Daily Doings at the Line of Death Bar & Grill

About twenty years ago, I bought my first synthesizer -- a Minimoog Model D -- for $400. The previous owner was a schoolteacher. It didn't look like was used very much. I changed that. It went to a lot of places I did, from jamming with some of my fraternity brothers, to a couple of church choirs, to some of the filk conventions I went to. I even brought it to a Mensa regional gathering, where I gave an hour-long talk on electronic music.

Because of its weight -- nearly 60 pounds in its case -- I stopped lugging it around. It sat in its flight case, gathering dust, and possibly rust. After approximately two years of non-use, the urge to pull out my old and trusty analog synth has been tugging at me this past week. Tonight, I finally dragged it out from the corner where it's been sitting. I plugged the power cord in, plugged the audio cord into the output jack on the synth and the line-in jack of my computer sound card, and turned it on.

It's still in good working condition, but it's showing signs of wear and age. Some of the pots (short for potentiometers, or control knobs) are spotty; the contacts will need to be cleaned. The springs on some of the keys need to be replaced. The power cord is worn and should be replaced. And of course, the oscillators need to be re-tuned.

My first choice for the shop to perform this service is DB Musical Electronics in Cheektowaga, NY. They have people on staff who used to work at Moog Music, so they know the equipment well. Years ago, they added external CV out and S-Trig jacks to my Mini, so I could drive other analog synths from the Mini's keyboard. That's the only modification that's been done to it so far.

(Moog geeks: My Minimoog has serial number 5780. There is a small paper tag underneath the electronics which has the date "Oct 1974" stamped on it.)

By the way, in case you're wondering, I have no plans to sell it. I will continue to use it for sound generation, recording the sound as a .WAV file on the computer, and use that as my sample.