The best musical instrument ever created

The Moog One synthesizer is the best musical instrument ever created. Better than the electric guitar, the violin or the piano. Let me explain.

I was never a synthesizer guy. The word 'synthesizer' gave me a feeling of fakeness, like a McDonald's hamburger or a cheap 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 I landed on a video by Autumn Yorke, who is a YouTuber with a channel about synthesizers. She was paying homage to her Moog One synthesizer (how did I end up there?). I was mesmerised. The sounds out of this machine! Complex and harmonically rich, and so much variety within one instrument. I got excited and typed 'Moog One' into Google. It turned out a guy was selling a second-hand one near where I lived. Lucky me! Then I realised this was obviously a bad idea because why would I need a synthesizer? But my excitement had already won. The seller turned out to be a heavy-smoking recluse with an apartment full of synthesizers and visiting him was almost worth the purchase in itself. A few hours later the Moog was in my living room.

That was two years ago and I still have it. It was obviously a ridiculous purchase, but I feel it is ok to do that now and then. 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 it is also why it sounds so good. As humans 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. This synthesizer can create that complexity with ease. Because it is analogue, the sounds are often slightly off, which adds to the beauty (although I guess a computer should be able to model that too?). 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.