NOTIONS, SOUND AND UNSOUND
synthesizer had one drawback. It didn’t play chords. “If you go back to some of those older recordings, you’ll notice that they play a one-note line. Edgar Winter's ‘Frankenstein,’ if you remem- ber that.” On the tune, Winter plays cascades of notes, but can only do so sequentially.
“I wanted to be the first in the world to design a polyphonic synthesizer where you could play all 10 notes at one time, actu- ally, and no one had done that before.”
Tis burning desire was prelude to a major fail. “If you could say anything about me, it’s I’m one of those crazy diehard entrepre- neurial guys who cannot imagine failing.”
THE HINGE DECADE Te 1970s were a hinge decade in which vast troves of enabling technology developed during World War II and then the Cold War and the space program began to evolve into great inventions. Te synthesizer can be seen as a metaphor for the vast changes that were taking place in society.
CAN YOU HEAR THAT?
McGowan leads PS Audio with his intense focus on high-quality sound. He said he didn’t always have the “golden ear,” but devel- oped the skill through practice. (Photo courtesy of PS Audio)
“Tat was the first time I had ever seen a Moog synthesizer. I was smitten,” he said in an April interview with Army AL&T. “I knew how circuits worked. I knew how amplifiers worked. But I couldn’t imagine for the life of me how this collection of wires, lights and things could make that sound. And I was just, I had to know.”
For McGowan, that intersection of music and electronics was where he wanted to be. Whether that was DJing on the radio, building electronics or recording music, he learned, he said, “by the seat of my pants.”
SYNTHETIC SOUND Tese days, anyone can make a computer or smartphone play synthetic, digital music. You can play almost any instrument and create a virtual, digital orchestra on a personal computer. But that's digital. Te Moog synthesizer was analog.
Te original Moog synthesizer was invented in 1964 by Robert Moog, and it gained wide exposure with 1968’s “Switched-On Bach,” an album by Wendy Carlos. In McGowan’s view, Moog’s
78 Army AL&T Magazine Summer 2021
It was to this world in 1973 that Paul McGowan returned to civilian life from the Army, still wet behind the ears, almost self-destructively impulsive, but with big dreams. By his own admission, he had no business sense.
Te Army had provided him with more than he might have liked to admit. In Germany, McGowan had met an American woman named Terri Douglas with whom he developed an intense bond. Heedless shenanigans in Munich landed him in a German jail and cost him his gig as a DJ at AFN, as well as a promising start to a career in music production. He got shipped back to Fort Benning, Georgia. Terri—not yet his wife; they were married in 1977—came back to the States with him. Tey drove from Geor- gia to California in a Volkswagen van on a trip that included biblical rain, a bizarre storm of white frogs and other craziness. Once in California, McGowan went to work as a DJ at a radio station that, as McGowan put it, was “broke.” But not quite as broke as he was.
MAKE IT OR BREAK IT With visions of greatness (or delusions of grandeur) dancing in his head, McGowan reasoned that to make his synthesizer poly- phonic, he might need to build multiple synthesizers into one.
What he needed that he didn't have was money. With a business plan showing $1 million (in 1974 money) in revenue the first year and a firm handshake, he went to the bank, looking for a loan.
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