Page 51 - Zone Magazine Issue 017

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1928 – Maurice Martenot – Ondes Mertenot
Ondes Mertenot, which translates to “Martenots Waves,” was the creation of French inventor Maurice Martenot. This device was similar to the Theremin, but was a lot easier to play. You could control pitch by moving a ring worn on your ring finger, along a string to select different notes and pitches. Your left hand would then be used to control the articulation of the sound. This made it much easier for the user to know what pitch they were playing, since they could physically see the notes. Eventually a keyboard was added so it could be played like a traditional piano in addition to the string control.
1939 – Laurens Hammond, Charles Williams & John Hanert - Hammond Novachord
The Novachord is widely regarded as the first commercially released polyphonic synthesizer. The idea behind the Novachord, was to have a keyboard that you could play more than one note at a time. By taking the pitch and dividing it in half, they realised they now had a pitch an octave lower. When they realised this, they took 12 oscillators and tuned them to the same frequency of each note on a piano. They divided each note in half continuously, which is known as “The Divide Down Oscillator Method.” This allowed the Novachord to produce 72 notes or 6 octaves from the 12 oscillators. To shape the sound, they included several filters, vibrato and envelope control. It was built like a piano and had similar features to a piano, but the intent of the Novachord could not have been further from a piano. The Novachord was a big inspiration for synthesizer design over the coming years, especially the “Divide Down” method for creating more than one octave.
1945 -
Hugh Le Caine – Electronic Sackbut
Hugh Le Caine, while working in The National Research Council of Canada, developed techniques using Voltage Control to generate waveforms. Because the Electronic Sackbut was the first known instrument to use this technique, it is considered the first real synthesizer, since Voltage Control became the standard approach taken when developing synthesizers. Even though the Sackbut was monophonic, meaning you could only play one note at a time, the control you had of each note was what made the Sackbut so special. The keyboard was pressure sensitive, meaning by changing the pressure applied to each of the keys, you would alter the volume of that note. By moving your finger from side to side on a key, you could also alter the pitch of the sound, creating a vibrato effect. This could all be controlled using your right hand, while your left hand could perform modifications to the waveform and to the texture of the sound. Even though this piece of history never made it into the public domain, it was and still remains, one of the most innovative pieces of Synthesizer history.
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1957– Herbert Belar & Harry Olson – RCA Mark II Synthesizer
In the 1940’s, RCA engineer Harry Olson became interested in creating electronic
music and enlisted the help of fellow RCA engineer, Herbert Belar to develop The RCA
Mark I Synthesizer. The Mark I used a paper punch system similar to a player piano, to
programme the desired notes to play and also information about the sound each note
produced. This then led to producing the more popular and well known RCA Mark II
Synthesizer. The Mark II featured twice as many oscillators and gave the user more flexibility. It contained 750 vacuum tubes, took up the space of ten 19” racks, could multitrack directly to lacquer disk and cost a staggering $500,000 to build. It is now housed permanently at Columbia University since 1959.
1964– Bob Moog & Herbert Deutsch – Moog Modular
For any amateur hobbyist or professional musician, Bob Moog needs no introduction. One of his earliest works was the Moog Modular, a towering modular synthesizer consisting of various modules and patch chords. Unlike other modular synthesizers of the time, from inventors such as Don Buchla. Bob Moog was the first to incorporate a keyboard, after being persuaded by musician Herbert Deutsch, who collaborated with Moog. This was groundbreaking as it gave the user the ability to basically build the synthesizer the way they wanted, by rerouting the synthesizer modules in different orders, creating different sounds and timbres. Musicians such as Wendy Carlos and Keith Emerson were instrumental in the Moog Modulars success, bringing it into the commercial market and also suggesting improvements which Moog took on board.
ESSENTIALDANCEMUSIC 51
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