Dr. Robert Moog’s 1960s synthesizer produced music that sounded anything but synthetic, and Google commemorated his melodic invention with a Doodle on what would have been his 78th birthday, May 23, 2012. The custom logo was modeled after the original Moog Synthesizer, an instrument whose rich sounds appeared on albums by such notable artists as The Beatles and Stevie Wonder, according to TechCrunch. Moog’s synthesizer is still considered one of the most crucial innovations in electronic music.
The Moog Doodle served to “pay tribute to someone who was like a patron saint of the nerdy arts,” Google’s Chief Doodler Ryan Germick told Mashable.
The Doodle offered a truly interactive experience. Users could use their mouse and keyboard to play with the illustrated mini-synthesizer’s switches and dials to produce a range of noises, and use those sounds to play tunes on its piano keyboard. Wired noted that Googlers could “tweak any of the knobs to shape the wave, change oscillator pitches, mess around with the filter or envelope and more.” Google even added a 4-track recorder so visitors could record their own songs, then play them back and share the tunes through short links and Google+. As PCMag raved, the Doodle was “essentially a working virtual Minimoog.”
MORE: Google’s Moog Doodle: Play a ‘Mini-Goog,’ Celebrate the Life of an Electronic Music Pioneer