# Moog Liberation
About a week ago, I was wandering through Johnny B. Goode's, my local
used-gear store. John looked up at me as I came in, and smiled That Secret
Smile. I KNEW that grin; it meant "Sorry, Metlay, I have something so WEIRD
you CAN'T pass it up!" This was not good, especially considering the
money I was about to spend on CDs, as John 3 has gleefully noted....
I wandered through the store, seeing what lay in wait. A Casio VZ-1 that
he'd managed to sell for $500; a Yamaha DX-11 for about the same, a
Roland S-10, a Yamaha DX-1 for $1000 (see how the mighty have fallen!)....
...and there it was. Nestled in a road case lined with blue fur, complete
with multipin cable, power supply and manual-- a Moog Liberation. I ran
a hand over it disbelievingly, then hauled it out and hooked it up to a
guitar amp and played with it for a while. Bliss! Quickly I checked it
over. "Hey," I complained to John, "the pitch ribbon's broken."
"Yeah. So?" The Grin was still there-- he knew I'd buy it anyway.
And I did. I'm crazy but I'm NOT stupid.
So now it sits on a temporary stand in my studio and gets a lot of love
and attention. I don't know if I'll keep it; I cut my teeth on EMS
Synthis and ARPs and Oberheims, and Moogs don't have a lot of mystique
for me. But it IS kind of fun to have around.
You youngsters out there in digitoid MIDIland probably don't remember the
Liberation. It was a comparatively late design in Moog's history, and
quite an innovation at the time-- while a number of strap-on keyboards
existed already (the Syntar, the Clavitar/Clavitron, and the Probe come
to mind immediately, as well as the gizmo Rick Wakeman played, anyone
recall the name of it?), the Liberation was the first foray into the
field by a major maker for a major market. It was available in 1979
and sold until about 1981, when Moog died. No strap-on keyboards were
marketed after that until the MIDI era. (PArenthetical note: I wonder
how hard it would be to get one of every strap-on ever, not including
custom designs like the Probe? I'll append a list to the end of this review.)
The Liberation was designed to give the keyboardist a reasonable palette
of sounds in a strap-on form. It was designed to be light, expressive,
sonically powerful and flexible. Let's see what that meant in 1979, Okay?
The Liberation has a main body containing the keyboard, controls and
synth guts (well, most of them), a long multipin cable, and a rack box
with audio output and a monophonic CV/S-Trigger output set for running
other synths from the Lib. The Lib has straplocks so you don't drop it,
a guitar-like "neck" with performance controls, and a full front panel.
It has the following features:
THE KEYBOARD is a 44-note F to C unweighted synth keyboard with full-sized
keys. It feels kind of weird, because it's pressure sensitive! Yes, kids,
one of the first monophonic pressure sensors ever is on the board-- it's
called a "force" sensor, terms like "mono pressure" and "Aftertouch" still
being science fiction.
THE SYNTH is a standard Moog two-oscillator beastie, functionally identical
to the Rogue, Prodigy, Taurus II and Taurus III-- and also similar to the
Realistic synth Moog built for Radio Shack. It has two VCOs, each with
triangle, sawtooth or pulse wave selectable, each with a three-octave range
and up to a fifth of detuning sharp or flat. There is oscillator sync, but
no pulse width modulation: one oscillator has a square wave, the other a
10% duty cycle pulse. The sound sources include the two oscillators, a
pink (!) noise source, a ring modulator that outputs sum and difference
frequencies of the two oscillators, and a "poly" section. The latter is a
fully polyphonic divide-down square wave setup with limited filter mod and
no envelope shaping; it's good for thickening leads and having some chordal
backing for the synth voice (which is high-note priority). The filter is a
standard Moog post-Mini 4-pole lowpass jobber with cutoff, "emphasis" (i.e.
resonance) and envelope amount controls.
MODULATION CONTROLS include one LFO and two envelopes, one for the filter
and one for the VCA. The LFO has a range of 0.3 Hz to 30 Hz, and can output
either a triangle, square, or random S&H voltages. It can be routed to either
the oscillator pitches (both at once) or filter cutoff, and controlled by
either the force bar or the mod wheel. It also has a retrigger mode switch,
which triggers the envelope rhythmically in time with the LFO without any
need to touch the keyboard. The envelopes are the typical braindead Moog
"Contour Generators" as they're called, with individual sliders for attack
time, sustain level, and a COMMON time shared by decay and release. The
only way to defeat this is to flip a switch that sets both envelopes to
cut off immediately at key-off. Oh, and there are LEDs that light up when
the LFO is running and the envelopes are triggered. Way cool. The unit
also has a Glide control (portamento time) and separate tuning controls
for the synth and the poly section.
LEFT-HAND CONTROLS are where this machine really shines; it puts the rest
of the controllers out there to shame, even nowadays. Only the Roland
Axis comes close to jamming as many controls onto the left hand as the
Liberation managed. From the tip of the "neck," there is a rocker switch
to determine whether the force bar would apply a direct control voltage or
serve as a sidechain control for the LFO (where the modulation goes is
controlled on the front panel), a wheel for setting the amount of force-bar
voltage, a second rocker switch to enable or disable glide (rate is set on
the front panel), Moog pitch ribbon (mine needs to be replaced, alas, and
like a fool I deleted that address for Moog parts that's been posted here a
good 23 skidillion times), and THREE MORE WHEELS-- a modulation amount
wheel, a filter swell wheel, and a volume wheel. The filter wheel has a
short throw and is spring loaded to return to zero, and the other two are
free turning with a lot more travel than the wheels on any MIDI controller.
They were obviously designed to be set and left as is for a while, so their
resolution is very good. Nobody seems to thumb mod wheels and leave them
thumbed much these days-- on Roland and Oberheim boards, it can't even be
done, as the mod devices are springloaded. Sigh.
So how does it sound? Great! I wish I'd had one in 1982. The synth voice
is classic Moog-- rich and gritty and smooth at the same time. The poly and
ring mod add a lot to the sound as well, and it overdrives nicely. I plan
to try it through a flanger and fuzzbox at some point.
How does it FEEL? Incredible. The controls are well-thought-out, many use
color-coded sliders that run both vertically and horizontally, so it's
easy to find where you are by feel, and the neck works like a dream. The
only board that comes close ismy Yamaha KX-5, which has a smaller neck
and fewer easy-to-reach controls.
Do I have a gripe about it? Yes, the same one that forced me to get rid
of my Prophet T8-- it's HEAVY! They claim that the Lib only (!) weighs
about 14 pounds-- compare that to a Rickenbacker 4001 bass at 12 pounds,
a Les Paul at under 8 pounds, or my Yamaha SH-101 which barely weighs
THREE pounds. Ouch! I can't wear it for more than about 20 minutes before
my back starts hurting. This may, above all, force me to either let it go
or perform radical surgery on it to lighten it a bit. The force bar is
very loose and springy with a LONG travel, and when it's depressed it
changes the throw of the keys a bit. And its sound, while great, isn't
quite up to par with my Xpander.
metlay@organ.music.cs.cmu.edu | but a dragon can only be painted....
A much more important factor in the social movement than those already mentioned was the ever-increasing influence of women. This probably stood at the lowest point to which it has ever fallen, during the classic age of Greek life and thought. In the history of Thucydides, so far as it forms a connected series of events, four times only during a period of nearly seventy years does a woman cross the scene. In each instance her apparition only lasts for a moment. In three of the four instances she is a queen or a princess, and belongs either to the half-barbarous kingdoms of northern Hellas or to wholly barbarous Thrace. In the one remaining instance208— that of the woman who helps some of the trapped Thebans to make their escape from Plataea—while her deed of mercy will live for ever, her name is for ever lost.319 But no sooner did philosophy abandon physics for ethics and religion than the importance of those subjects to women was perceived, first by Socrates, and after him by Xenophon and Plato. Women are said to have attended Plato’s lectures disguised as men. Women formed part of the circle which gathered round Epicurus in his suburban retreat. Others aspired not only to learn but to teach. Arêtê, the daughter of Aristippus, handed on the Cyrenaic doctrine to her son, the younger Aristippus. Hipparchia, the wife of Crates the Cynic, earned a place among the representatives of his school. But all these were exceptions; some of them belonged to the class of Hetaerae; and philosophy, although it might address itself to them, remained unaffected by their influence. The case was widely different in Rome, where women were far more highly honoured than in Greece;320 and even if the prominent part assigned to them in the legendary history of the city be a proof, among others, of its untrustworthiness, still that such stories should be thought worth inventing and preserving is an indirect proof of the extent to which feminine influence prevailed. With the loss of political liberty, their importance, as always happens at such a conjuncture, was considerably increased. Under a personal government there is far more scope for intrigue than where law is king; and as intriguers women are at least the209 equals of men. Moreover, they profited fully by the levelling tendencies of the age. One great service of the imperial jurisconsults was to remove some of the disabilities under which women formerly suffered. According to the old law, they were placed under male guardianship through their whole life, but this restraint was first reduced to a legal fiction by compelling the guardian to do what they wished, and at last it was entirely abolished. Their powers both of inheritance and bequest were extended; they frequently possessed immense wealth; and their wealth was sometimes expended for purposes of public munificence. Their social freedom seems to have been unlimited, and they formed combinations among themselves which probably served to increase their general influence.321 The old religions of Greece and Italy were essentially oracular. While inculcating the existence of supernatural beings, and prescribing the modes according to which such beings were to be worshipped, they paid most attention to the interpretation of the signs by which either future events in general, or the consequences of particular actions, were supposed to be divinely revealed. Of these intimations, some were given to the whole world, so that he who ran might read, others were reserved for certain favoured localities, and only communicated through the appointed ministers of the god. The Delphic oracle in particular enjoyed an enormous reputation both among Greeks and barbarians for guidance afforded under the latter conditions; and during a considerable period it may even be said to have directed the course of Hellenic civilisation. It was also under this form that supernatural religion suffered most injury from the great intellectual movement which followed the Persian wars. Men who had learned to study the constant sequences of Nature for themselves, and to shape their conduct according to fixed principles of prudence or of justice, either thought it irreverent to trouble the god about questions on which they were competent to form an opinion for themselves, or did not choose to place a well-considered scheme at the mercy of his possibly interested responses. That such a revolution occurred about the middle of the fifth century B.C., seems proved by the great change of tone in reference to this subject which one perceives on passing from Aeschylus to Sophocles. That anyone should question the veracity of an oracle is a supposition which never crosses the mind of the elder dramatist. A knowledge of augury counts among the greatest benefits222 conferred by Prometheus on mankind, and the Titan brings Zeus himself to terms by his acquaintance with the secrets of destiny. Sophocles, on the other hand, evidently has to deal with a sceptical generation, despising prophecies and needing to be warned of the fearful consequences brought about by neglecting their injunctions. The stranger had a pleasant, round face, with eyes that twinkled in spite of the creases around them that showed worry. No wonder he was worried, Sandy thought: having deserted the craft they had foiled in its attempt to get the gems, the man had returned from some short foray to discover his craft replaced by another. “Thanks,” Dick retorted, without smiling. When they reached him, in the dying glow of the flashlight Dick trained on a body lying in a heap, they identified the man who had been warned by his gypsy fortune teller to “look out for a hidden enemy.” He was lying at full length in the mould and leaves. "But that is sport," she answered carelessly. On the retirement of Townshend, Walpole reigned supreme and without a rival in the Cabinet. Henry Pelham was made Secretary at War; Compton Earl of Wilmington Privy Seal. He left foreign affairs chiefly to Stanhope, now Lord Harrington, and to the Duke of Newcastle, impressing on them by all means to avoid quarrels with foreign Powers, and maintain the blessings of peace. With all the faults of Walpole, this was the praise of his political system, which system, on the meeting of Parliament in the spring of 1731, was violently attacked by Wyndham and Pulteney, on the plea that we were making ruinous treaties, and sacrificing British interests, in order to benefit Hanover, the eternal millstone round the neck of England. Pulteney and Bolingbroke carried the same attack into the pages of The Craftsman, but they failed to move Walpole, or to shake his power. The English Government, instead of treating Wilkes with a dignified indifference, was weak enough to show how deeply it was touched by him, dismissed him from his commission of Colonel of the Buckinghamshire Militia, and treated Lord Temple as an abettor of his, by depriving him of the Lord-Lieutenancy of the same county, and striking his name from the list of Privy Councillors, giving the Lord-Lieutenancy to Dashwood, now Lord Le Despencer. "I tell you what I'll do," said the Deacon, after a little consideration. "I feel as if both Si and you kin stand a little more'n you had yesterday. I'll cook two to-day. We'll send a big cupful over to Capt. McGillicuddy. That'll leave us two for to-morrer. After that we'll have to trust to Providence." "Indeed you won't," said the Surgeon decisively. "You'll go straight home, and stay there until you are well. You won't be fit for duty for at least a month yet, if then. If you went out into camp now you would have a relapse, and be dead inside of a week. The country between here and Chattanooga is dotted with the graves of men who have been sent back to the front too soon." "Adone do wud that—though you sound more as if you wur in a black temper wud me than as if you pitied me." "Wot about this gal he's married?" "Don't come any further." "Davy, it 'ud be cruel of us to go and leave him." "Insolent priest!" interrupted De Boteler, "do you dare to justify what you have done? Now, by my faith, if you had with proper humility acknowledged your fault and sued for pardon—pardon you should have had. But now, you leave this castle instantly. I will teach you that De Boteler will yet be master of his own house, and his own vassals. And here I swear (and the baron of Sudley uttered an imprecation) that, for your meddling knavery, no priest or monk shall ever again abide here. If the varlets want to shrieve, they can go to the Abbey; and if they want to hear mass, a priest can come from Winchcombe. But never shall another of your meddling fraternity abide at Sudley while Roland de Boteler is its lord." "My lord," said Edith, in her defence, "this woman has sworn falsely. The medicine I gave was a sovereign remedy, if given as I ordered. Ten drops would have saved the child's life; but the contents of the phial destroyed it. The words I uttered were prayers for the life of the child. My children, and all who know me, can bear witness that I have a custom of asking His blessing upon all I take in hand. I raised my eyes towards heaven, and muttered words; but, my lord, they were words of prayer—and I looked up as I prayed, to the footstool of the Lord. But it is in vain to contend: the malice of the wicked will triumph, and Edith Holgrave, who even in thought never harmed one of God's creatures, must be sacrificed to cover the guilt, or hide the thoughtlessness of another." "Aye, Sir Treasurer, thou hast reason to sink thy head! Thy odious poll-tax has mingled vengeance—nay, blood—with the cry of the bond." HoME古一级毛片免费观看
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