The history of electronic instruments, part 3
Compiled by Glenn Folkvord

In the 1960s electronic instruments came out that looked like what we today refer to as synthesizers. Don Buchla and Robert Moog were among the engineers who would not only change synthesizer technology but also music itself.

Important synthesizers and developers in the 60s and 70s include:

• 1963: The Mellotron
• 1963: Buchla
• 1964: Robert Moog's Moogs
• 1969: The EMS
• 1972: The Roland corporation
• 1979: Fairlight CMI

The Mellotrons and Novatrons were produced in England by Streetly Electronics from the early 60s until 1986 by Leslie Bradley and his brothers Frank and Norman. The original Mellotron was designed as an expensive domestic novelty instrument. The Mellotron was a precursor of the modern digital sampler. Under each key was a strip of magnetic tape with a recorded sound that corresponded to the pitch of the key (the Mark II had two keyboards of 35 notes each making a total of 1260 seperate recordings). The instrument plays the sound when the key is pressed and returns the tape head to the begining of the tape when the key is released. This design enables the recorded sound to keep the individual characteristics of a sustained note (rather than a repeated loop) but had a limited duration per note, usually eight seconds. Most Mellotrons had 3 track 3/8" tapes, the different tracks being selectable by moving the tape heads across the tape strips from the front panel. This feature allowed the sound to be easily changed while playing and made it possible to set the heads in between tracks to blend the sounds.

Despite attempting to faithfully recreate the sound of an instrument the Mellotron had a distinct sound of its own that became fashionable amongst rock musicians during the 1960s and 1970s. The Novatron was a later model of the Mellotron re-named after the original company liquidised in 1977.

The Chamberlin was the original US keyboard instrument from which the Mellotron was copied, designed by Harry Chamberlin in the USA during the 1960s. The Chamberlin used exactly the same system as the Mellotron for playing back tape samples, yet had a sharper more accurate sound.

Donald Buchla started building and designing electronic instruments in 1960 when he was commisioned by the avant garde composer Morton Subotnik to build an instrument for live electronic music and composing. With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, Buchla started building his first modular synthesizers in 1963 under the name San Fransisco Tape Music Center, the name of Subotnik's music studio. Buchla's early synthesizers were experimental in design to accomadate the experimental music they were intended to produce, utilising unusual control features such as touch sensitive and resistance sensitive plates. Buchla's early pioneering work included the first analogue sequencers.

Buchla started to commercially produce his synthesisers in 1969 with a manufacturing deal from CBS / Fender. This deal eventually came to an end as CBS were unwilling to fund further research into instrument design. Today, Buchla continues to produce electronic musical instruments in the form of MIDI controllers.

Robert Moog (pic below) developed his ideas for an electronic instrument by starting out in 1961 building and selling Theremin kits and absorbing ideas about transistorised modular synthesisers from the German designer Harald Bode. After publishing an article for the January 1961 issue of the magazine "Electronics World", Moog sold around a 1000 Theremin kits from 1961 to 63 out of a three room apartment. Eventually he decided to begin producing instruments of his own design. After toying with the idea of a portable guitar amplifier, Moog turned to the synthesiser.
 
Whilst attending a convention in the winter of 1963, Moog was introduced to the idea of building new circuits that would be capable of producing sound. In September 1964 he was invited to exhibit his circuits at the Audio Engineering Society Convention. Shortly afterwards in 1964 Moog begin to manufacture electronic music synthesizers. Moog's synthesizers were designed in collaboration with the composers Herbert A. Deutsch and Walter (later Wendy) Carlos.

After the success of Carlos's album Switched on Bach, entirely recorded using Moog synthesizers, Moog's instruments made the first leap from the electronic avant garde into commercial popular music. The Beatles bought one, as did Mick Jagger who bought a hugely expensive modular Moog in 1967, similar to the one pictured (unfortunately this instruments was only used once, as a prop on a film set and was later sold to the German experimentalist rockers Tangerine Dream).

Though setting a future standard for analogue synthesizers, the Moog Synthesizer Company did not survive the decade; larger companies such as Arp and Roland developed Moog's protoypes into more sophisticated and cost effective instruments. Robert Moog has returned to his roots and currently runs Big Briar, a company specialising in transistorised version of the Theremin.

In 1969 the English electronic engineer and composer Peter Zinnovieff created EMS London Ltd to exploit the new market of electronic musical instruments. EMS created some of the most innovative and sometimes eccentric instruments of their time. EMS's most well known product was the VCS 3; a 3 VCO monosynth with a routable pinboard and a joystick housed in a distinctive angled wooden case. It has since been a favourite among artists such as Pink Floyd and Jean-Michel Jarre.

Apart from developing hardware synthesis, EMS also created the forerunner of software synthesis, the MUSYS computer synthesis language.

EMS was competing directly against Moog, Buchla and ARP, and were not to last the decade. EMS folded in 1979 due to investing in complex equipment which had little market demand, but have recently surfaced as a small company selling and modifying the original EMS Synthesiser range. The VCS 3 was designed and engineered by David Cockerell, who was responsible for most of the EMS product range. Cockerell went on to work for Electro-Harmonix and currently designs the Akai samplers.

The Roland Corporation was established in Japan in 1972 and released its first musical instrument - "Japans first synthesizer" - the SH1000 in 1973. The SH1000 was a portable and affordable analogue synthesizer. In 1976 Roland released their System 700 modular studio system synthesizer (pictured). Aimed at the broadcast market this synthesizer was used by NHK in Japan and BBC in England.
 
Roland continued to produce innovative instruments, in 1977 with their GR500 series analogue guitar synthesizers and the first commercial rhythm machine, the Compurhythm CR78. In the early eighties Roland released a range of inexpensive synthesisers, sequencers and drum machines, the MC202 sequncer, TB303 synth/sequencer, the SH101 monsynth and the TR-808 drum machine which were compact and affordable yet had some versatile features that has ensured their popularity into the 1990's.

The Fairlight was designed by two Australian engineers, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, who had already established the Fairlight company manufacturing and selling video special effects boxes. Their musical instrument prototype was known as the QASAR M8 (1978), subsequently developed into the Fairlight Computer Music Instrument in 1979.

The Fairlight CMI was the first commercially available digital sampling instrument; instead of generating sounds from mathematical wave data, the sampler digitises sounds from an external audio source via an analogue to digital convertor for re-synthesis or processing. The original Fairlight models used two standard 8 bit 6800 processors, updated to the more powerfull 16 bit 68000 chips in later versions. The Fairlight was equiped with two six octave keyboards, an alphanumeric keyboard and an interactive VDU where sounds could be edited or drawn on the screen using a light pen. The whole instrument was controlled by proprietary software allowing editing, looping, mixing of sounds as well as the ability to draw soundwaves and sequence samples. The two first Fairlights were sold to Peter Gabriel and Jean-Michel Jarre.

During the early eighties the Fairlight and the Synclavier were the high-end option for synthesis and sampling and way beyond the reach of all but the most up-market studios. This situation came to an end with the advent of complex and affordable digital synthesizers and samplers such as the Ensoniq Mirage (1986), Emu Systems' Emulator and the AKAI S1000 sampler range.