Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer

by Frank Trocco and T.J. Pinch

Book Overview

Though ubiquitous today, available as a single microchip and found in any electronic device requiring sound, the synthesizer when it first appeared was truly revolutionary. Something radically new--an extraordinary rarity in musical culture--it was an instrument that used a genuinely new source of sound: electronics. How this came to be--how an engineering student at Cornell and an avant-garde musician working out of a storefront in California...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674016173
• ISBN13: 9780674016170
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.36 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 7.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

A Must for Any Electronic Music Fan!!!

Frank Trocco's book "Analog Days" chronicles the full history of an invention that would change music as we know it today. That invention of course is the synthesizer created by Dr. Robert Moog. This book is loaded with historical information dealing with how the instruments were manufactured as well as details about the artists who were among the Moog synthesizer's first prominent users. Moog pioneers such as Walter/Wendy Carlos, Keith Emerson, Beaver and Krause, Margouleff and Cecil, Mother Mallard and countless others are mentioned in this book. This is definitely THE book to own if you're doing research on the history of electronic music or synthesizers. There is so much information, there's bound to be something new each time you read it. Not only is it a perfect research tool, it's just a plain great book to read. The person writing this review doesn't like to read very much so, for me, this is saying quite a lot. "Analog Days" is a book that does not disappoint and it will be one that you'll want to read over and over again.

If You Moog It They WILL come

From the first moment I heard Switched-On Bach, I was hooked. I loved the sounds, the technology, the possibilities of electronic music. I even saved up and bought a Minimoog when I was thirteen; no greater love have I ever had. The early days of electronics shook many people like it did me. The synthesizer was not just a collection of dials and patch cords, but a way into a sonic universe. Trever Pinch and Frank Trocco's new book, ANALOG DAYS, recaptures that feeling of celestial expectancy. Describing the development of the Moog synthesizer from kit-built theremins to the ubiquitous and glorious Minimoog, the book mainly concentrates on pre-polyphonic modalur synths and how the world embraced them, and then turned them into cheese-making devices a-la "Switched-On Whatever" albums. Pinch and Trocco give us other ways to look at synths: they discuss women synthesists like Suzanne Ciani who never are mentioned in other histories even though Ms. Ciani's synthesized commercial work is probably the heard electronic music ever. Though Moog-centric, the book gives us the background of the Buchla box, a sort of sprout-and-wheat-germ rival to the Moog modulars. While Moog turned the synthesizer into a keyboard instruments, Buchla kept his machines free of established interfaces, and established musical norms. As a sythn-freak, I couldn't put this book down, even though much the material is duplicated in Mark Vail's Vintage Synths. Vail, however, choose to be only a technical historian, while Pinch and Trocco aim for a more cultural view of the events surrounding the shifting of musical boundaries. All your favorites are here; the unexpectedly successful Dr. Moog; the victorious but hubristic ARP company; the offhand eccentricities of EMS and their wonderful VCS3 named by Tristam Cary, son of Joyce Cary, the novelist. Don Buchla haunts the pages too, half Kesian merry-maker, half NASA sub-contractor with his silver, red and blue synths bleeping in the Haight. And good old Keith Emerson's here too, flailing his ribbon controller across the arenas of America. I recommend this book to anyone interested in electronic music, anyone interested in why their microwave talks to them, anyone interested in the history of 1960's. Analog Days also has a really cool cover.

Fascinating insights into a ground-breaking musical movement

Totally recommended. Apart from a little slide into sociological theory towards the end, this is a thoroughly entertaining, authoritative and enthralling look at the world of early synthesizers. My favourite moment is the story of Bob Moog's first major sale of a modular synthesizer. He had to get it to New York City from Buffalo, and in those days, there was one sensible, cost-effective solution: he took the bus. The synthesizer seemed to survive the trip, too.Lovely book.. If you are interested in synthesizers or the histroy of electronic music, BUY IT!!

A Pleasant Read for Synth-heads

I had trouble putting the book down. The book deals with the early days of both Bob Moog's and Don Buchla's entrance into the electronic Music scene of the mid 60's and is so easy to read I would suggest anyone with an interest in these extremely expressive instruments which totally permeate today's music to Read This Book!

Scholarly, yet entertaining...

Published by Harvard University Press, this is unquestionably a scholarly and serious work... yet at times it reads almost like a novel. Kudos to Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco for making this material educational, accessible and enjoyable in all the right ways. As a "serious" collector of Moog LP's (from "Switched on Bach" onward through the late 1970's) with a lot of interest in the history of the Moogs (specifically) and analog synthesizers in general, I found this book to be enlightening in a number of ways, clearing up many things I'd been wondering about. For anyone interested in "the invention and impact of the Moog synthesizer" (and analog synths in general), this book is a must. Highly recommended.