# Minimoog

The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popular with progressive rock and jazz musicians and found wide use in disco, pop, rock and electronic music.
Production of the Minimoog stopped in the early 1980s after the sale of Moog Music. In 2002, founder Robert Moog regained the rights to the Moog brand, bought the company, and released an updated version of the Minimoog, the Minimoog Voyager. In 2016 and in 2022, Moog Music released another new version of the original Minimoog.

## Quotes about the Minimoog

* Could it have been any other instrument? The Minimoog is the classic vintage synthesizer and with good reason. Its design is the template that influences synthesizer manufacturers to this day.
** Scot Solida of MusicRadar (May 26, 2022)
* [The Minimoog's] illustrious career in the '70s added otherworldly sounds to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, pseudo-strings on Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love,” and a mechanical lyricism to Kraftwerk's “Autobahn,” which helped define the sound of the decade.
** Jay Laughton of Reverb.com (March 02, 2016)
* Though many instruments are said to be possessed of a special and elusive character, the Minimoog really has it, and then some. The oscillators are rich, and the envelopes are snappy, if simple. Its highs are piercing and crystal clear, and the bass has rightfully become the stuff of legend. It's big, ballsy and its nigh on impossible to make the thing sound bad!
** Scot Solida of MusicRadar (May 26, 2022)
* There was an awful lot to shout about. Firstly, the Mini adopted a form that made it truly engaging. Its panel and fascia could be propped up at an angle, which invited the user to get creative with sound, with a 37-note keyboard for instant playability. Unlike just about all predecessors, the Minimoog was not modular, or even semi-modular, meaning that patch cables were not required. Users often described its power, which for the first time offered something to keyboard players that could truly compete with the guitarist in the band!
** Computer Music of Music Radar (Juner 26, 2024)
* The Moog Minimoog Model D [is] probably the most famous synthesizer of all time. It represents the shift from the cabinet-sized modular synths of the 1960s to the 'all-in-one' portable designs of the 1970s, which offered a keyboard with knobs and sliders in one convenient, self-contained package. Replacing the infinite complexity and patch-cables of modulars with hard-wired switches and sliders, the design of the Minimoog set the standard pattern for the following generation of similarly designed portable analogue synths.
** Oli Freke of Mixmag (April 26, 2021)
* Thanks to the Minimoog, electronic music was pulled down from its lofty academic perch and allowed to run free among the uncouth and unruly, and thank goodness for that. Maybe we should thank Bill Hemsath, the Moog employee who spent his lunch hours in the attic, kludging together the first Minimoog from bits and bobs from Moog's massive modular systems. He just wanted a portable instrument he could take home.
** Scot Solida of MusicRadar (May 26, 2022)