Back in high school, "Do Moogs" became one of my catch phrases. It came as a response to the phrases "Do bongs", "Do bowls", and "Do joints" that I often saw written on some desks. (I stayed clean through high school. If there was any pot smoking done by my fellow students, I was completely oblivious to it, and I was never invited to partake.)


So what is the philosophy behind this catch phrase? In my opinion, Nothing beats the high of spending an afternoon in the recording studio, creating new sounds with a synthesizer. A good synth gives you many controls to generate and shape a sound, from the waveform of the oscillator, to the volume controls of the mixer, to the ADSR (attack/decay/sustain/release) envelope controls of the filter, to the volume of the output. I can easily spend hours at a time, twiddling and tweaking the knobs, just to get a sound I'm searching for. And when I realize it.... Eureka! nothing beats that feeling of creating a new sound.

While the newer synths will allow a patch to be saved, the older analog synths (such as my beloved Minimoog) don't have that capability. I have to write down each knob setting on a patch sheet, which contains the same knobs and controls that are on the synth. Since getting my Minimoog in 1983, I've come up with nearly 80 sound patches. Some are lead/solo sounds, some are bass sounds, and some are sound-effects sounds. I should record (in audio form) what these patches sound like.