Awesome promo film Moog! This film was a reminder to me just how carefree and easygoing life was in the 70’s and then boom!..the 80’s came and life as we know changed forever, lol - est. 1971
This is awesome! I started school in 1975, 1976 i was given my first LP record, music was even then like a treat kids couldn't wait to taste with their ears.
This was a great technological achievement and was fully polyphonic, with every key always live. But the oscillators sounded rather thin compared to a MiniMoog, and the reliability of it was very bad, due to the technical complexity and some design issues (especially the keyboard). Except for the 8 pre-wired presets, it had no presets, and changing sounds took time. Basically, the Prophet 5 (a somewhat polyphonic MiniMoog with presets) was what users really wanted, which is why it was a much greater market success. Moog agreed, eventually producing the MemoryMoog and Moog One. The most famous sound on the PolyMoog was the "Vox Humana" choir, but this wasn't on the original. It was introduced on the stripped down PolyMoog keyboard (introduced in 1977), which had 14 presets, but lost most of the other controls. Many current users have replaced one of the original presets with the later Vox Humana preset board. Incidentally, the PolyMoog sold for $5,200, which is about $26,000 in 2021 dollars. So it definitely wasn't cheap.
With the popularity of the SCI Prophet, the price of Moog 203A's dropped as dealers needed to liquidate old stock I got mine (serial number 1254) new for $3700 Canadian. With the right chorus delay and paying attention to settings, the old Moog created very dreamy sounds that made quite a reputation for me, 1980 to 1984.
I can remember seeing this years ago, possibly on vimeo or maybe even here. The print was in better condition (how about a colour correct and restoration please, ladies & gents? ) and it's always those 'VITAMIN STAR JUMPS' at the beginning, that make me smile. Magic stuff ! Am I correct in assuming that this has been released here as a worthy preamble to an upcoming polyphonic moog synthesizer, which is about to see the light of day quite soon? ✊
I remember how highly anticipated that instrument was, and I remember listening carefully to Stevie Wonder's "Songs In the Key of Life" to hear it (one of the first big record releases to feature it). The music production company I worked for bought one early on, and I got to spend a lot of time playing it. In all seriousness, after the initial excitement (because of all of the hype), I (and a lot of other players I knew) weren't that impressed with it. It was kind of a glorified electronic organ. The basic tone production was very organ-like, with just an added filter and VCA on each note. Kind of a glorified ARP Omni. In some ways, the ARP Omni strings sound was more useable. We didn't really have a polyphonic synthesizer until Oberheim and Sequential Circuits products hit the market.
Wow! They were really selling this thing weren't they? I guess the CS-80 was not good enough? I have had a Polymoog and I chose to keep my CS-80. Both are engineering nightmares.
