirteen; no greater love have I ever had. The early days of electronics shook many people like it did me. The synthesizer was not just a collection of dials and patch cords, but a way into a sonic universe.

    Trever Pinch and Frank Trocco's new book, ANALOG DAYS, recaptures that feeling of celestial expectancy. Describing the development of the Moog synthesizer from kit-built theremins to the ubiquitous and glorious Minimoog, the book mainly concentrates on pre-polyphonic modalur synths and how the world embraced them, and then turned them into cheese-making devices a-la "Switched-On Whatever" albums.

    Pinch and Trocco give us other ways to look at synths: they discuss women synthesists like Suzanne Ciani who never are mentioned in other histories even though Ms. Ciani's synthesized commercial... Read more

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    5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
    5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for Any Electronic Music Fan!!!, May 11, 2003
    By 
    Louie Bourland (Garden Grove CA) - See all my reviews
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    Frank Trocco's book "Analog Days" chronicles the full history of an invention that would change music as we know it today. That invention of course is the synthesizer created by Dr. Robert Moog. This book is loaded with historical information dealing with how the instruments were manufactured as well as details about the artists who were among the Moog synthesizer's first prominent users. Moog pioneers such as Walter/Wendy Carlos, Keith Emerson, Beaver and Krause, Margouleff and Cecil, Mother Mallard and countless others are mentioned in this book. This is definitely THE book to own if you're doing research on the history of electronic music or synthesizers. There is so much information, there's bound to be something new each time you read it. Not only is it a perfect research tool, it's just a plain great book to read. The person writing this review doesn't like to read very much so, for me, this is saying quite a lot.
    "Analog Days" is a book that does not disappoint and it... Read more
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