Ok ... this is going to be a bit lengthy ...
The Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA has a special exhibition honoring Robert Moog! Could not have picked a more perfect time to go!
The permanent displays were very interesting, but of the most interest to this group were the theremins and related items.
The first of these you encounter is a RCA which, sadly, was not operational. Around it are several things from late 1920s to early 1930s ... an Atwater Kent radio with speaker, several power amps and early electic instruments. Steel guitars dominated these, but there was an electric violin from around the same time.
The Moog displays featured all or most of the theremins that I have only seen pictures of as well as some old Ampex reel-to-reel decks and various synthesizer products. Being the gear and engineer geek that I am, I really appreciated the lab notes, schematics and prototypes on display! Also they had a video (think it was the tribute one) that featured clips of Lev, Clara and Bob. I particularly liked the clip where Lev opened up the back of his theremin. I am hoping that is on the video that I bought so I can freeze that frame and print it out to scrutinize.
At the end of the Moog exhibit they had Keith Emerson's monster synth ... pretty sure that was the one I saw onstage at an ELP concert in the 1970s.
At the very end of the exhibit they had a hands on area. There were a couple of Etherwaves. I could not get much out of the working one. It seemed to only have high-register sounds and a very short playing field regardless of the setting of the pitch knob. But Randy (my violinist wife) seemed to be able to get something out of it and was trying to follow the instructions Lydia Kavina was giving in the video that was playing above them.
I tried the Moog guitar ... just not my cup of tea :(
Ironically, even though I am a guitar player, the thing of most interest was this little Roland drum synth (HDP-15 I think). As they had it set up, the center pad had the distinctive "ca" sound you get from hitting the rim of a dumbek and the two lower pads were set to "dum" sounds. The buttons arranged radially above the pads had pitches attached to them. So I had a great time playing middle eastern-sounding things on it. I WANT ONE! But when I looked it up online at home I saw that on sale they were going for $1000! Way too much for a "toy".
Don
The Museum of Making Music in Carlsbad, CA has a special exhibition honoring Robert Moog! Could not have picked a more perfect time to go!
The permanent displays were very interesting, but of the most interest to this group were the theremins and related items.
The first of these you encounter is a RCA which, sadly, was not operational. Around it are several things from late 1920s to early 1930s ... an Atwater Kent radio with speaker, several power amps and early electic instruments. Steel guitars dominated these, but there was an electric violin from around the same time.
The Moog displays featured all or most of the theremins that I have only seen pictures of as well as some old Ampex reel-to-reel decks and various synthesizer products. Being the gear and engineer geek that I am, I really appreciated the lab notes, schematics and prototypes on display! Also they had a video (think it was the tribute one) that featured clips of Lev, Clara and Bob. I particularly liked the clip where Lev opened up the back of his theremin. I am hoping that is on the video that I bought so I can freeze that frame and print it out to scrutinize.
At the end of the Moog exhibit they had Keith Emerson's monster synth ... pretty sure that was the one I saw onstage at an ELP concert in the 1970s.
At the very end of the exhibit they had a hands on area. There were a couple of Etherwaves. I could not get much out of the working one. It seemed to only have high-register sounds and a very short playing field regardless of the setting of the pitch knob. But Randy (my violinist wife) seemed to be able to get something out of it and was trying to follow the instructions Lydia Kavina was giving in the video that was playing above them.
I tried the Moog guitar ... just not my cup of tea :(
Ironically, even though I am a guitar player, the thing of most interest was this little Roland drum synth (HDP-15 I think). As they had it set up, the center pad had the distinctive "ca" sound you get from hitting the rim of a dumbek and the two lower pads were set to "dum" sounds. The buttons arranged radially above the pads had pitches attached to them. So I had a great time playing middle eastern-sounding things on it. I WANT ONE! But when I looked it up online at home I saw that on sale they were going for $1000! Way too much for a "toy".
Don