The Bob Moog Foundation's 2026 raffle features a rare 40th anniversary synthesiser valued at $7,500, with all proceeds funding educational programmes and the Moogseum.
Fancy owning a piece of synthesiser history whilst supporting music education? The Bob Moog Foundation has launched its 2026 fundraising raffle with a fully functional Minimoog Voyager XL as the prize – serial number 0475, signed by Thomas Dolby himself.
Released in 2010 to mark four decades since the original Minimoog Model D, the Voyager XL represents the pinnacle of Moog’s modern analogue synthesis. This particular instrument is valued at $7,500 USD and bears a signature from one of the most inventive electronic musicians of the 1980s.
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Built upon the 2002 Voyager platform, the XL model expands the formula with a 61-note keyboard, ribbon controller, and an additional LFO modulation bus. The extensive front-panel analogue patch bay transforms it into a semi-modular powerhouse, offering more routing flexibility than any previous Voyager iteration. The classic Minimoog architecture remains: three wide-range voltage-controlled oscillators, noise source, dual resonant filters, two ADSR envelopes and an LFO.
Thomas Dolby knows this instrument intimately. “The essence of the Voyager XL is that it’s the best of all worlds,” he noted. “It’s got the modular capability, ribbon bend controller, MIDI, and presets created by some of the foremost synthesists of our time. It’s everything that we liked about the original Minimoog in a modern package.”
Dolby’s credentials speak for themselves. Beyond his solo hits “She Blinded Me with Science” and “Hyperactive”, he shaped the sound of multiple platinum albums as a session player – contributing signature synth parts to Foreigner’s number one album 4, including the unforgettable textures on “Waiting for a Girl Like You”. Session work for Def Leppard’s Pyromania and collaborations with George Clinton, the Thompson Twins and others cemented his reputation. Later ventures included founding Silicon Valley software company Beatnik, serving as TED Conferences’ music director for over a decade, and joining Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute faculty to lead the New Media Program.
Raffle entries run from 7:00 am EST on 2nd February through 11:59 pm EST on 23rd February, 2026, and the draw is open internationally. All funds support Dr Bob’s SoundSchool (which has reached over 35,000 students), the Bob Moog Foundation Archives, and the Moogseum in Asheville, North Carolina – still recovering from Hurricane Helene’s impact.
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