A TRIBUTE TO OUR FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE GENE STOPP
Congratulations on your new Spectravox. We’re excited that you have chosen this synthesizer to
become a part of your sound and hope that it provides you with years of inspiration.
As our team develops every Moog instrument in house, each has its own unique origin story.
Spectravox’s story begins with my friend and colleague Gene Stopp, who we lost early in 2023.
I’d like to take this opportunity to honor Gene and invite you to learn more about his work.
Gene Stopp was the Moog Engineer who led our effort to reintroduce our legacy modular systems,
starting with the legendary Keith Emerson modular system, and continuing with the System 55,
System 35, and Model 15 synthesizers.
In 2018 we began making plans for the 2019 Moogfest Engineering Workshop, and were throwing
around ideas for possible products to design for the folks at the workshop to build. One day Gene, who
had been working on the Moog Vocoder project, passed me in the hall and said, “I was thinking: what if
you used the bandpass outputs of a bunch of state-variable filters to make a vocoder?” That question
sent us down an excited and rapid back and forth, as well as confirmed our synth nerdiness, and we
decided it would be worth trying. First, we decided to implement the synthesis section of the vocoder
with voltage-controlled state-variable filters, so that that whole section could be swept up and down
(what became the Spectral Shift feature of your Spectravox). Together we prototyped the concept of
Spectravox—we discovered you CAN do this, and it sounds amazing. The 10 bands that seemed to be
the natural size for the enclosure we were using coincided nicely with the 10 bands of the design that
Bob Moog and Wendy Carlos developed to use for the “Ode to Joy” vocoder sound in Wendy’s score
for A Clockwork Orange, so we figured we were onto something special. In 2019, Gene helped get the
project to the workshop, and with the help of the participants and our engineering colleagues we got
over 100 of the Spectravoxes built and even patched together at the end for a monumental sound. He
was instrumental in developing this instrument. Thank you, Gene.
Many of us at Moog were so lucky to get to work with Gene. He was a truly inquisitive soul who
bettered our lives, and we will miss him dearly. With this instrument, his spirit and passion live on.
Thank you for inviting us to be part of your musical journey. May it range far and wide.
STEVE DUNNINGTION
VP, Product Development
Moog Music
March 2023
To Next Page
Loading...
Need help?
General
