Hilary999 wrote:Norlin created various synthesizers under the Moog name in the late 1970s, yet they were less fruitful than Robert Moog's own particular plans.
I wouldn't say so. They produced The Source, which was and is a great sounding Moog synth, the Prodigy, which was produced at 11000 units, and also the Memorymoog, which was a stunning polyphonic machine (despite all its shortcomings), and even outsourced to Radio Shack with the MG-1, another very popular and affordable little synth with a great sound. The only "failure" was the Polymoog. Not because it wasn't a great machine, but the R&D astronomical cost (that proprietary Polycom custom chip design) wasn't recouped with sales.
Bob Moog only really designed the initial modular systems and, much later, the Voyager. Every other Moog Music synth was designed by someone else based on Bob's ladder filter and oscillators. The Minimoog was the brainchild of Bill Hemsath. The Source, Memorymoog, Prodigy, The Rogue, Taurus (1 and 2), and Liberation, which kept Moog Music alive during the late seventies and early eighties, were all designed in large part by Dave Luce and his team. Ironically it was also a synth designed mainly by Luce that sank the company, the Polymoog.
Maybe that's the reason why the current Moog Music is reluctant to go into the polyphonic synth market, yet again ?