Robert Moog (1934–2005) was the engineer who took electronic sound out of labs and put it into musicians’ hands. In 1964 he launched the Moog synthesizer, the first commercially successful keyboard-based synth, redefining how electronic music could be played. His work with Wendy Carlos on Switched-On Bach showed the world that synths weren’t just machines — they could be expressive, emotional, and widely appealing. Moog’s building blocks — oscillators, filters, envelopes — are still the core of modern sound design. What made Moog different wasn’t just the tech — it was his mindset. He listened to musicians and shaped his instruments around real creative needs, not engineering ego. That human-first approach is why his designs still feel intuitive today, even inside modern software synths.