YouTube Uploaded by richspe on Mar 6, 2012
via this auctionRead the description for an interesting bit of synth trivia involving this individual synth. The story starts at the second image below.
"I purchased this Moog new in 1973. It was occasionally used in a recording studio I owned. As you can see it shows little use. Also included are the user’s guide, service manual, and a tech bulletin with detailed tuning information. The user's registration guide is useful for basic settings for most musical instruments and a variety of other strange sounds. A year or two ago I tuned this Moog and cleaned all key contacts planning to sell it, which I didn’t move ahead with for some reason. It was working great. Now it works great some of the time and other times the tab settings don’t change the sound, as they should. Not sure what the problem is. It seems to be somewhat temperature related in that when the temperature is cooler it generally works fine. Perhaps a transistor needs replacing or something else. I am selling it as-is with no returns. The service manual has a full schematic, parts list, and picture views of the PC board. See the video I made 2/29/12 below, at which time it was working. This synthesizer has a great bass sound.
More than you wanted to know: It was used to produce the first radio/TV commercial for electronic money transfer, which became today’s ATMs. Yes, a Lincoln Nebraska savings and loan company started electronic money transfer. It was called TMS, transmatic money service. TMS service was at a special service counter in chain grocery stores. It was very rudimentary, sort of like going to a bank and requesting money from a saving account – no mag card or machine was involved.
The savings and the loan company that pioneered TMS knew that the banking industry would use legal means to shut down this service and that the courts would decide if TMS was legal. The banks claimed that the savings and loan company had not chartered a branch operation through the Banking Dept. of the State of Nebraska, which in their view was required for any money transaction. Not knowing which way the courts would rule the ad agency for the savings and loan company had me do a relatively low cost track rather than purchase a track from the jingle-jungle in Dallas Texas. ATMs are everywhere today so we know how the court ruled. At that time I think I was recoding with my Ampex 440, 4 track recorder (like the Beatles used early on), or an 8 track Ampex 350 deck with 440 electronics. Some of my synthesizer settings for the TMS commercial are written in the back of the user’s guide on blank registration pages. I know some say this is a wimpy synthesizer, but the fact remains that it has that great full Moog sound and it is a quick way to lay down a bass line, banjo track, or a track using any of the other great sounds it will create."
Interesting article. I actually remember the commercial, because TMS transactions passed through my programs. There's a slight error, however: customers WERE issued mag stripe cards and they were required to process transactions at Hinky Dinky stores. It was the first use of debit cards (although we didn't call them that) to obtain cash without going to a bank office.
ReplyDeleteJust don't ask me to sing the jingle.