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Moog and GarageBand: A sweet synthesis
If you love music, chances are you’re already a huge Moog fan. The company’s legendary synthesisers can be heard in some of the biggest hits across just about every genre for the past 50 years. The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, the Doors, Dr. Dre, Trent Reznor, Kanye West—all have made Moog magic.
Moog analog synths don’t have a signature tonality. That’s because they’re more than just an instrument; they’re actually tools that musicians use to craft their own distinct sounds.
Now, with its Model 15 synthesiser app, the company is bringing the instrument’s power to bend, distort, and shape to GarageBand.
GarageBand already has built-in virtual instruments—including keyboards, guitars, and drums. But the new version of the app has an option called External, which is where you’ll find the Model 15, along with any other virtual instruments you’ve downloaded.
Every single feature in the original Model 15 has its counterpart in the app: 14 modules, three oscillators, a filter bank. The one thing missing? Heft. The Model 15, introduced in 1973, weighs 22.6 kg.
Oh, and the price differs drastically. A physical Model 15, which is made in limited quantities, sells for US$10,000. The Model 15 app in GarageBand costs about 99 per cent less.
In both versions, there are plugs to connect, dials to turn, and keys to press. You’ll see terms like “high pass,” “attenuators,” “triangular,” and “sawtooth.”
Granted, if you’ve never encountered anything like this before, all those controls can be confounding.
That’s why Moog built a simplified user interface specifically for GarageBand.
“We wanted the first thing you see, the simplified interface, to let you make music on the spot,” says Geert Bevin, Moog’s senior software engineer.
With a swipe, you can move from the simplified user interface to the full Model 15. This parity between the digital and physical versions ensures existing Moog users will feel right at home in GarageBand.
To pull this off, Moog has a single product team that makes both hardware and apps. Everyone sits together in a massive, open warehouse that serves as the company’s headquarters, in Asheville, North Carolina, U.S. In this structure, over a hundred years old, you’ll find the analog and digital, the hand-assembled and the hand-coded, with one team building it all.
The company has three apps in the App Store: Animoog for iPhone, Filatron, and a stand-alone Model 15 app. While Model 15 is the first to integrate with GarageBand, it likely won’t be the last.
“The way GarageBand allows you to very easily experiment with all sorts of instruments quickly—there’s nothing else like that,” Geert says. “And the number of young people who use GarageBand to make music is unmatched.”
Geert generally focuses on software, but he develops hardware too. “We do see and care about hardware and software equally,” he says. “We love both, we use both, and we make both.”