Ray Manzarek’s contribution to the Doors

Ray Manzarek, a keyboardist and songwriter of repute, died yesterday at the age of 74. The story has been covered widely in the media but it is perhaps still worth writing a few words about the unique sound he achieved, and his impact on the Doors, one of the defining bands of the 1960’s.

Manzarek, along with charismatic vocalist/lyricist Jim Morrison, founded the Doors after a chance meeting in 1965, both having studied film at UCLA. Manzarek was in a band called Rick and the Ravens with his two brothers, and almost as if by fate, he reputedly met his other two long-term band mates, John Densmore (drums) and Robby Krieger (guitar), at a transcendental meditation class, appropriately enough. The band evolved into the Doors, and soon began the era of their classic line-up when Kreiger joined in late 1965.

Ray and Jim

Arguably Manzarek’s contribution seemed to define the particular sound of the Doors even more so than Robbie Krieger’s admirably minimalistic and often impressive guitar work. One early example is Manzarek’s strong contribution to The Crystal Ship, a short song from their self-titled debut LP, recorded in the latter half of 1966. Manzarek was key in pushing the sound of the Doors into what at the time was largely uncharted waters, complimentary to Morrison’s otherworldly vocals and lyrical themes but at the same time presenting as more than just a musical platform for them.

 

Manzarek used electronic organs for the most part. He relied on what was then a new generation of relatively modest semi-portable electronic organs that featured transistor circuits and divide down sound generation, a technology also used for some later synthesisers, such as the Polymoog. These instruments could not provide the deep rich sound of the heavy Hammond electo-magnetic organs that some of the well-financed musicians of the time used, e.g. Jon Lord of Deep Purple. However, their thinner sonic character seemed to suit the Doors, and in the days before the synthesiser became a commonplace instrument, a certain number of keyboard players like Manzarek pushed what was possible within the limitations of the technology of the era, an example being the varied sound textures on Waiting For The Sun.

Similarly, Manzarek displayed an impressively energetic style when he used the piano, borrowing liberally from a large variety of styles, as exemplified on tracks like L.A. Woman. Notable also was a lightness of touch as featured on songs like Riders On The Storm, where a Fender Rhodes electric piano is used. Interestingly, whilst playing organ during Doors performances, Manzarek simultaneously played bass on a Rhodes piano although its bass quality was deemed to be too ill defined for studio recording. A session musician by the name of Jerry Scheff typically featured on their studio recordings.

The Doors continued after Jim Morrison’s death, making two studio albums in the early 70’s. This was a surprising move since Morrison was so central to their identity. However, Other Voices, the first and best of the two post-Morrison albums, demonstrates clearly what the level of creativity the three had brought to the band. One highlight is Manzarek’s In the Eyes of the Sun.

Soon however, the trio began to disintegrate during the making of Full Circle, their follow-up album. Verdillac, a bizarre jazz fusion track largely driven by Manzarek, stands out on what is otherwise a relatively poor unfocused record. With hindsight, it is unfortunate that Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore didn’t adopt a new name to break from the past, and seek out a new vocalist (a la New Order), who  could have been a revitalising creative force for the band.

Manzarek embarked on a commercially unsuccessful solo career after the Doors split in 1973, where he released two albums in quick succession. Releases after that became sporadic. However, he remained musically active, and collaborated with quite a number of other musicians until his death. His last significant album release is a collaboration with Roy Rogers called Translucent Blues (2011).

Robert Moog, doogled at Google!

Recently Google users were presented with a graphic of a Mini-Moog synthesiser connected to a four-track reel to reel tape recorder, a pleasing surprise to many electronic music enthusios the world over. The doodle acknowledged Robert Moog’s posthumous birthday, his 78^th having been born in 1934.

Moog is easily the best known name in the development of synthesis. Moog’s most innovative creations were perhaps his early synthesiser designs, which were sold in customised form from 1964/5 onwards. These designs led to Moog’s first commercially available range, the 900-Series, which was introduced in 1967. However, arguably the best synthesiser bearing the Moog moniker is the famous “Mini-Moog”, introduced commercially in 1971.

Moog clearly had an inventive industrious mind as he reputedly built his first theremin at the age of fourteen, and started out selling theremin kits under the R.A. Moog Co. name at the mere age of nineteen. His company would be renamed “Moog Music” circa 1972.

Moog’s time at Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Centre had a great impact on his subsequent career, and that of contemporary music as well. The university department yielded highly experimental work in electronic composition during the 1950’s. It became the home of the immense “RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer” (and sequencer) in 1957, which was the direct predecessor of the more practical commercial synthesisers of the 1960’s.

Robert Moog and Don Buchla began building modular synthesisers during the early to mid 1960’s but Moog utilised keyboards to a greater extent, thus allowing musicians a more intuitive way into the then extremely novel world of electronic synthesis. Also notable is the extent Moog collaborated with musicians to improve his instruments. His first notable fame came with Walter Carlos’ “Switched-on Bach” album of 1968, which began the controversial popularisation of synthesis in classical music.

These synthesisers were invariably analogue monophonic (producing a single note at a time) designs. They were not particularly good at replicating real (acoustic) instruments. However, when evaluated as instruments in their own right, they were highly innovative devices that possessed a unique sonic character of their own, with a seemingly-infinite array of possibilities. Indeed Moog’s name would become synonymous with early analogue synthesis, which stood in direct contrast to the more precise but less characterful forms of digital synthesis that emerged in the early 1980’s.

Bob Moog with the Mini-Moog (front), and his modular systems (background)

The Mini-Moog is a small integrated device in comparison to the typically large modular synthesisers of the early 1970’s. Modular synthesisers required the connecting together of different sound generators and filters to create what is referred to as a “patch”. Such systems have immense flexibility but are far from user friendly, and usually resembled something out of a electronic boffin’s lab rather than an instrument. The Mini-Moog had a non-modular fixed construction, which meant that it was very inflexible by comparison but within limited user-friendly (switchable) parameters it excelled thanks to no less than three VCO’s (voltage controlled oscillators) to generate one single note at a time, which produced a rich complex powerful sound, helped along by excellent filters that many other manufactures sought to emulate, leading to numerous court cases.

The Mini-Moog also benefited from a then relatively modest price of 1,495 USD. This was at a time when five figure sums were the norm for modular systems. In fact the simple Moog 960 add on eight-step note sequencer for the 900-Series modular Moog system cost almost as much! The practicality of the Mini-Moog meant that synthesisers were a reasonable proposition for musicians at last, and notably it was the first such instrument to make it onto the shelves in music stores! It sold over 13,000 units during its ten year production run, a very considerable number in the field of synthesis. Even though its options and functionality is extremely limited by today’s standards, it continues to be used thanks to its legendary sound quality, and is particularly appreciated for its rich powerful bass sounds.

 

Sadly Moog’s later products didn’t turn out to be as impressive. During the 1970’s numerous manufacturers were trying to surmount the issues arising from the development of the polyphonic synthesiser. The benefit of polyphonic synthesis was the ability to play a chord of four or more notes at a given time, which would improve the application of synthesis enormously. The music world had been awaiting Moog’s equivalent of the Mini-Moog, and in 1976 the Poly-Moog emerged with a notable air of disappointment. It utilised divide-down sound generation derived from electric organ technology, yielding a weak sound. Some debated whether it was truly a synthesiser at all because each individual note was not variable. Worse still it was extremely prone to breakdown. Nonetheless, it appeared on some very notable records of the time.

Moog’s long-term economic woes resulted in him losing control of Moog Music and finally leaving the company in 1977. The company would go on to introduce a truly polyphonic version of the Mini-Moog in 1982, called the Memory-Moog but eventually Moog Music folded in 1993. Moog himself went on to work successfully for Kurzweil, another innovative manufacturer of synthesisers.

Moog also established a firm called Big Briar, where he would go back to the manufacture of theremins. Apparently Moog was not allowed to use his own name since it constituted a brand. However, his firm would eventually acquire the rights to the valued brand name in 2002. The world was put to rights again, and the same year Moog introduced a revitalised Mini-Moog called the Moog Voyager, which he designed himself. Three years later he died at the age of 71, due to illness.