(to properly enjoy this piece you should run out and get Ray Badbury’s novel Dandelion Wine, and read the bit in the beginning about new sneakers and dandelion wine.)
New Robert Moog documentary being made, go download the preview. A “true american maverick” doesn’t half sum up this man’s genius or luck. Moog and Buchla took synths out of the prototype stage in the university and private research labs and to the people. Well, Moog did, Buchla mostly took them to the hipster academics. For almost twenty years, Moog’s name was synonymous with synth. Which doesn’t mean they were the best out there, they were full of weird design choices and now outdated design practices. Frankly, some of them were just plain flaky. Until he sold the company, all his instruments were uniquely his. There were more modular and more controllable synths (Serge and Buchla), better laid out synths (ARP) and cheaper (Roland). But I still want one. as Dean always points out, nothing sound like a Moog. And there is the nostalgia factor. When Walter Carlos came out with Switched On Bach, I was hooked, it was new it was The Way The Future Was Going To Be (with apologies to Fred Pohl).
Introduce new low end and mid segment pricing or models on the Powermacs, before your bizniz dries up and blows away–iPod and ITMS sales will only support you until the record companies jack the prices.