The Mellotron use the same concept as a sampler, but generates its sound using analogue samples recorded on audio tape rather than digital samples. When a key is pressed, a tape connected to it is pushed against a playback head, as in a tape deck. While the key remains depressed, the tape is drawn over the head, and a sound is played. When the key is released, a spring pulls the tape back to its original position.
The Moog synthesizer is a synthesizer developed by the American engineer Robert Moog. Moog debuted it in 1964, and Moog's company R.A. Moog Co. (later known as Moog Music) produced numerous models from 1965 to 1980.[1] It was the first commercial synthesizer, and is credited with creating the analog synthesizer as it is known today.
By 1963, Moog had been selling theremins of his own design for several years. Recognizing a demand for more practical and affordable electronic music equipment, he began developing the Moog synthesizer, guided by suggestions and requests from composers including Herb Deutsch, Richard Teitelbaum, Vladimir Ussachevsky, and Wendy Carlos.
The Moog synthesizer consists of separate modules — such as oscillators, amplifiers, envelope generators, filters, noise generators, ring modulators, triggers and mixers — which create and shape sounds, and can be connected via patch cords. It can be played using controllers including keyboards, joysticks, pedals, and ribbon controllers. Its oscillators can produce waveforms of different timbres, which can be modulated and filtered to produce more combinations of sounds (subtractive synthesis).
Moog's principal innovation was to use voltage to control pitch via a voltage-controlled oscillator..
