Robert Moog founded R. A. Moog Co. with his father in 1953 at the age of 19, building and selling theremin kits and theremins by mail order first from his parents' home in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens in New York City and, after he married, in his own home in Ithaca, before establishing the company's first commercial space at 41 East Main Street in Trumansburg, New York in 1963.

[5] Though the sound of the Moog synthesizer had rapidly become iconic with the success of Wendy Carlos's Switched-On Bach, the instrument's market was limited by its size, impracticality, and price.

At this point, rival companies such as the aforementioned ARP Instruments were producing both monophonic and polyphonic synthesizers that rapidly outpaced the Moog in popularity.

By 1975, ARP owned 40% of the synthesizer market share, effectively boxing out Moog Music, Inc.[10] In 1976, Norlin moved the company to a facility on Walden Avenue in Cheektowaga.

In 1977, once his contract with Norlin expired, Robert Moog officially left the company to pursue his own ventures, founding the firm Big Briar.

[11] By 1978, Moog Music, Inc. had released a number of products after the success of the Minimoog, including the Vocoder, the Micromoog, Multimoog, the Polymoog, and a series of Taurus bass pedals.

The company's problems were compounded by competition from Japanese manufacturers such as Roland, Korg and Yamaha, who by the late 1970s and early 1980s, were producing analog synthesizers of comparable ability but at a lower price point.

[11] Moog Music moved to Asheville, North Carolina, and continued its development of products created under Robert Moog's former company Big Briar, such as the Moogerfooger pedals and theremins, as well as introducing numerous new products such as the Minimoog Voyager, Little Phatty, Sub 37, and Mother 32 some of which continue to be produced and sold today.

[16][17] After Robert Moog died in 2005 due to complications arising from brain cancer,[18] his collaborator Michael Adams took over the company as president.

[11] The Moog saw some measure of success as experimental artists as Paul Beaver, Suzanne Ciani, and David Borden began to employ it in their work,[8] and the rise of psychedelic rock in the 1960s saw numerous commercial artists employ the Moog in their music, including the Byrds, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Doors.

[26] Perhaps the greatest commercial success for the Moog synthesizer arrived in 1968 with Wendy Carlos's seminal album Switched-On Bach selling over a million copies and winning three Grammy Awards.

The Moogerfooger, introduced under Big Briar, is an analog effects pedal that essentially allowed users to apply the modules that constituted the original Moog design to arbitrary sound inputs.

[33] The Little Phatty, introduced in 2006, was Moog Music's answer to demand for a portable, affordable analog signal path synthesizer.

These synthesizers introduced additional features such as a sequencer and brought edit-ability up from the dive format to the immediate accessibility of the front panel.

Adding a wider fatar keybed, more modules and patchpoints, and replacing the internal spring-reverb in Grandmother with an analog delay in the Matriarch Continuing on the Mother ecosystem, Moog Music introduced the Subharmonicon, a Eurorack compatible semi-modular table-top synthesizer designed on the principles of subharmonics and polyrhythms.

[41] A semi-modular 44 hp monophonic synthesizer with an envelope generator, LFO, wave folder and filter bank, with a one octave rubber keyboard.

[42] Extending the Mother line, the Spectravox integrates a sophisticated vocoder and filter bank, and can be used to create drones and colorful tonal sweeps.

[46] The festival attracted high-profile acts such as Keith Emerson, Laurie Anderson, Brian Eno, and Jónsi of Sigur Rós as well as numerous emerging and experimental groups and artists.

Additionally, the festival featured workshops and presentations that focus on instrument development and building (for instance the Moog Werkstatt-Ø1 was initially offered as a festival-build activity),[47] music tech, and research.