Moog Liberation

Photos Link to heading

Overview Link to heading

• https://reverb.com/p/moog-liberation
• https://www.vintagesynth.com/moog/liberation
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moog_Liberation

Specification Link to heading

Basics

Manuals

Thoughts Link to heading

The premise behind the “keytar” is ridiculous, i.e., that the keyboard player can finally get out of their “keyboard fortress” to “strut their stuff” up front on stage.

The Yamaha CS-50 / CS-60 / CS-80 series of polysynths are often cited as the most expressive keyboard instruments ever made. Modern attempts to reach this storied level of expression on keyboard instruments like:

• the Osmose keyboard
• modern MPE controllers like:
  • the Linnstrument
  • the Haken Continuum Fingerboard

are really good, but I believe the Moog Liberation deserves to be in this conversation. It’s the most expressive musical keyboard instrument I’ve ever played. It just happens to be a wearable synthesizer.

Moog set out to design an instrument with comprehensive, high-quality performance controls (this intent is clearly stated in the Moog Liberation Owner’s Manual) & they absolutely crushed it in the silliest possible way.

PS. It also sounds great.

From what I know, Devo never used the Moog Liberation live or on recordings, but the photo of them above hits hard. That Moog would use the weirdest, dorkiest band they could find in an advertisement for their weird, dorky product, in my opinion, speaks volumes about human creativity.

I don’t have any commentary on the James Brown photo other than that it fills me with unspeakable joy. 🌈🦄

I recently sold a Moog Liberation on Reverb.com. Here’s what I put in the listing to describe it:

Story Link to heading

Wind Up Link to heading

When I was around 11 or 12, I was involved in music through school band (saxophone & bass clarinet), the school district choir (which you joined via nomination from your school’s music teacher) & singing in the Metropolitan Boys choir.

But what I really wanted to do was play the piano.

My sister was majoring in some kind of music therapy program for a while, so there was a rented piano in the house. I used to play along with the music from TV commercials on the piano (which kind of made everyone curious about how I did that).

I always believed my mom was a frustrated pianist. The story she told was that, when she was young, my grandparents (her parents) owned a piano. It was in the living room. One day, my grandpa (her dad) spontaneously replaced the piano with a console TV / radio / record player. She never really forgave him for this.

As an adult, my mom worked in downtown St. Louis as a “steno” girl. She scribbled notes in shorthand everywhere her whole life. She also typed 120 words a minute from dictation, which prevented me from having to learn how to type until well after I moved away from home for college.

In addition to these impressive skills, she had an exhaustive knowledge of melodies & lyrics for just about every song written before 1965. She claimed this was from spending her lunch breaks listening to records in the demo booth at the “record store”, which was a thing you could do. A “record store” was a store where recorded music was sold. Record stores today only exist as phantasms of what they were.

My mom & dad both loved music. I hardly remember a time growing up when there was not some kind of music playing in the house.

I still had to beg them for piano lessons.

Eventually, my mom signed me up with the neighborhood piano lady, Marilyn Deichert. The piano studio was in the Deichert home. They lived in Golden Valley, about 10 minutes from us. At lesson time, per usual, mom was the chauffeur.

The Deicherts had 2 baby grand pianos nestled back to back in their living room. See, Mrs. Deichert was married to Mr. Deichert (Bob), one of the most beloved pianists in the Twin Cities. He wore a pristine white tuxedo while playing a sparkling white grand piano for many years at the Dayton’s Sky Room in downtown Minneapolis. (This topic is probably worthy of an entire post by itself.)

Mrs. Deichert was a fine pianist & a kind person. I am grateful to her for improving my music reading skills by making me fill out ledger line workbooks. (I was not very grateful for this at the time.) She introduced me to beginner-level classical repertoire & technique, which I needed. I am sure countless students benefited from her methods. I can’t say she was the most inspirational teacher I ever had.

She did not like that I played things by ear more than by reading notes, but she understood this is where I was headed. I probably would have been better off with a teacher willing to battle with me…

forcing me to rigorously play scales & intermediate-level classical music. Instead, she tried to appease me by suggesting that I play arrangements of TV show theme songs & the Music Box Dancer.

So, after just about 3 years, I quit the lessons. But, we still had the piano at home so I tinkered.

Pitch Link to heading

Later, in 8th grade, Dave King, who I knew from band class, walked up to me in the hallway one day & matter-of-factly said “I hear you play keyboards. You & me are going to be in a rock band.”

I needed a keyboard to play in a rock band. I convinced my dad to get me one. We settled on the brown Yamaha DX9. I played it through a giant, brown 200-watt Yamaha bass amp with a 15" speaker (that I wish I still had). I had no idea how hobbled the DX9 was compared to its much more famous cousin, the Yamaha DX7, but it didn’t really matter that much for playing rock covers in Dave’s basement.

Eventually, we got a new bass player / singer, Reid Anderson. Dave & Reid are still playing music together after all these years.

There was another hot band on the junior high scene. I was friendly with a few of the members from playing soccer with them. The guitar player was Todd Haug & the keyboard player was Craig Taborn.

All of these people grew up in the same town as me, within a short bike ride from my house. (Maybe it was the Wheaties™.)

I was completely in awe of Craig. He was (is) much, much better at playing keyboards than I am. One of the keyboards he played was a Moog Liberation.

I once saw this band do a cover of “Purple Haze” with Craig singing. In my memory (possibly faulty) he was rocking the Moog Liberation during the performance. Occasionally, I would hang around while this band practiced. When they launched into “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, Craig would casually do a perfect emulation of the famous opening filter sweep on the Liberation. After seeing him use it, I decided that whatever the Moog Liberation was or was not, I had to have one.

Home Run Link to heading

Learning how to use the DX9 in Dave’s basement was the genesis of my lifelong gear obsession. Acquiring the Moog Liberation shortly thereafter was the point of no return.

In 1985-ish, I found a listing in the back of Keyboard Magazine for a Moog Liberation with an included road case at Rogue Music in New Haven, CT for $475. I still have it!

My Liberation was modded by a crazy synthesizer technician in Prescott, AZ in the late 1990s with a tiny 3-way toggle switch that sets the range of both oscillators up or down 1 octave. This gets it very close to Minimoog bass territory, which an un-modded Liberation can’t do. The toggle switch mod can be seen in the first photo in the thumbnail set at the top of the article along with the alternative miniaturized power supply I use that makes the keyboard a lot more portable. I keep the original Moog 19" rack power supply permanently mounted in my studio rack. Everything was serviced in 2019 by Chris at “This Old Synth” in San Jose, CA. It works perfectly & sounds amazing.

The 3rd photo in the thumbnail set is the Moog Liberation I sold on Reverb.com. It did not work when I bought it & the synthesizer control section was literally hanging by the wires. I intended to harvest parts from it for my original Liberation if needed. The guy in Prescott got it working. The guy in San Jose insisted on fully restoring it, which I did not ask for. (Life lesson: good technicians are so rare & so weird, basically, they must be indulged & deferred to…)

What does it sound like? Link to heading

Who played it? Link to heading