Minimoog

I mean, it's, it's everything from, so, uh, in, in the very early days when all I had was a Rhodes and a, and a secondhand mini Moog, I would be literally going on stage before we went on stage and with a long, thin screwdriver trying to get the unisons on the mini Moog, because they would have drifted between the sound check and the gig forever.

Um, I wish I'd kept that bloody Minimoog cause it was, you know, it was an early Mark Minimoog and how they, they, they changed in iteration.

I mean, I've got a, I've got one from 1979 now, which was better because it stayed more in tune and it's still got great sound.

But, you know, I've played other mini Moogs, which are particularly fat in a particular area.

A billion years later, I'm recording at Remote Farm and...

I see this Minimoog in the back of the studio, leaned up against a wall behind a Marshall amp or something.

And I, you know, I just picked it up and asked the engineer, hey, can we plug this in? He says, oh, well, you know, it needs calibration.

We don't really have time.

Because any time that I didn't have a synthesizer, that's exactly the sound we needed.

So people would say, show up for a Minimoog.

In fact, I have a story about that.

We're almost to Lionel.

Baby.

let me show how much i love you baby

I was able to take the Minimoog and put it in, because I had to send out for the foot pedal, which I didn't have, and I didn't have my Modular 15.

And so I took and put, if you'll listen to that sound, it has a real, it has a... at the beginning of it, and then it has a at it at the beginning of it as well.

And I've sent you a picture, by the way.

I was on stage with Kirk and I had a mini Moog and a few synths.

And I was so buzzing.

I was so buzzing.

And Bod's head got pushed by a punter and got used as a football.

All around the stage, the guy was left on stilts.

And I fell off the back of the stage, taking the Mini Moog with me.

And by the way, I never got the Mini Moog back.

The band had to make some adjustments.

Brent brought synthesizers, Prophet 5, Mini Moog, stuff Keith never touched.

Keith was piano on electric piano, that's it.

Brent's got this whole rig of synths and effects, different sonic palette entirely.

It was a fascinating cultural collision.

You had the Beatles' dream team, including iconic engineer Jeff Emerick, stepping into air studios with four new romantics, armed to the teeth with cutting-edge tech like the PPG Wave, Minimoog, ARP Odyssey and the EMU Emulator.

Midyear later noted that while internal tensions were marring the band's sessions, George Martin was the consummate gentleman who smoothed things over and steered them towards a tighter, more mainstream-friendly mix.

Interestingly, while the final album version of Hip carried a glistening radio-ready finish, the track actually had deep roots in the band's history.

Um, and I think that was...

Oh, and then synth-wise, um, Oberheim, I have an Ober- Oberheim OB-X, and a Prophet 5, and a Juno 60, and a Minimoog, and those things probably got the most use of any of the synths, um, on the record.

Yeah.

And yeah.

It's a massive, chaotic, hybrid ecosystem.

He's using analog gear, the Roland drum machines, the TB-303 synthesizer, which creates those liquid squelchy filter sweeps that define acid house, and the Minimoog for incredibly thick, fat sounds.

Classic analog hardware.

Right.

Well, in some ways traded up.

Like, who needs a Minimoog when you have a giant Moog modular, which is the original-

Yeah

... and the king of the hill? It still sounds better than everything made today.

That's an amazing machine, and they're very rare.

Um, 'cause yeah, 'cause I, I, I got very into vintage synths about 15 to 20 years ago, and I have pretty silly collection, but it was at a point where there's like, now they've gone through the roof in terms of prices, and it's crazy.

I'm glad, uh, there was a time period in the '80s, '90s, when a Minimoog was $300.

They're easily five grand now-