Minimoog D keyboard trigger query

The Moog Forum Moog Music General Topics Forum
1

I have been fascinated by the minimoog D ever since they first appeared and I plan to make a clone of a one as I can’t afford to buy one, I have never had the opportunity of seeing one up close, I’ve studied all the online documentation I can find, but I need help as I can’t figure out the keyboard.
The service manual diagrams show the trigger connections to the keyboard circuit - I can follow that, but they also show the trigger for the contour board going to a ‘not used’ busbar on the keybed. Any photos of the keybed I’ve found show this bar to be connected to the keyboard plug, pin 5, but not enough detail to work out how the circuitry works. Can someone explain how the contour board triggering works please?
Am I missing something simple here?

2

I believe that “not used” buss goes to ground.

When I was restoring my 951 modular keyboard I also wanted it to double up as my in-built Mini’s keyboard. The 951 has exactly the same buss arrangement only that one is unused, with nothing connected to it. I strapped it to ground and it works.

Hope this helps.
Cheers.
Tom

3

Thanks for that.
If anyone can explain the way it works in the original, I’d be grateful.

4

I remember having read somewhere (or heard in an interview with Bob Moog) that the unused buss bar was to be for an eventual additional “analog velocity” control that was never implemented.

5

Carlos claims to have a Moog controller that is velocity sensitive.

Edit: Yep, check her tribute page to Bob Moog.

6

Carlos’s keyboard was a custom job specifically made for, and by, him…uh, her…whatever! Whereas the keyboard of the Minimoog has always had 3 buss bars, but no “pressure sensor” for depth sensitivity.

I’ve found it, it was an interview with Bill Hemsath (whom I consider the real father of the Minimoog, along with Bob of course but only later on after he was finally convinced to embark on the project) who said:

The Minimoog’s endurance doesn’t mean it was perfect. Hemsath regrets not including velocity sensitivity: “There were three contacts on each key. One was for pitch, but the trigger had both a front and a back contact. We never used the back contact. If we had, we could’ve done velocity sensing.”

Extract from this page :
http://www.keyboardmag.com/gear/1183/the-minimoog-at-40-from-the-dawn-of-the-synth-age-to-new-voyages/27957