Keith Emerson and his famous moog…anyone seen it? It is a fantastic peice of equipment and VERY impressive…and imo produces a fantastic sound. long live the moog! 
Seen it? I PLAYED it at winter NAMM2001. Monster Cables had it on display patch up with a rainbow assortment of monster cables. Keith’s tech Will Alexander was at the show, showed up while we were there, and let us play it. Boy did it sound HUGE.
WOW MC 
That must have been AMAZING to play Mr Emerson’s moog - I’ve heard it called the world’s most ‘dangerous’ synth - so it must sound pretty awesome in the flesh!!
Do you own the MMV software? If so how does it compare to the real thing??
play…played it?..well…i mean…WOW…how cool would that be? Hey, id just like to play the piano like Keith Emerson! But that Moog is a peice of genious! If i remember correctly, it was never intended to be played on stage! Mind you, a Hammond Organ was never intended to have knives rammed into it either!
Just in case anybody has any doubts 
http://www.modularsynth.com/NAMM2001review.htm
Yeah, playing and hearing the thing in the flesh was a highlight of that NAMM show. Very very cool. I’ve never heard anything so huge on just two VCOs.
I don’t have the MMV software so I can’t comment on comparisions.
I think the URL should be http://www.modularsynth.com/NAMM2001review.html - cheers
Oops, thanks for the correction. The cut-n-paste was botched.
You’re welcome !!
I read that Keith Emerson’s modular was first built for Herb Deutsch’s “Jazz in the Garden” concert in '69 and that there were three others like it. Dr. Moog designed the preset boxes to make it easier to change parches. [This was when it wasn’t half as massive as it is, today.]
I’ve been fascinated by this system since I was twenty and read Mark Vail’s book, Vintage Synthesizers. I was astounded by the stories Will Alexander, Gene Stopp and Dr. Moog had to tell. I’m a tad green to know that it still gets displayed and demoed at NAMM shows and that people can play it.
[Not to mention, you can possibly buy a brand new synth similar to it.]
I’m also interested to know if Emerson DOES still play this synth onstage, today.
Eric Benjamin Gordon.[/i]
Yup, Emerson still uses it on stage. There was another thread here somewhere with pics from his reunion tour with The Nice.
He sold both his Yamaha GX-1s and a lot of other gear, but kept the rickety old modular
Yes, keith still plays it live . . . went to see him and the Nice play in south London last wednesday - fantastic other then the monster moog going down half way through Tarkus, bleep, bloop, no sound at all . . . . then as the 20 minute opus came to an end the modular kicked back into life and keith did a 5 minute improv as both sequencers ran frantically out of time with each other, getting faster and faster while Will Alexander rushed out from behind to stop them and change the preset. Eventually Keith ended by holding huge manic chords down on the GEM Promega3, Hammond and Triton88 . . . it was noisy!
Like the book said, “Sometimes, the Moog has fought back.”
Emo’s latest comments on the Moog that got left out in the rain:
“Having brought “The Worlds Most Deadly Synth” - otherwise known as The Big Moog Modular System - out of storage, making it the playable monolith to the extent that it could make the most constipated become incontinent and leap for the nearest receptacle while blowing the eyebrows off a wasp at 40 feet provided further inspiration.”
The thing is a museum relic and not much more.
“The thing is a museum relic and not much more”.
I recently visited a small museum in Greater London which exhibits a very fine selection of musical “relics” through the ages . . . coming into the 1970’s there was a perfect condition Oberheim 4 voice, moog multimoog and Prodigy and various homebrew modular systems . . . all behind glass, untouchable and unplayable.
Now I don’t see the point in this as all musical instruments should be played and having heard Keith’s Monster Moog recently, this is no museum relic . . . . If I could patch together all my vintage analogue kit and get the same powerful sound as that modular I would be very happy.
Perhaps I should qualify my statement:
The thing is a notoriously unreliable and inconsistent museum relic that looks cool and sounds totally fantastic when it decides it wants to work for a short while.
I do understand what you are saying . . . and having experienced the moog “going down” mid show I would agree but for 95% of the gig she sounded great and when it did come back to life it was like a showy temperamental musician wanting to hog the limelight - just another member of the band.
Keith without the monster moog is like Rick without the cape . . . excellent musicianship but no theatre spectacle, so I’m happy that he still drags the relic around (as the sounds coming from his Pro-mega 3 and Triton88 were a bit crap).
When Keith played the Moog at Newcastle a few weeks ago…it sounded unbelievable. Considering it hadnt been played for years, keiths keyboard tech did really well to get the beast running…also considering it is an incredibly sensitive peice of equipment i think its incredible…museum disply…HECK NO
The sounds he was getting from the Apollo/Modular/Minimoog setup back in '74 were THE BEST KEYBOARDS SOUNDS EVER!
Listening to Live In Poland '97 I was dismayed at the cheesy sounds Keith was using for Karn Evil 9. I don’t understand why he doesn’t recreate the original sounds on the Moog in a controlled environment and then sample them into a keyboard, rather than coming up with really lame presets on today’s digital synths. But then that would be tedious and time consuming and would demand a bit of patience.
I wish I could hear ELP in concert, sometime. Then, I could finally grasp how incredible the modular monster really is. From what I’ve already heard of them on disc / mp3’s, I doubt that Keith could get the same response that he’s gotten from any Moog synth, if its sound was sampled onto a digital instrument. That’s got to be why the thing still towers so majestically above whatever else he’s using.
Just my opinion.