The Moog Drum Machine!

Having said in this post that I didn't think Moog ever made a drum machine, I can happily announce that I was wrong. According to an anonymous reader Moog did make a one-off drum machine for composer Eric Siday, and what a beauty it is! It's currently housed at the intriguing Museum of Music in Paris, which has a website here. I managed to eventually find some pictures of the drum machine there, even though its all in french

The following is from Oliver Grall's web page on this subject:

"In 1970 Bob Moog built for Eric Siday an electronic drum synthesizer with the following modules:
- 701Drum Synthesizer
- 702 Percussion Synthesizer
- 903 Noise
- 912 Enveloppe Follower
- Programmer
- Wheels encoder
- Keyboard controller

The 701 and 702 modules are prototypes never and went in production.
It seems that there are some missing modules from the original configuration.
This unique system is owned now by the " Museum of music"
located in Paris France.

About Eric Siday
Eric siday was born in the suburb of London in 1905.
When he was 14 he received the Prosper Sainton scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, London.
His first steady bread was playing for the "local cinema" silent movies.
He was composer and arranger and realized musics for commercials and jingles for radios ( ABC / CBS / Pepsi cola / American express )
In 1947 he composed a violin concerto in the "Bop" Jazz idiom.
He created his own recording studio (surely one of the first home studio).
In the middle 50's, he was aware of electronic music - John Cage (the prepared piano) and the French Music Concrete .
He was the fisrt to apply electronics sounds in commercials .
He used : Ondes Martenot / Ondioline / Violon amplified / Céleste / Moog Modular
and this unique Moog Percussion synthesizer.
He was the second customer of Bob Moog and bring a great support to the Moog company."

(B&W pictures: moog archives / synth fool)