ROBERT MOOG DEAD AT 71: Robert Moog, whose self-named synthesizers turned electric currents into sound, revolutionizing music in the 1960s and opening the wave that became electronica, has died. He was 71.

Moog died Sunday at his home in Asheville, N.C., according to his company's Web site. An inoperable brain tumor had been detected in April.

As a Ph.D. student in engineering physics at Cornell, Moog in 1964 developed his first voltage-controlled synthesizer modules with composer Herb Deutsch. By year's end, R.A. Moog Co. marketed the first commercial modular synthesizer.

His patents can be viewed here, including his 1977 patent for the electronic synthesizer. I used to play on these things all the time "back in the day" - it's really sad when we lose an icon like this . . .