The best musical instrument ever created

The Moog One synthesizer is the best musical instrument ever created. Let me explain.

I was never a synthesizer guy. The word gave me a feeling of fakeness, like a McDonald's hamburger or a plastic toy. Later I found out there was a lot of synthesizer music that I actually loved, although I never realised this was synthesizer music.

One day in 2024 I was clicking around YouTube and by accident landed on a video by Autumn Yorke, a YouTuber with a channel about synthesizers (how did I end up there?). She was paying homage to her Moog One synthesizer. I was mesmerised. The sounds that came out of this! Complex and harmonically rich, and so much variety out of one instrument.

I got excited and typed 'Moog One' into Google. It turned out a guy was selling a second-hand one near my house. What luck! Then I realised it was obviously a bad idea to buy a very expensive synthesiser because I wouldn't know what to do with it. I had never programmed a synthesizer. I can't even play piano. But my excitement had won and I surrendered. The seller turned out to be a heavy-smoking recluse with an apartment full of synthesizers and visiting him was almost worth the purchase price in itself. A few hours later the Moog One was in my living room.

That was two years ago and I still have it. It was obviously a ridiculous purchase, as I still hardly know how to program it. Once every two weeks or so I turn it on and every time I am mesmerised.

It is an analogue synthesizer, which means the sounds are not created by a computer, but by electric currents in old-fashioned electrical components. You can control every aspect of the sound, which makes the synthesizer complex to operate. But that is also why it sounds so good. We like sounds that are complex. We like a guitar sound that has a lot of overtones or a choir where the singers all sing slightly differently (which they do even in the best choirs). This synthesizer can create that complexity with ease. Because it is analogue, the sounds are often slightly off, which adds to the beauty. It can recreate any sound, such as an organ, a violin, the ocean, the wind, a drum kit, a bird. But it really shines when you create complex sounds that do not exist yet, which it can do like no other.

That is why it is the best musical instrument ever created.