Great Googley Moogley
May 22, 2012 10:29 AM   Subscribe

Celebrating the memory of beloved synth pioneer Bob Moog and commemorating his birthday, Google's home page (currently in Australia, live in the US tomorrow) is a fully working, multi-trackable Moog synthesizer. Share your masterpiece!
posted by naju (38 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
I can't even begin to describe how upset my dog got when I started playing with that.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:35 AM on May 22, 2012 [8 favorites]


I thought we were all supposed to be anti-Google now. DAMMIT.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 10:37 AM on May 22, 2012 [4 favorites]


Coincidentally, I've just downloaded animoog for my ipad, because it's on offer for $9.99 till the end of the month.

It's very cool.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:43 AM on May 22, 2012


I thought we were all supposed to be anti-Google now. DAMMIT.

We oscillate between.
posted by hal9k at 10:43 AM on May 22, 2012 [34 favorites]


That's pretty great.. would be better if the various knobs were labeled.
posted by empath at 10:48 AM on May 22, 2012


maybe google should spend less time on doodles and more time making useful software. </responsibility_scallop>
posted by boo_radley at 10:49 AM on May 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


Maybe Google should spend less time on doodles and more time making me an orbiting habitat with lasers. HUH GOOGLE? WHAT ABOUT THAT?

WHERE MY LASERS, GOOGS?
posted by Inkoate at 10:51 AM on May 22, 2012 [2 favorites]


a fully working, multi-trackable Moog synthesizer.

Warning: Trigger Alert!

Or more technically: Gate
posted by hal9k at 10:52 AM on May 22, 2012 [11 favorites]


Okay, which nerdy over-achiever wants to put together a quick comprehensive guide on how to use this darn thing? :-D Normally it would be me, but I don't have the time today.
posted by TinWhistle at 10:52 AM on May 22, 2012


Be careful not to spend 10 minutes getting a cool tone and then try to record a 4 track jingle and then accidentally type something in the search box...because everything just goes away.
posted by chococat at 10:54 AM on May 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


Okay, which nerdy over-achiever wants to put together a quick comprehensive guide on how to use this darn thing?

1. Play notes with your keyboard.
2. Twiddle the shit out of the knobs.
posted by jack_mo at 10:57 AM on May 22, 2012 [9 favorites]


This might be a good time to mention Animoog, a superfun Moog ipad app. I'm not a musician and never used GarageBand etc as much as I thought I might, but this one I keep coming back to. My 3-year-old daughter loves it, too.
posted by muckster at 11:01 AM on May 22, 2012


Yeah Animoog is the shit for making ultra-fat sound on the iOS.
posted by seanmpuckett at 11:05 AM on May 22, 2012


Okay, I'll take a crack at it (I'm not an expert so forgive me if I'm way off here):

The Envelope section, which is the the right-hand set of knobs, should be in order: attack, decay, sustain (? maybe release). So if you tweak the first knob (attack) you'll get either a nice stabby sound or a more ramping-up, delayed hit. Decay determines how long the note is played after the key press, and sustain determines how long the note is sustained while pressing the key down.

I have no idea what the filters are corresponding to at this point. Common filters are things like high-pass, low-pass, band-pass.

The oscillator section...the first three small knobs and the two big knobs control various pitches, tweak these to get high or low tones, or double-octave tones, or harmonics. The last three knobs in this section determine the shape of the signal before it goes to the filters.

The mixer section on the left, the big knob is for overall volume, the other knobs are controlling the input of the oscillators to some extent, though I'm not totally clear on the relationships. Basically you're 'mixing' the emphasis of one oscillator over another.

This wiki link might help too.
posted by Doleful Creature at 11:09 AM on May 22, 2012 [2 favorites]


Master volume - Oscillator volume | Octave - Pitch - Waveform | Frequency - Resonance | Attack / Decay / Sustain

Note: Osc 2 has no Pitch (detune).
posted by Ardiril at 11:13 AM on May 22, 2012 [3 favorites]


are you saying that doodles are not useful software?
posted by caddis at 11:14 AM on May 22, 2012


Middle knob of left column of "Filter" section is portamento.
posted by sourwookie at 11:19 AM on May 22, 2012


The two large middle knobs of the "Oscillator" section--top and bottom rows is frequency. They are not synced so you CAN detune. To the left of them is the Gross Octave Range.

The envelope top to bottom: Attack, Release, Sustain.
posted by sourwookie at 11:25 AM on May 22, 2012


chococat: "Be careful not to spend 10 minutes getting a cool tone and then try to record a 4 track jingle and then accidentally type something in the search box...because everything just goes away."

GODDAMNIT I JUST DID THAT, TOO!

(This is neat, but the recording delay and such... meh... I mean I know you have tons of latency to deal with, but hey - it's a doodle, not a masterpiece).

What would be cool is if they worked on something like this and got some artists to record something interesting presets to show what could be done. Then again, that's way more effort than what a little doodle is worth.

Also? FUCK GOOGLE. Just cuz you know - yeah, I'm drinkin' that Haterade like there's no tomorrow.
posted by symbioid at 11:26 AM on May 22, 2012


Top left filter knob seems to control cut off for a low pass filter?
posted by empath at 11:33 AM on May 22, 2012


Where do you turn off the glide??
posted by kaseijin at 11:47 AM on May 22, 2012


There should be a rocker switch to turn off glide above the mod wheel, dammit!
posted by kaseijin at 11:47 AM on May 22, 2012


Where do you turn off the glide??

Middle left knob of the Filter section.
posted by naju at 11:48 AM on May 22, 2012


Thanks! :D
posted by kaseijin at 11:52 AM on May 22, 2012


Is this an appropriate place to re-link Wiener Dog On A Minimoog?

Also, bottom-left knob in the filters section is resonance; the right hand bit is is attack, delay, sustain. Unfortunately my computer is not doing so well with the multitracking, or maybe that's fortunately because I was really meaning to do some work today.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:53 AM on May 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


Now I can do the beginning of Ridin the Storm Out!, but still cant click fast enough to pull this off.
posted by timsteil at 12:09 PM on May 22, 2012


This Animoog, has it no filter sweeps, or otherwise modulation for filter values?!
posted by Goofyy at 12:12 PM on May 22, 2012


Now I can do the beginning of Ridin the Storm Out !, but still cant click fast enough to pull this off .

You can use your keyboard.
posted by empath at 12:22 PM on May 22, 2012


Great post title!
posted by Clustercuss at 12:53 PM on May 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


Here's a diagram of how to use this wonderful gadget.
posted by dbiedny at 1:42 PM on May 22, 2012 [2 favorites]


for today everyone has to pronounce google to rhyme with mogul
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 2:40 PM on May 22, 2012 [6 favorites]


Just popping by to say that every time I've scrolled by this thread today Cumbia En Moog would start playing in my head. Not saying it's a bad thing.
posted by Diablevert at 2:43 PM on May 22, 2012


Finally! A reason to revisit Google.
(Or would be, if I could get it to work).

And an excuse to dig out my Numan LPs.
posted by Mezentian at 5:56 PM on May 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


Wow, this is better than Bing's Poly800
posted by mattoxic at 10:46 PM on May 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


So why doesn't this work for me? If I click on the doodle, I just get a click through to search results about moog...
posted by MartinWisse at 2:29 AM on May 23, 2012


My best attempts so far:

LCD Soundsystem - "Someone Great"
Gary Numan - "Cars"

These sound best in Chrome, which is surely all part of the plot.
posted by ecmendenhall at 6:13 AM on May 23, 2012 [5 favorites]


Moog is in my town of Asheville, NC. He's really a much revered and loved celebrity here. Just the other day someone put up a big ole mural of him on a downtown wall. See it here. If you like electronic music, you should make it a point to get to MoogFest here in Asheville. You can totally crash on my couch.
posted by lazaruslong at 6:52 AM on May 23, 2012 [3 favorites]


OK, I have to ask: How is this implemented? Is it all javascript? Is javascript fast enough these days to do fancy real-time signal processing itself? Or are there sufficient sound APIs in windows/mac/linux to let the host OS do the heavy lifting?
posted by DarkForest at 11:55 AM on May 23, 2012


« Older Hickory Hasn't Changed Much   |   What becomes a legend most? Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments