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An electronic musical instrument or electrophone is a
musical instrument A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make Music, musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person ...
that produces sound using electronic circuitry. Such an instrument sounds by outputting an electrical, electronic or digital
audio signal An audio signal is a representation of sound, typically using either a changing level of electrical voltage for analog signals or a series of binary numbers for Digital signal (signal processing), digital signals. Audio signals have frequencies i ...
that ultimately is plugged into a
power amplifier An audio power amplifier (or power amp) amplifies low-power electronic audio signals, such as the signal from a radio receiver or an electric guitar pickup, to a level that is high enough for driving loudspeakers or headphones. Audio power a ...
which drives a
loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or, more fully, a speaker system) is a combination of one or more speaker drivers, an enclosure, and electrical connections (possibly including a crossover network). The speaker driver is an ...
, creating the sound heard by the performer and listener. An electronic instrument might include a
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
for controlling its sound, often by adjusting the pitch,
frequency Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. Frequency is an important parameter used in science and engineering to specify the rate of oscillatory and vibratory phenomena, such as mechanical vibrations, audio ...
, or duration of each
note Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...
. A common user interface is the
musical keyboard A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, sho ...
, which functions similarly to the keyboard on an acoustic
piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...
where the keys are each linked mechanically to swinging string hammers - whereas with an electronic keyboard, the keyboard interface is linked to a synth module,
computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...
or other electronic or digital sound generator, which then creates a sound. However, it is increasingly common to separate user interface and sound-generating functions into a music controller (
input device In computing, an input device is a piece of equipment used to provide data and control signals to an information processing system, such as a computer or information appliance. Examples of input devices include keyboards, computer mice, scanne ...
) and a music synthesizer, respectively, with the two devices communicating through a musical performance description language such as
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...
or Open Sound Control. The solid state nature of electronic keyboards also offers differing "feel" and "response", offering a novel experience in playing relative to operating a mechanically linked piano keyboard. All electronic musical instruments can be viewed as a subset of
audio signal processing Audio signal processing is a subfield of signal processing that is concerned with the electronic manipulation of audio signals. Audio signals are electronic representations of sound waves—longitudinal waves which travel through air, consisting ...
applications. Simple electronic musical instruments are sometimes called
sound effect A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. In m ...
s; the border between sound effects and actual musical instruments is often unclear. In the 21st century, electronic musical instruments are now widely used in most styles of music. In popular music styles such as
electronic dance music Electronic dance music (EDM), also referred to as dance music or club music, is a broad range of percussive electronic music genres originally made for nightclubs, raves, and List of electronic dance music festivals, festivals. It is generally ...
, almost all of the instrument sounds used in recordings are electronic instruments (e.g.,
bass synth Keyboard bass (shortened to keybass and sometimes referred as a synth bass) is the use of a smaller, low-pitched keyboard with fewer notes than a regular keyboard or pedal keyboard to substitute for the deep notes of a bass guitar or double bas ...
,
synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
,
drum machine A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...
). Development of new electronic musical instruments, controllers, and synthesizers continues to be a highly active and interdisciplinary field of research. Specialized conferences, such as the International Conference on
New Interfaces for Musical Expression New Interfaces for Musical Expression, also known as NIME, is an international conference dedicated to scientific research on the development of new technologies and their role in musical expression and artistic performance. History The confer ...
, have organized to report cutting-edge work, as well as to provide a showcase for artists who perform or create music with new electronic music instruments, controllers, and synthesizers.


Classification

In musicology, electronic musical instruments are known as electrophones. Electrophones are the fifth category of musical instrument under the Hornbostel-Sachs system. Musicologists typically only classify music as electrophones if the sound is initially produced by electricity, excluding electronically controlled acoustic instruments such as
pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...
s and amplified instruments such as
electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...
s. The category was added to the Hornbostel-Sachs musical instrument classification system by
Sachs Sachs is a German surname, meaning "man from Saxony". Sachs is a common surname among Ashkenazi Jews from Saxony, in the United States sometimes adopted in the variant Zaks, supposedly in reference to the Hebrew phrase ''Zera Kodesh Shemo'' (ZaKS), ...
in 1940, in his 1940 book ''The History of Musical Instruments''; the original 1914 version of the system did not include it. Sachs divided electrophones into three subcategories: * 51=electrically actuated
acoustic instrument Acoustic music is music that solely or primarily uses instruments that produce sound through acoustic means, as opposed to electric or electronic means. While all music was once acoustic, the retronym "acoustic music" appeared after the ad ...
s (e.g.,
pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...
with electronic
tracker action Tracker action is a term used in reference to pipe organs and steam calliopes to indicate a mechanical linkage between keys or pedals pressed by the organist and the valve that allows air to flow into pipe(s) of the corresponding note. Thi ...
) * 52=electrically amplified acoustic instruments (e.g.,
acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
with pickup) * 53=instruments which make sound primarily by way of electrically driven
oscillator Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...
s The last category included instruments such as
theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...
s or
synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
s, which he called radioelectric instruments. Francis William Galpin provided such a group in his own classification system, which is closer to Mahillon than Sachs-Hornbostel. For example, in Galpin's 1937 book ''A Textbook of European Musical Instruments'', he lists electrophones with three second-level divisions for sound generation ("by oscillation", "electro-magnetic", and "electro-static"), as well as third-level and fourth-level categories based on the control method. Present-day ethnomusicologists, such as Margaret Kartomi and Terry Ellingson, suggest that, in keeping with the spirit of the original Hornbostel Sachs classification scheme, if one categorizes instruments by what first produces the initial sound in the instrument, that only subcategory 53 should remain in the electrophones category. Thus, it has been more recently proposed, for example, that the pipe organ (even if it uses electric key action to control
solenoid valve A solenoid valve is an electromechanically operated valve. Solenoid valves differ in the characteristics of the electric current they use, the strength of the magnetic field they generate, the mechanism they use to regulate the fluid, and the ...
s) remain in the
aerophone An aerophone is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the instrume ...
s category, and that the
electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...
remain in the
chordophone In musical instrument classification, string instruments, or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer strums, plucks, strikes or sounds the strings in varying manners. Musicians play some ...
s category, and so on.


Early examples

In the 18th-century, musicians and composers adapted a number of acoustic instruments to exploit the novelty of electricity. Thus, in the broadest sense, the first electrified musical instrument was the Denis d'or keyboard, dating from 1753, followed shortly by the clavecin électrique by the Frenchman Jean-Baptiste de Laborde in 1761. The Denis d'or consisted of a keyboard instrument of over 700 strings, electrified temporarily to enhance sonic qualities. The clavecin électrique was a keyboard instrument with plectra (picks) activated electrically. However, neither instrument used electricity as a sound source. The first electric synthesizer was invented in 1876 by
Elisha Gray Elisha Gray (August 2, 1835 – January 21, 1901) was an American electrical engineering, electrical engineer who co-founded the Western Electric, Western Electric Manufacturing Company. Gray is best known for his Invention of the telephone, dev ...
. The "Musical Telegraph" was a chance by-product of his telephone technology when Gray discovered that he could control sound from a self-vibrating electromagnetic circuit and so invented a basic
oscillator Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum ...
. The Musical Telegraph used steel reeds oscillated by electromagnets and transmitted over a telephone line. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, which consisted of a diaphragm vibrating in a magnetic field. A significant invention, which later had a profound effect on electronic music, was the
audion The Audion was an electronic detecting or amplifying vacuum tube invented by American electrical engineer Lee de Forest as a diode in 1906.De Forest patented a number of variations of his detector tubes starting in 1906. The patent that most cle ...
in 1906. This was the first thermionic valve, or
vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It ...
and which led to the generation and amplification of electrical signals, radio broadcasting, and electronic computation, among other things. Other early synthesizers included the
Telharmonium The Telharmonium (also known as the Dynamophone) was an early electrical organ, developed by Thaddeus Cahill c. 1896 and patented in 1897. , filed 1896-02-04. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was hea ...
(1897), the
Theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...
(1919), Jörg Mager's Spharophon (1924) and Partiturophone, Taubmann's similar Electronde (1933),
Maurice Martenot Maurice Louis Eugène Martenot (; October 14, 1898 – October 8, 1980) was a French cellist, a radio telegraphy, telegrapher during the first World War, and an inventor. Born in Paris, he is best known for his invention of the ondes Martenot, an ...
's
ondes Martenot The ondes Martenot ( ; , ) or ondes musicales () is an early electronic musical instrument. It is played with a lateral-vibrato Keyboard instrument, keyboard or by moving a ring tied to a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a theremin. D ...
("Martenot waves", 1928), Trautwein's
Trautonium The Trautonium is an electronic synthesizer invented in 1930 by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin at the Musikhochschule's music and radio lab, the Rundfunkversuchstelle. Soon afterward Oskar Sala joined him, continuing development until Sala's de ...
(1930). The Mellertion (1933) used a non-standard scale, Bertrand's Dynaphone could produce octaves and perfect fifths, while the Emicon was an American, keyboard-controlled instrument constructed in 1930 and the German Hellertion combined four instruments to produce chords. Three Russian instruments also appeared, Oubouhof's Croix Sonore (1934), Ivor Darreg's
microtonal Microtonality is the use in music of microtones — intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal interv ...
'Electronic Keyboard Oboe' (1937) and the ANS synthesizer, constructed by the Russian scientist Evgeny Murzin from 1937 to 1958. Only two models of this latter were built and the only surviving example is currently stored at the Lomonosov University in
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
. It has been used in many Russian movies—like '' Solaris''—to produce unusual, "cosmic" sounds.
Hugh Le Caine Hugh Le Caine (May 27, 1914 – July 3, 1977) was a Canadian physicist, composer, and instrument builder. Le Caine was brought up in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) in northwestern Ontario. At a young age, he began making musical instruments. In y ...
, John Hanert,
Raymond Scott Raymond Scott (born Harry Warnow; September 10, 1908 – February 8, 1994) was an American composer, band leader, pianist and record producer. Known best in his time as a composer of production music, Scott is today regarded as an early ...
, composer
Percy Grainger Percy Aldridge Grainger (born George Percy Grainger; 8 July 188220 February 1961) was an Australian-born composer, arranger and pianist who moved to the United States in 1914 and became an American citizen in 1918. In the course of a long and ...
(with Burnett Cross), and others built a variety of automated electronic-music controllers during the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1959 Daphne Oram produced a novel method of synthesis, her "
Oramics __NOTOC__ Oramics is a drawn sound technique designed in 1957 by musician Daphne Oram. The machine was further developed in 1962 after receiving a grant from the Gulbenkian Foundation. The technique involves drawing on 35mm film strips to co ...
" technique, driven by drawings on a 35 mm film strip; it was used for a number of years at the
BBC Radiophonic Workshop The BBC Radiophonic Workshop was one of the sound effects units of the BBC, created in 1958 to produce Incidental music, incidental sounds and new music for radio and, later, television. The unit is known for its experimental and pioneering ...
. This workshop was also responsible for the theme to the TV series ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
'' a piece, largely created by Delia Derbyshire, that more than any other ensured the popularity of electronic music in the UK.


Telharmonium

In 1897
Thaddeus Cahill Thaddeus Cahill (June 18, 1867 – April 12, 1934) was a prominent american inventor of the early 20th century. He is widely credited with the invention of the first electromechanical musical instrument, which he dubbed the telharmonium. He st ...
patented an instrument called the Telharmonium (or Teleharmonium, also known as the Dynamaphone). Using
tonewheel A tonewheel or tone wheel is a simple electromechanical apparatus used for generating electric musical notes in electromechanical electronic organ, organ instruments such as the Hammond Organ, Hammond organ and in telephony to generate audible ...
s to generate musical sounds as electrical signals by
additive synthesis Additive synthesis is a sound synthesis technique that creates timbre by adding sine waves together. The timbre of musical instruments can be considered in the light of Fourier series, Fourier theory to consist of multiple harmonic or inharmoni ...
, it was capable of producing any combination of notes and overtones, at any dynamic level. This technology was later used to design the
Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...
. Between 1901 and 1910 Cahill had three progressively larger and more complex versions made, the first weighing seven tons, the last in excess of 200 tons. Portability was managed only by rail and with the use of thirty boxcars. By 1912, public interest had waned, and Cahill's enterprise was bankrupt.


Theremin

Another development, which aroused the interest of many composers, occurred in 1919–1920. In Leningrad, Leon Theremin built and demonstrated his Etherophone, which was later renamed the
Theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...
. This led to the first compositions for electronic instruments, as opposed to noisemakers and re-purposed machines. The Theremin was notable for being the first musical instrument played without touching it. In 1929,
Joseph Schillinger Joseph Moiseyevich Schillinger (; (other sources: ) – 23 March 1943) was a composer, music theorist, and music composition, composition teacher who originated the Schillinger System of Musical Composition. He was born in Kharkiv, Kharkov, in the ...
composed ''First Airphonic Suite for Theremin and Orchestra'', premièred with the Cleveland Orchestra with Leon Theremin as soloist. The next year Henry Cowell commissioned Theremin to create the first electronic rhythm machine, called the Rhythmicon. Cowell wrote some compositions for it, which he and Schillinger premiered in 1932.


Ondes Martenot

The ondes Martenot is played with a keyboard or by moving a ring along a wire, creating "wavering" sounds similar to a
theremin The theremin (; originally known as the ætherphone, etherphone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox) is an electronic musical instrument controlled without physical contact by the performer (who is known as a thereminist). It is named aft ...
. It was invented in 1928 by the French cellist
Maurice Martenot Maurice Louis Eugène Martenot (; October 14, 1898 – October 8, 1980) was a French cellist, a radio telegraphy, telegrapher during the first World War, and an inventor. Born in Paris, he is best known for his invention of the ondes Martenot, an ...
, who was inspired by the accidental overlaps of tones between military radio oscillators, and wanted to create an instrument with the expressiveness of the
cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...
. The French composer
Olivier Messiaen Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (, ; ; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithology, ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th century, he was also an ou ...
used the ondes Martenot in pieces such as his 1949 symphony '' Turangalîla-Symphonie,'' and his sister-in-law Jeanne Loriod was a celebrated player. It appears in numerous film and television soundtracks, particularly
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
and
horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...
s. Contemporary users of the ondes Martenot include
Tom Waits Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American musician, composer, songwriter, and actor. His lyrics often focus on society's underworld and are delivered in his trademark deep, gravelly voice. He began in the American folk music, fo ...
,
Daft Punk Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. They achieved popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement, combining house music, funk, disco, tech ...
and the
Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...
guitarist
Jonny Greenwood Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood (born 5 November 1971) is an English musician. He is the lead guitarist and keyboardist of the rock band Radiohead, and has composed numerous film scores. He has been named one of the greatest guitarists by numer ...
.


Trautonium

The Trautonium was invented in 1928. It was based on the
subharmonic In music, the undertone series or subharmonic series is a sequence of notes that results from inverting the intervals of the overtone series. While overtones naturally occur with the physical production of music on instruments, undertones mus ...
scale, and the resulting sounds were often used to emulate bell or gong sounds, as in the 1950s Bayreuth productions of ''
Parsifal ''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is freely based on the 13th-century Middle High German chivalric romance ''Parzival'' of th ...
''. In 1942, Richard Strauss used it for the bell- and gong-part in the Dresden première of his ''Japanese Festival Music''. This new class of instruments, microtonal by nature, was only adopted slowly by composers at first, but by the early 1930s there was a burst of new works incorporating these and other electronic instruments.


Hammond organ and Novachord

In 1929
Laurens Hammond Laurens Hammond (January 11, 1895 – July 1, 1973) was an American engineer and inventor. His inventions include the Hammond organ, the Hammond Clock Company, Hammond clock, and the world's first polyphonic musical synthesizer, the Novachor ...
established his company for the manufacture of electronic instruments. He went on to produce the
Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...
, which was based on the principles of the
Telharmonium The Telharmonium (also known as the Dynamophone) was an early electrical organ, developed by Thaddeus Cahill c. 1896 and patented in 1897. , filed 1896-02-04. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was hea ...
, along with other developments including early reverberation units. The Hammond organ is an electromechanical instrument, as it used both mechanical elements and electronic parts. A Hammond organ used spinning metal tonewheels to produce different sounds. A
magnetic pickup A pickup is an electronic device that converts energy from one form to another that captures or senses mechanical vibrations produced by musical instruments, particularly stringed instruments such as the electric guitar, and converts these t ...
similar in design to the pickups in an
electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups ...
is used to transmit the pitches in the tonewheels to an amplifier and speaker enclosure. While the Hammond organ was designed to be a lower-cost alternative to a
pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurised air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a Musical keyboard, keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single tone and pitch, the pipes are provide ...
for church music, musicians soon discovered that the Hammond was an excellent instrument for
blues Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
and
jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
; indeed, an entire genre of music developed built around this instrument, known as the organ trio (typically Hammond organ, drums, and a third instrument, either saxophone or guitar). The first commercially manufactured synthesizer was the
Novachord The Novachord is the world's first commercial polyphonic synthesizer, polyphonic synthesizer. Incorporating many circuit and control elements found in modern synthesizers, and using subtractive synthesis to generate tones, it was designed by Joh ...
, built by the
Hammond Organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert, first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding #Drawbars, drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, sound was created ...
Company from 1938 to 1942, which offered 72-note
polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord ...
using 12 oscillators driving monostable-based divide-down circuits, basic
envelope An envelope is a common packaging item, usually made of thin, flat material. It is designed to contain a flat object, such as a letter (message), letter or Greeting card, card. Traditional envelopes are made from sheets of paper cut to one o ...
control and resonant
low-pass filter A low-pass filter is a filter that passes signals with a frequency lower than a selected cutoff frequency and attenuates signals with frequencies higher than the cutoff frequency. The exact frequency response of the filter depends on the filt ...
s. The instrument featured 163 vacuum tubes and weighed 500 pounds. The instrument's use of envelope control is significant, since this is perhaps the most significant distinction between the modern synthesizer and other electronic instruments.


Analogue synthesis 1950–1980

The most commonly used electronic instruments are
synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
s, so-called because they artificially generate sound using a variety of techniques. All early circuit-based synthesis involved the use of analogue circuitry, particularly voltage controlled amplifiers, oscillators and filters. An important technological development was the invention of the Clavivox
synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
in 1956 by
Raymond Scott Raymond Scott (born Harry Warnow; September 10, 1908 – February 8, 1994) was an American composer, band leader, pianist and record producer. Known best in his time as a composer of production music, Scott is today regarded as an early ...
with subassembly by
Robert Moog Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthe ...
. French
composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...
and engineer
Edgard Varèse Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse (; also spelled Edgar; December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965) was a French and American composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States. Varèse's music emphasizes timbre and rhythm; h ...
created a variety of compositions using electronic horns, whistles, and tape. Most notably, he wrote '' Poème électronique'' for the Philips pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958.


Modular synthesizers

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...
produced experimental devices to synthesize voice and music in the 1950s. The Mark II Music Synthesizer, housed at the
Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center The Computer Music Center (CMC) at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. It was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Location The CMC is h ...
in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA, with contributions from
Vladimir Ussachevsky Vladimir Alexeevich Ussachevsky (November 3, 1911 in Hailar, China – January 2, 1990 in New York, New York) was a Russian-American composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music. Biography Vladimir Ussachevsky was born in ...
and Peter Mauzey, it was installed at Columbia University in 1957. Consisting of a room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components, it was only capable of producing music by programming, using a
paper tape Five- and eight-hole wide punched paper tape Paper tape reader on the Harwell computer with a small piece of five-hole tape connected in a circle – creating a physical program loop Punched tape or perforated paper tape is a form of data st ...
sequencer punched with holes to control pitch sources and filters, similar to a mechanical
player piano A player piano is a self-playing piano with a pneumatic or electromechanical mechanism that operates the piano action using perforated paper or metallic rolls. Modern versions use MIDI. The player piano gained popularity as mass-produced home ...
but capable of generating a wide variety of sounds. The
vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It ...
system had to be patched to create timbres. In the 1960s synthesizers were still usually confined to studios due to their size. They were usually modular in design, their stand-alone signal sources and processors connected with patch cords or by other means and controlled by a common controlling device.
Harald Bode Harald Bode (October 19, 1909 – January 15, 1987) was a German engineer and pioneer in the development of electronic musical instruments. Biography Harald Bode was born in 1909 in Hamburg, Germany. At the age of 18 he lost his parents and ...
, Don Buchla,
Hugh Le Caine Hugh Le Caine (May 27, 1914 – July 3, 1977) was a Canadian physicist, composer, and instrument builder. Le Caine was brought up in Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay) in northwestern Ontario. At a young age, he began making musical instruments. In y ...
,
Raymond Scott Raymond Scott (born Harry Warnow; September 10, 1908 – February 8, 1994) was an American composer, band leader, pianist and record producer. Known best in his time as a composer of production music, Scott is today regarded as an early ...
and Paul Ketoff were among the first to build such instruments, in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Buchla later produced a commercial modular synthesizer, the Buchla Music Easel.
Robert Moog Robert Arthur Moog ( ; May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005) was an American engineer and electronic music pioneer. He was the founder of the synthesizer manufacturer Moog Music and the inventor of the first commercial synthesizer, the Moog synthe ...
, who had been a student of Peter Mauzey and one of the RCA Mark II engineers, created a synthesizer that could reasonably be used by musicians, designing the circuits while he was at Columbia-Princeton. The
Moog synthesizer The Moog synthesizer ( ) is a modular synthesizer invented by the American engineer Robert Moog in 1964. Moog's company, R. A. Moog Co., produced numerous models from 1965 to 1981, and again from 2014. It was the first commercial synthesizer ...
was first displayed at the
Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or product ...
convention in 1964. It required experience to set up sounds but was smaller and more intuitive than what had come before, less like a machine and more like a musical instrument. Moog established standards for control interfacing, using a logarithmic 1-volt-per-octave for pitch control and a separate triggering signal. This standardization allowed synthesizers from different manufacturers to operate simultaneously. Pitch control was usually performed either with an organ-style keyboard or a
music sequencer A music sequencer (or audio sequencer or simply sequencer) is a device or application software that can record, edit, or play back music, by handling Musical note, note and performance information in several forms, typically CV/Gate, MIDI, or Open ...
producing a timed series of control voltages. During the late 1960s hundreds of popular recordings used Moog synthesizers. Other early commercial synthesizer manufacturers included ARP, who also started with modular synthesizers before producing all-in-one instruments, and British firm EMS.


Integrated synthesizers

In 1970, Moog designed the
Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...
, a non-modular synthesizer with a built-in keyboard. The analogue circuits were interconnected with switches in a simplified arrangement called "normalization." Though less flexible than a modular design, normalization made the instrument more portable and easier to use. The
Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...
sold 12,000 units. Further standardized the design of subsequent synthesizers with its integrated keyboard, pitch and modulation wheels and VCO->VCF->VCA signal flow. It has become celebrated for its "fat" sound—and its tuning problems. Miniaturized solid-state components allowed synthesizers to become self-contained, portable instruments that soon appeared in live performance and quickly became widely used in popular music and electronic art music.


Polyphony

Many early analog synthesizers were monophonic, producing only one tone at a time. Popular monophonic synthesizers include the Moog
Minimoog The Minimoog is an analog synthesizer first manufactured by Moog Music between 1970 and 1981. Designed as a more affordable, portable version of the modular Moog synthesizer, it was the first synthesizer sold in retail stores. It was first popul ...
. A few, such as the Moog Sonic Six,
ARP Odyssey The ARP Odyssey is an analog circuit, analog synthesizer introduced by ARP Instruments in 1972. History ARP developed the Odyssey as a direct competitor to the Minimoog, Moog Minimoog and an answer to the demand for more affordable, portable, a ...
and EML 101, could produce two different pitches at a time when two keys were pressed.
Polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chord ...
(multiple simultaneous tones, which enables
chords Chord or chords may refer to: Art and music * Chord (music), an aggregate of musical pitches sounded simultaneously ** Guitar chord, a chord played on a guitar, which has a particular tuning * The Chords (British band), 1970s British mod ...
) was only obtainable with electronic organ designs at first. Popular electronic keyboards combining organ circuits with synthesizer processing included the ARP Omni and Moog's Polymoog and Opus 3. By 1976 affordable polyphonic synthesizers began to appear, such as the Yamaha CS-50, CS-60 and CS-80, the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and the Oberheim Four-Voice. These remained complex, heavy and relatively costly. The recording of settings in digital memory allowed storage and recall of sounds. The first practical polyphonic synth, and the first to use a microprocessor as a controller, was the
Sequential Circuits Sequential is an American synthesizer company founded in 1974 as Sequential Circuits by Dave Smith. In 1978, Sequential released the Prophet-5, the first programmable polyphonic synthesizer, which was widely used in the music industry. In the ...
Prophet-5 The Prophet-5 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the American company Sequential (company), Sequential. It was designed by Dave Smith (engineer), Dave Smith and John S. Bowen (sound designer), John Bowen in 1977. It was the first Polyphony ...
introduced in late 1977. For the first time, musicians had a practical polyphonic synthesizer that could save all knob settings in computer memory and recall them at the touch of a button. The Prophet-5's design paradigm became a new standard, slowly pushing out more complex and recondite modular designs.


Tape recording

In 1935, another significant development was made in Germany. Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft (AEG) demonstrated the first commercially produced magnetic tape recorder, called the ''
Magnetophon Magnetophon was the brand or model name of the pioneering reel-to-reel tape recorder developed by engineers of the German electronics company AEG in the 1930s, based on the magnetic tape invention by Fritz Pfleumer. AEG created the world's firs ...
''. Audio tape, which had the advantage of being fairly light as well as having good audio fidelity, ultimately replaced the bulkier wire recorders. The term "
electronic music Electronic music broadly is a group of music genres that employ electronic musical instruments, circuitry-based music technology and software, or general-purpose electronics (such as personal computers) in its creation. It includes both music ...
" (which first came into use during the 1930s) came to include the tape recorder as an essential element: "electronically produced sounds recorded on tape and arranged by the composer to form a musical composition". It was also indispensable to
Musique concrète Musique concrète (; ): " problem for any translator of an academic work in French is that the language is relatively abstract and theoretical compared to English; one might even say that the mode of thinking itself tends to be more schematic ...
. Tape also gave rise to the first, analogue, sample-playback keyboards, the
Chamberlin The Chamberlin is an electro-mechanical keyboard instrument that was a precursor to the Mellotron. It was developed and patented by the American inventor Harry Chamberlin from 1949 to 1956, when the first model was introduced. There are several ...
and its more famous successor the
Mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...
, an electro-mechanical, polyphonic keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s.


Sound sequencer

During the 1940s–1960s,
Raymond Scott Raymond Scott (born Harry Warnow; September 10, 1908 – February 8, 1994) was an American composer, band leader, pianist and record producer. Known best in his time as a composer of production music, Scott is today regarded as an early ...
, an American composer of electronic music, invented various kind of music sequencers for his electric compositions. Step sequencers played rigid patterns of notes using a grid of (usually) 16 buttons, or steps, each step being 1/16 of a measure. These patterns of notes were then chained together to form longer compositions. Software sequencers were continuously utilized since the 1950s in the context of computer music, including computer-''played'' music (software sequencer), computer-''composed'' music ( music synthesis), and computer ''sound generation'' (
sound synthesis A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis an ...
).


Digital era 1980–2000


Digital synthesis

The first
digital synthesizer A digital synthesizer is a synthesizer that uses digital signal processing (DSP) techniques to make musical sounds, in contrast to older analog synthesizers, which produce music using analog electronics, and samplers, which play back digital rec ...
s were academic experiments in sound synthesis using digital computers.
FM synthesis Frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) is a form of sound synthesis whereby the frequency of a waveform is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The (instantaneous) frequency of an oscillator is altered in accordance wi ...
was developed for this purpose; as a way of generating complex sounds digitally with the smallest number of computational operations per sound sample. In 1983 Yamaha introduced the first stand-alone digital synthesizer, the DX-7. It used frequency modulation synthesis (FM synthesis), first developed by John Chowning at
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
during the late sixties. Chowning exclusively licensed his
FM synthesis Frequency modulation synthesis (or FM synthesis) is a form of sound synthesis whereby the frequency of a waveform is changed by modulating its frequency with a modulator. The (instantaneous) frequency of an oscillator is altered in accordance wi ...
patent to Yamaha in 1975. Yamaha subsequently released their first FM synthesizers, the GS-1 and GS-2, which were costly and heavy. There followed a pair of smaller, preset versions, the CE20 and CE25 Combo Ensembles, targeted primarily at the home organ market and featuring four-octave keyboards. Yamaha's third generation of digital synthesizers was a commercial success; it consisted of the DX7 and DX9 (1983). Both models were compact, reasonably priced, and dependent on custom digital integrated circuits to produce FM tonalities. The DX7 was the first mass market all-digital synthesizer. It became indispensable to many music artists of the 1980s, and demand soon exceeded supply. The DX7 sold over 200,000 units within three years. The DX series was not easy to program but offered a detailed, percussive sound that led to the demise of the electro-mechanical
Rhodes piano The Rhodes piano (also known as the Fender Rhodes piano) is an electric piano invented by Harold Rhodes, which became popular in the 1970s. Like a conventional piano, the Rhodes generates sound with keys and hammers, but instead of strings, th ...
, which was heavier and larger than a DX synth. Following the success of FM synthesis Yamaha signed a contract with Stanford University in 1989 to develop
digital waveguide synthesis Digital waveguide synthesis is the synthesis of audio using a digital waveguide. Digital waveguides are efficient computational models for physical media through which acoustic waves propagate. For this reason, digital waveguides constitute a ...
, leading to the first commercial physical modeling synthesizer, Yamaha's VL-1, in 1994. The DX-7 was affordable enough for amateurs and young bands to buy, unlike the costly synthesizers of previous generations, which were mainly used by top professionals.


Sampling

The
Fairlight CMI The Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument) is a digital synthesizer, music sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight. — with links to some Fairlight history and photos It was based on a commerc ...
(Computer Musical Instrument), the first polyphonic digital sampler, was the harbinger of sample-based synthesizers. Designed in 1978 by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie and based on a dual
microprocessor A microprocessor is a computer processor (computing), processor for which the data processing logic and control is included on a single integrated circuit (IC), or a small number of ICs. The microprocessor contains the arithmetic, logic, a ...
computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia, the Fairlight CMI gave musicians the ability to modify volume, attack, decay, and use special effects like vibrato. Sample
waveform In electronics, acoustics, and related fields, the waveform of a signal is the shape of its Graph of a function, graph as a function of time, independent of its time and Magnitude (mathematics), magnitude Scale (ratio), scales and of any dis ...
s could be displayed on-screen and modified using a
light pen A light pen is a computer input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand used in conjunction with a computer's cathode-ray tube (CRT) display. It allows the user to point to displayed objects or draw on the screen in a similar way to a to ...
. The
Synclavier The Synclavier is an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music workstation manufactured by New England Digital Corporation of Norwich, Vermont. It was produced in various forms from the late 1970s into the ea ...
from New England Digital was a similar system. Jon Appleton (with Jones and Alonso) invented the Dartmouth Digital Synthesizer, later to become the New England Digital Corp's Synclavier. The Kurzweil K250, first produced in 1983, was also a successful polyphonic digital music synthesizer, noted for its ability to reproduce several instruments synchronously and having a velocity-sensitive keyboard.


Computer music

An important new development was the advent of computers for the purpose of composing music, as opposed to manipulating or creating sounds. Iannis Xenakis began what is called ''musique stochastique,'' or '' stochastic music'', which is a method of composing that employs mathematical probability systems. Different probability algorithms were used to create a piece under a set of parameters. Xenakis used graph paper and a ruler to aid in calculating the velocity trajectories of
glissando In music, a glissando (; plural: ''glissandi'', abbreviated ''gliss.'') is a wikt:glide, glide from one pitch (music), pitch to another (). It is an Italianized Musical terminology, musical term derived from the French ''glisser'', "to glide". In ...
for his orchestral composition ''Metastasis'' (1953–54), but later turned to the use of computers to compose pieces like ''ST/4'' for string quartet and ''ST/48'' for orchestra (both 1962). The impact of computers continued in 1956. Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Issacson composed '' Illiac Suite'' for
string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...
, the first complete work of computer-assisted composition using
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of Rigour#Mathematics, mathematically rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algo ...
ic composition. In 1957,
Max Mathews Max Vernon Mathews (November 13, 1926 – April 21, 2011) was an American pioneer of computer music. Biography Max Vernon Mathews was born in Columbus, Nebraska, to two science schoolteachers. His father in particular taught physics, chemistry ...
at Bell Lab wrote MUSIC-N series, a first computer program family for generating digital audio waveforms through direct synthesis. Then Barry Vercoe wrote MUSIC 11 based on MUSIC IV-BF, a next-generation music synthesis program (later evolving into
csound Csound is a domain-specific computer programming language for audio programming. It is named Csound because it is written in the language C, in contrast to some of its predecessors. It is free and open-source software, released under the GNU Les ...
, which is still widely used). In mid 80s, Miller Puckette at
IRCAM IRCAM (French: ''Ircam, '', English: Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) is a French institute dedicated to the research of music and sound, especially in the fields of Avant-garde music, avant garde and Electroacoustic ...
developed graphic signal-processing software for 4X called
Max Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...
(after Max Mathews), and later ported it to
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
(with Dave Zicarelli extending it for
Opcode In computing, an opcode (abbreviated from operation code) is an enumerated value that specifies the operation to be performed. Opcodes are employed in hardware devices such as arithmetic logic units (ALUs), central processing units (CPUs), and ...
) for real-time
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...
control, bringing algorithmic composition availability to most composers with modest computer programming background.


MIDI

In 1980, a group of musicians and music merchants met to standardize an interface by which new instruments could communicate control instructions with other instruments and the prevalent microcomputer. This standard was dubbed MIDI (
Musical Instrument Digital Interface Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...
). A paper was authored by Dave Smith of
Sequential Circuits Sequential is an American synthesizer company founded in 1974 as Sequential Circuits by Dave Smith. In 1978, Sequential released the Prophet-5, the first programmable polyphonic synthesizer, which was widely used in the music industry. In the ...
and proposed to the
Audio Engineering Society The Audio Engineering Society (AES) is a professional body for engineers, scientists, other individuals with an interest or involvement in the professional audio industry. The membership largely comprises engineers developing devices or product ...
in 1981. Then, in August 1983, the MIDI Specification 1.0 was finalized. The advent of MIDI technology allows a single keystroke, control wheel motion, pedal movement, or command from a microcomputer to activate every device in the studio remotely and in synchrony, with each device responding according to conditions predetermined by the composer. MIDI instruments and software made powerful control of sophisticated instruments easily affordable by many studios and individuals. Acoustic sounds became reintegrated into studios via sampling and sampled-ROM-based instruments.


Modern electronic musical instruments

The increasing power and decreasing cost of sound-generating electronics (and especially of the personal computer), combined with the standardization of the
MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...
and Open Sound Control musical performance description languages, has facilitated the separation of musical instruments into music controllers and music synthesizers. By far the most common musical controller is the
musical keyboard A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, sho ...
. Other controllers include the radiodrum, Akai's EWI and Yamaha's WX wind controllers, the guitar-like
SynthAxe The SynthAxe is a fretted, guitar-like MIDI controller, created by Bill Aitken, Mike Dixon, and Tony Sedivy and manufactured in England in 1985. It is a musical instrument that uses electronic synthesizers to produce sound and is controlled throu ...
, the BodySynth, the Buchla Thunder, the Continuum Fingerboard, the Roland Octapad, various isomorphic keyboards including the Thummer, and Kaossilator Pro, and kits like I-CubeX.


Reactable

The Reactable is a round translucent table with a backlit interactive display. By placing and manipulating blocks called ''tangibles'' on the table surface, while interacting with the visual display via finger gestures, a virtual
modular synthesizer Modular synthesizers are synthesizers composed of separate modules for different functions. The modules can be connected together by the user to create a patch. The outputs from the modules may include audio signals, analog control voltages, ...
is operated, creating music or sound effects.


Percussa AudioCubes

AudioCubes are autonomous wireless cubes powered by an internal computer system and rechargeable battery. They have internal RGB lighting, and are capable of detecting each other's location, orientation and distance. The cubes can also detect distances to the user's hands and fingers. Through interaction with the cubes, a variety of music and sound software can be operated. AudioCubes have applications in sound design, music production, DJing and live performance.


Kaossilator

The Kaossilator and Kaossilator Pro are compact instruments where the position of a finger on the touch pad controls two note-characteristics; usually the pitch is changed with a left-right motion and the tonal property, filter or other parameter changes with an up-down motion. The touch pad can be set to different musical scales and keys. The instrument can record a repeating loop of adjustable length, set to any tempo, and new loops of sound can be layered on top of existing ones. This lends itself to electronic dance-music but is more limited for controlled sequences of notes, as the pad on a regular Kaossilator is featureless.


Eigenharp

The Eigenharp is a large instrument resembling a
bassoon The bassoon is a musical instrument in the woodwind family, which plays in the tenor and bass ranges. It is composed of six pieces, and is usually made of wood. It is known for its distinctive tone color, wide range, versatility, and virtuosity ...
, which can be interacted with through big buttons, a drum sequencer and a mouthpiece. The sound processing is done on a separate computer.


AlphaSphere

The AlphaSphere is a spherical instrument that consists of 48 tactile pads that respond to pressure as well as touch. Custom software allows the pads to be indefinitely programmed individually or by groups in terms of function, note, and pressure parameter among many other settings. The primary concept of the AlphaSphere is to increase the level of expression available to electronic musicians, by allowing for the playing style of a musical instrument.


Chip music

Chiptune Chiptune, also called 8-bit music (although not all chiptune is 8-bit music), is a style of electronic music made using the programmable sound generator (PSG) sound chips or synthesizers in vintage arcade machines, computers and video gam ...
, chipmusic, or chip music is music written in sound formats where many of the sound textures are synthesized or sequenced in real time by a
computer A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic set ...
or
video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...
sound chip A sound chip is an integrated circuit (chip) designed to produce audio signals through digital, analog or mixed-mode electronics. Sound chips are typically fabricated on metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) mixed-signal chips that process a ...
, sometimes including sample-based synthesis and low bit sample playback. Many chip music devices featured synthesizers in tandem with low rate sample playback.


DIY culture

During the late 1970s and early 1980s,
do-it-yourself "Do it yourself" ("DIY") is the method of building, modifying, or repairing things by oneself without the direct aid of professionals or certified experts. Academic research has described DIY as behaviors where "individuals use raw and semi- ...
designs were published in hobby electronics magazines (such the Formant modular synth, a DIY clone of the Moog system, published by
Elektor :''Elektor (ἠλέκτωρ) is also an ancient Greek name or epithet of the Sun, see Helios.'' ''Elektor'', also known as ''Elektor Magazine'', is a monthly magazine about all aspects of electronics, originally published in the Netherlands as ''E ...
) and kits were supplied by companies such as Paia in the US, and Maplin Electronics in the UK.


Circuit bending

In 1966, Reed Ghazala discovered and began to teach math "
circuit bending Circuit bending is the creative customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as children's toys and digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators. Circuit bending is manipulating a circuit ...
"—the application of the creative short circuit, a process of chance short-circuiting, creating experimental electronic instruments, exploring sonic elements mainly of timbre and with less regard to pitch or rhythm, and influenced by
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
’s
aleatoric music Aleatoric music (also aleatory music or chance music; from the Latin language, Latin word ''alea'', meaning "dice") is music in which some Aspect of music, element of the composition is left to Randomness, chance, and/or some primary element of a ...
concept. Much of this manipulation of circuits directly, especially to the point of destruction, was pioneered by Louis and Bebe Barron in the early 1950s, such as their work with
John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...
on the ''
Williams Mix ''Williams Mix'' (1951–1953) is a 4'16" electroacoustic composition by John Cage for eight simultaneously played independent quarter-inch magnetic tapes. The first piece of octophonic music, the piece was created by Cage with the assistance o ...
'' and especially in the soundtrack to ''
Forbidden Planet ''Forbidden Planet'' is a 1956 American science fiction action film from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, produced by Nicholas Nayfack and directed by Fred M. Wilcox (director), Fred M. Wilcox from a script by Cyril Hume that was based on a film story by ...
''. Modern
circuit bending Circuit bending is the creative customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as children's toys and digital synthesizers to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators. Circuit bending is manipulating a circuit ...
is the creative customization of the circuits within electronic devices such as low
voltage Voltage, also known as (electrical) potential difference, electric pressure, or electric tension, is the difference in electric potential between two points. In a Electrostatics, static electric field, it corresponds to the Work (electrical), ...
, battery-powered
guitar effects An effects unit, effects processor, or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing. Common effects include distortion (music), distortion/overdrive, ...
, children's
toy A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and p ...
s and small digital
synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
s to create new musical or visual instruments and sound generators. Emphasizing spontaneity and randomness, the techniques of circuit bending have been commonly associated with
noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical sound. Noise music include ...
, though many more conventional contemporary musicians and musical groups have been known to experiment with "bent" instruments. Circuit bending usually involves dismantling the machine and adding components such as switches and
potentiometer A potentiometer is a three- terminal resistor with a sliding or rotating contact that forms an adjustable voltage divider. If only two terminals are used, one end and the wiper, it acts as a variable resistor or rheostat. The measuring instrum ...
s that alter the circuit. With the revived interest for analogue synthesizer circuit bending became a cheap solution for many experimental musicians to create their own individual analogue sound generators. Nowadays many schematics can be found to build noise generators such as the Atari Punk Console or the Dub Siren as well as simple modifications for children toys such as the Speak & Spell that are often modified by circuit benders.


Modular synthesizers

The modular synthesizer is a type of synthesizer consisting of separate interchangeable modules. These are also available as kits for hobbyist DIY constructors. Many hobbyist designers also make available bare PCB boards and front panels for sale to other hobbyists.


See also

*
Experimental musical instrument An experimental musical instrument (or custom-made instrument) is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modif ...
* Live electronic music *
Visual music Visual music, sometimes called color music, refers to the creation of a visual analogue to musical form by adapting musical structures for visual composition, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods ...
* STEIM Technologies *
Oscilloscope An oscilloscope (formerly known as an oscillograph, informally scope or O-scope) is a type of electronic test instrument that graphically displays varying voltages of one or more signals as a function of time. Their main purpose is capturing i ...
*
Stereophonic sound Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...
Instrument families *
Vocoder A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''vo''ice and en''coder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder wa ...
Individual instruments (historical) * Electronic sackbut Individual instruments (modern) * Kraakdoos *
Metronome A metronome () is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a uniform interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats per minute (BPM). Metronomes may also include synchronized visual motion, such as a swinging pendulum ...
In Indian and Asian traditional music * Electronic tanpura * Shruti box


References


Works cited

*


External links


120 Years of Electronic Music

A chronology of computer and electronic music (including instruments)

History of Electronic Music
(French)


DIY



Discussion forum at Electro-music.com * Th
Synth-DIY
email list
Music From Outer Space
Information and parts to self-build a synthesizer.
Synthesizer do it yourself
a wiki about DIY electronic musical instruments


Museums and collections

* Horniman Museum'
music gallery
London, UK. Has one or two synths behind glass.
Moogseum
Asheville, North Carolina, US
Musical Museum
Brentford, London, UK. Mostly electro-mechanical instruments.
Musical Instrument Museum
Phoenix, Arizona, US
Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung
Berlin, Germany
Swiss Museum & Center for Electronic Music Instruments

The National Music Centre Collection
Canada
Vintage Synthesizer Museum
California, US * Washington And Lee Universit
Synthesizer Museum
, Washington, US {{DEFAULTSORT:Electronic Musical Instrument Popular music Electronic dance music Audio engineering