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MIAMI (Reuters) - Robert Moog, whose synthesizers electrified music in the 1960s and 1970s, died on Sunday at his home in Asheville, North Carolina, just four months after being diagnosed with brain cancer, his company said. He was 71.
Moog started building theremins, an early electronic instrument that produces an unearthly sound and is played without the musician touching it, as a teenager and established his first commercial venture, the R.A. Moog Co., in 1954.
He created the first Moog Modular synthesizer in 1963 and followed that with the more portable Minimoog in 1970, his company, Moog Music Inc., said.
His instruments influenced many musical styles and can be heard in the music of bands and performers as diverse as Funkadelic, Yes, the Beatles, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Herbie Hancock and Stevie Wonder.
"What inspires me is not so much the music as the opportunity to interact with composers. I think that has driven everything I've done," Moog said in an interview early this year with New Scientist. "My training as an engineer has enabled me to design the stuff, but the reason I do it is not to make music but for the opportunity to work with musicians."
Walter Carlos, who later became Wendy Carlos, used a Moog synthesizer specially built for him in the late 1960s to record "Switched-On Bach," the first classical album to go platinum and the winner of three Grammy awards, which generated huge interest in synthesizers.
The Beatles used a Moog to record 1969's "Abbey Road."
"Bob shaped music in deep and meaningful ways by changing how music could be produced and ultimately, how it would sound," Moog Music Inc. president Michael Adams said.
"He contributed to a new soundscape -- a legacy that we will continue in his honor. He was a musical pioneer for the love of it and musicians everywhere have had the opportunity to expand their own creative horizons with Bob's inventions."
Adams said Moog, whose surname rhymes with "vogue," remained active with the company until the day in April he was diagnosed with cancer, and had planned to retire next year.
Moog is survived by his wife, Ileana; children Laura Moog Lanier, Matthew Moog, Michelle Moog-Koussa, and Renee Moog; his step-daughter Miranda Richmond; and the mother of his children, Shirleigh Moog.
A memorial service will take place on Wednesday at the Orange Peel music hall in Asheville.
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