Emerson believed that Atlantic’s chief Ahmet Ertegun agreed to take the band on “because we could sell out 20,000-seaters before we even had a record out. That was enough for him to think that a lot of people would go out and buy the record when it did come out.”
After the Nice split in March 1970, Emerson formed a new band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer (ELP) […] ELP’s record deal provided funds for Emerson to buy his own Moog modular synthesiser from the US, which was a preset model that had fewer leads and punch cards to call up certain patches. He used the patch that Vickers provided, which contained six distinctive Moog sounds and became the foundation of ELP’s sound. It was a temperamental device, with the oscillators often going out of tune with temperature change. Emerson was the first artist to tour with a Moog synthesiser. His “Monster Moog”, built from numerous modules, weighed 550 pounds (250 kg), stood 10 feet (3 m) tall and took four roadies to move. Even with its unpredictability, it became an indispensable component of not only ELP’s concerts, but also Emerson’s own. His use of the Moog was so critical to the development of new Moog models that he was given prototypes, such as the Constellation, which he took on one tour, and the Apollo, which had its début on “Jerusalem” on Brain Salad Surgery (1973). As synthesiser technology evolved, Emerson went on to use a variety of other synthesisers, including the Minimoog, Yamaha GX-1, and several models by Korg.