Moog SL-8 prototype (1983) ⚡️

Pic via @moogmusicinc

Check out previous posts featuring the SL-8 here.

Electronics & Music Maker - Nov 1983 Article on Moog, The MemoryMoog, & the SL-8

This one in via @mu_zines after seeing this Moog advert from 1982.

mu:zines is a website dedicated to scanning and archiving old music magazines. This particular issue features a an industry profile with Moog music from 1983. It includes coverage of the MemoryMoog and the follow-up SL-8 which never made it to production. You can actually find some previous posts of the Moog SL-8 here on MATRIXSYNTH.

"David Luce, President of Moog Music Inc, Buffalo discusses the latest developments.

'We first introduced the MemoryMoog last year and it's been a very successful instrument for us, and as we have been promising everybody for the last year, there will be a sequencer in it and indeed we now have the sequencer with the MIDI interface now available. We have completed the development work on it now and the only delay is getting it into production. I think it is perhaps what you would expect from a sequencer - but it does have some unique features. The sequencer drives both the polyphonic internal sound generating elements in the instrument and also an external control signal so that you can, for example, link a monophonic synthesizer to it directly and run that at the same time.'

"There is another product which we've been showing to various people at the Chicago music show. This is the SL-8 (standing for 'Split Layered 8-Voice Polyphonic'). At the present time this instrument is just a working prototype using digitally-controlled oscillators but still with analogue synthesis. We also have some programmes going in the direction of sampling machines. This is a big step, but one of the reasons that I feel now is the appropriate time is that if we resolve what I think are some of the fundamental problems associated with digital synthesis perse - it's not really the digital synthesis that's the problem, for a lot of it relates generically to the methods and the techniques that you use to put the sound together whether it's analogue or digital. Synthesizers are things that have a lot of versatility and that's their great benefit. On the other hand, if they're impossible to get to where you want to go from where you are in a fairly straightforward way, then it makes things very difficult. You defeat the real benefit of the synthesizer - it's versatility, and one of our aims is to produce systems that let you deal with sound in a straightforward way."

New Pic of the Vintage Eight Voice Analog Moog SL-8

This one spotted on reddit by Soviet Space Child.

Via the reddit thread: "This is an actual picture taken last week, not just gear porn."

Followed by: "It's the prototype for the Moog SL8 (1983). The story goes, Moog brought this to NAMM 83 as an 8 voice polyphonic synth, a follow up to the Memory Moog (which btw has the fattest Osc's I might have ever heard). They brought the cards for the SL8 to NAMM in a 'cardboard box' and this was placed below the SL8 for performance during NAMM. After NAMM the cardboard box containing the cards was lost or misplaced and all the remains is the body. The PolyMoog can be a nightmare, but this is due to the body warping. The plastic container was reinforced on certain later revs (If memory serves correct), but early models suffer a twisting frame and thus damage to the cards. We have a PolyMoog in the collection. I could post a pic on a later date of it. I use the Memory Moog as a go to, the PolyMoog doesn't get as much use as it should."

"Yes. I am the Technical Director of the Audities Foundation. The purpose of the collection is to make sound and art with sonic artifacts This is one of the rarest synths around, but unfortunately lost to time."

You'll find some previous posts featuring the SL-8 here. See this post for some pics and a video from Audities, and this post for specs.

Moog prototype SL-8 synthesiser

flickr by Neil Vance
1983 - full size

You can find more info and another image here.

Update via Jared in the comments: "A nice first hand write-up of its development and how quickly it met its demise at NAMM can be found here."

Update: one more scan via Niel here. This one is a full article.

Update: another panel shot via Niel.

Update via rick in the comments:
"more pics here: Audities Foundation
its currently not on display."