Robert Moog
American engineer (1934–2005) whose voltage-controlled modules turned the synthesizer into something you could buy, play and take on tour.
Moog built theremins as a student and earned a PhD in engineering physics at Cornell. In 1964 he showed his first modules: oscillators, filters and amplifiers that controlled one another with voltages instead of hand-turned knobs. Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach (1968) made the sound famous, and the Minimoog (1970) shrank the wardrobe-sized modular into something that fit on a stage. His ladder filter was patented in 1969 and is still being copied.
The businessman never matched the designer. The company changed hands in the seventies, Moog left in 1977 and was barred from using his own name on new products. He built theremins under the Big Briar label and only bought back the Moog Music trademark in 2002, three years before his death.