As part of our Fantasy Christmas Present series we asked friends in the industry to participate. One of the responses we got was from Colin McDowell of McDSP who volunteered a vintage polysynth with something of a split personality - The Moog Memorymoog. Over to Colin.

In the world of polyphonic analog synthesizers, my favorite is the Memorymoog. Not only was it created and manufactured just down the street from our house in Buffalo NY, it was at the time, the most expensive electronic instrument I had ever seen in person. The combination of wood panels, brushed metal, big knobs and buttons, and the super cool 80's red LED display makes the Memorymoog, in my completely biased opinion, one of the greatest poly synths ever made. And my introduction to synths was provided by a generous Moog employee who let me borrow a Micromoog for a while. So yeah, the Memorymoog is IT for me.

But my fantasy audio Christmas present is not JUST a Memorymoog, but one that is actually in tune. As delightful as this 1982 beast was to play, it was difficult to keep in tune, and the procedure to do so was not trivial. The unit had to be opened up in a delicate way, flipping the top panel around the keyboard (!!) and up, to gain access to the voice cards. Then the voice cards had to be tuned individually, but because they were sandwiched together in a stack, you had to somehow suspend the top cards to operate the tuning dials of the ones beneath. The super cool 80's red LED display, the only feedback you get to indicate that you've successfully tuned each voice card, is now flipped up and away (and upside down) from you. Oh, and its in HEX.

But criticisms aside, the Memorymoog was still super cool.

All I want for Christmas is '6 TUNED'

When our daughters were much younger, they would hear their idiot dad complain about his out of tune Memorymoog. So they offered to help me tune it, and we did. And it was epic. We got the '6 TUNED' status going (it means all six voices are in tune!!!), fired up that 1982 dinosaur of a synth, and freaked out the neighborhood with all kinds of Memorymoog sounds at high volumes.

And so my fantasy audio Christmas present is to have the '6 TUNED' version of my Memorymoog again, along with the younger versions of our kids (and myself), just for a day. We'd jam again like we were ELP, or Elmo, or whatever. Happy Holidays everyone !!!

The Memorymoog was probably both a triumph and a failure. It represented the ultimate incarnation of the undeniably epic Moog sound in terms of polyphony and programmability, but it was also perhaps a step too for for a company which ultimately went out of business. We consulted two other people woth experience of the Memorymoog, Richard Hilton and Russ Hughes and we found recollections varied regarding reliability:

Richard Hilton:

As regards the Memorymoog, I love the thing. Very, very fond memories of my time with it, which was basically upon its release and that of the companion MIDI board. I only used it for about 2 years, and during that time it performed pretty spotlessly, with a few notable exceptions that were baked into the design and not specific to our instrument. I never had a single problem getting it into tune, or with it staying in tune. it always sounded fantastic during those 2 years I used it, around 83-84.

Richard Hilton is a musician, engineer and musical director and has worked closely with Nile Rodgers for over 35 years.

Russ Hughes:

My recollection of the Memorymoog is what a monster of a synth it is. It was about 1984 and we had one for sale in the music store I worked in. Unlike Richard my most vivid memory is of trying to get the thing in tune. I remember firing it up and minutes later it was still not in tune. Richard says he never had a problem, I think that speaks more to the patchy QC of synths in the 1980s.

Russ Hughes spent the 80s programming synths, samplers and other MIDI devices for lots of top names. He went on to work as a song writer for several decades.