Robert Moog

In 1953, Moog produced his own theremin design, and in the following year, he published an article on the theremin in Radio and Television News. That same year, he founded R.A. Moog Co., selling theremins and theremin kits by mail order from his home as he completed his education.[2][7] His customer Raymond Scott rewired the Moog theremin to be controlled by a keyboard, dubbing his creation the Clavivox.[4]

A Moog synthesizer

At Cornell, Moog began work on his first synthesizer components with composer Herb Deutsch.[8] At the time, synthesizers were enormous, room-filling instruments;[9] Moog hoped to build a more compact synthesizer that would appeal to musicians.[8] He believed that practicality and affordability were the most important parameters.[8]

In 1964, Moog began creating the Moog modular synthesizer.[8] It was composed of separate modules that created and shaped sounds, connected by patch cords.[2] Previous synthesizers, such as the RCA Mark II, had created sound from hundreds of vacuum tubes.[10] Instead, Moog used recently available silicon transistors with an exponential relationship between input voltage and output current. With these, he created the voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO), which generates a waveform with a pitch that could be adjusted by changing the voltage. Similarly, he used voltage to control loudness with voltage-controlled amplifiers (VCAs).[11] One innovative feature was its envelope, which controls how notes swell and fade.[4] According to the Guardian, Moog's 1964 paper Voltage-Controlled Music Modules, in which he proposed the Moog synthesizer modules, invented the modern concept of the analog synthesizer.[12]

Moog debuted the instrument at the 1964 Audio Engineering Society convention in New York.[9] It was much smaller than other synthesizers, such as the RCA Synthesizer introduced a decade earlier, and much cheaper, at US$10,000, as compared to the six-figure sums of other synthesizers.[9] Whereas the RCA Synthesizer was programmed with punchcards, Moog's synthesizer could be programmed with knobs and patch cables and played via keyboard, making it attractive to musicians.[9] New Scientist described it as the first commercial synthesizer.[13]

Moog described himself as a toolmaker designing things for his users, not himself.[2] His development was driven by requests and suggestions from various musicians, including Deutsch (who devised the instrument's keyboard interface), Richard Teitelbaum, Vladimir Ussachevsky (credited with devising the ADSR envelope shape), and Wendy Carlos.[2] His other early customers included choreographer and composer Alwin Nikolais and composer John Cage.[8] Universities established electronic music studios with Moog synthesizers.[2] In 1970, Moog released the portable fixed-architecture Minimoog, described as the most famous and influential synthesizer in history.[14][15][16]

Though commentators have praised Moog's engineering abilities, some have also described him as a poor businessman.[4][8] Moog had pursued the development of his synthesizer as a hobby, stressing that he was regarded as a businessman but had not known what a balance sheet was.[17] He likened the experience to a theme park ride: "You know you're not going to get hurt too badly because nobody would let you do that, but you're not quite in control."[17]

Moog only patented his filter design; David Borden, one of the first users of the Minimoog, felt that if Moog had patented his pitch wheel design, he would have become extremely wealthy.[16] According to Sound on Sound, if Moog had created a monopoly on other synthesizer ideas that he created, such as modularity, envelope generation and voltage control, "it's likely the synth industry as we know it today would never have happened."[18]

Beginning in 1971, Moog Music absorbed investors, merged with Norlin Musical Instruments and moved to "less than ideal" premises near Buffalo, New York, amid a debilitating recession.[8] Moog remained employed as a designer at the company until 1977.[2] He said that he would have left earlier if his contract had not required him to remain employed there for four years to cash his stock.[8] By the end of the decade, Moog Music was facing competition from cheaper, easier-to-use instruments by competitors including ARP, Aries, Roland, and E-mu.[19]

A mural depicting Moog in Asheville, North Carolina

In 1978, Moog moved to North Carolina and founded a new electronic instrument company, Big Briar.[2] He also worked as a consultant and vice president for new product research at Kurzweil Music Systems from 1984 to 1988.[9] In the early 1990s, he was a research professor of music at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.[20] In 2002, he renamed Big Briar to Moog Music after retrieving the rights to the name.[2] In later years, he continued to design electronic instruments, including a touchscreen-operated piano.[4]

The Moogseum

On July 18, 2013, Moog's widow Ileana Grams-Moog announced plans to donate Moog's archives, maintained by the Bob Moog Foundation, to Cornell University. The foundation offered her $100,000 but Grams-Moog would not sell the archives. She felt that Cornell could provide better access for researchers and that the foundation had not made enough progress toward a planned museum to be worthy of maintaining the collection. The foundation responded that it had sufficiently preserved the collection and had made efforts to improve storage, although it could not yet afford to build the museum.[26]

In August 2019, the Bob Moog Foundation opened the Moogseum, a museum dedicated to Moog's work, in Asheville, North Carolina. The displays include rare theremins, prototype synthesizer modules and Moog's documents.[27]

Moog has been the subject of books about his life and work, including the 2004 book Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer by Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco and the 2023 biography Switched On: Bob Moog and the Synthesizer Revolution by Albert Glinsky. Moog had contributed the foreword to Glinsky's first book, Theremin: Ether Music and Espionage, about Leon Theremin, who was a principal inspiration to Moog.[28]

Moog was also the subject of Moog, a 2004 documentary directed by Hans Fjellestad, who said that Moog "embodies the archetypal American maverick inventor."[19]