In the Stacks

First of all, this machine seems to be polyphonic - it can play many voices simultaneously. I think the big Moogs (like TONTO, i.e. Cecil and Margouleff) were polyphonic; but this doesn't sound like a Moog (Moogs weren't red).

Secondly, the writer speaks of a "patch" that plays itself. In my day, a "patch" was a configuration of cables connecting oscillators, filters, modulators and an envelope-shaper together; the patch defined a single sound, not a melody.

The analogue synth I played with was an EMS VCS3. It belonged to the electronics lab at school. The patch cables were replaced with a patchboard, a grid connecting rows of inputs to columns of outputs using pins. You could stick a card overlay to the patchboard, and make holes where the pins were supposed to go, if you wanted to reproduce a specific patch.

If you wanted a melody, you could buy an add-on keyboard and sequencer; but the electronics lab didn't splash out. A sequence stored in the sequencer was NOT referred to as a "patch".

I spent many hours tinkering with this thing. It didn't matter that it had no keyboard; I was no musician. The VCS3, like most VC synths, wasn't very stable, and wasn't much used live. The Who used one for the Live At Leeds album, and Hawkwind used the VCS3 (but with no keyboard, so the instability didn't matter; they used it to make all sorts of bleeps and whistles). I think Gong also used a VCS3, also without a keyboard.

This machine was often out of service for repairs; people would try to use it as an effects processor, and would plug an electric guitar into it. That would fry the circuitry, and the school would have to buy replacement modules. You could use it as an effects processor, but not with electric guitars.

Great story too!

Thanks for posting o/

Edit, the author, Robin Sloan, is a fiction writer. That's... a little disappointing, but still it was a wonderful story.