Who Created the Electronic Synthesizer?

Electronically synthesized music has been everywhere for a while. You can hear it in 1980s classics like Depeche Mode’s “Just Can’t Get Enough” or The Buggles’ “Video Killed the Radio Star.” In the 1990s, you could hear it in albums by Daft Punk and Bjork. More recently, you heard it in pop tunes by Katy Perry, in electronic remixes by Tiesto and in rap songs featuring DJ Snake and Lil Jon. It’s in just about any of Skrillex’s dubstep or Marshmello’s house beats.

Did you know there’s a strong Canadian connection to all that electronic music? Hugh Le Caine worked as an atomic physicist at the National Research Council (NRC). But he was most passionate about the physics of sound. Between 1945 and 1948, Le Caine built the very first voltage-controlled sound synthesizer. He called it the Electronic Sackbut Synthesizer.

Did you know?

A sackbut was a 15th-century musical instrument. It was an early version of the trombone, using a slide mechanism to change pitch. The sackbut provided a lower range of sounds than a trumpet.

A synthesizer is an electronic device that reproduces sound. It can imitate natural and familiar sounds like the trill of a bird or the drip of water in a pan. It can mimic acoustic musical instruments like pianos, violins and flutes. Synthesizers can even create completely original sounds that you can’t hear anywhere else.

Le Caine wanted to make an electronic musical instrument that a person could play in real time. The performer would be able to use directional pressures to change the background voltage. In turn, this would change the attributes of the sounds being produced.

The electronic sackbut only produced one note at a time. But performers could control that single sound in many ways. For example, they could vary the pressure they applied to the piano-style keys. Or they could push or pull the keys in different directions. 

The force applied to the keys with the right hand determined the sound’s volume or loudness. Moving the keys from side to side changed the pitch. Pitch refers to the frequency of vibration. Performers could even create a vibrato by wiggling a key with their finger. A vibrato is a pulsating change in pitch. 

The left hand operated pressure-sensitive finger pads. They changed different aspects of the sound waveform. Waveform refers to the shape of the sound wave over time. These changes altered the timbre of the sound. The timbre is what makes one sound distinct from another, even at the same volume and pitch. It’s what lets you distinguish the sound of a flute from the sound of a piano or a human voice.

Le Caine gave a number of public performances with the original electronic sackbut. He demonstrated the kinds of sounds and music it could create. These shows were so successful that the NRC gave him his own sound technology lab. He started working there full-time in 1954. 

Between 1969 and 1971, Le Caine improved the devices that controlled timbre on the sackbut synthesizer. In 1971, he made a prototype of a commercial sackbut synthesizer using modern design techniques. But it was never mass-produced or sold to the public.

Did you know?

“Dripsody” was Hugh Le Caine’s most famous composition. It involved electronically manipulating and multiplying the sound made by a single drop of water.

Le Caine’s synthesizer was never a commercial success. But many of his other sound technologies were used in music labs during the 1960s and early 1970s. He personally helped establish the very first electronic music labs at Canadian universities. The lab at the University of Toronto opened in 1959. The one at McGill University opened in 1964. They were almost entirely equipped with sound technologies produced by Le Caine at the NRC. He also taught young composers of electroacoustic music.

Le Caine retired in 1974. By that time, he had developed over 20 different sound technologies. These included new instruments, a touch-sensitive keyboard and a variable speed multi-track tape recorder. Many of his innovations were ahead of their time. Some features he introduced didn’t find their way into commercial products until the late 1980s.

The next time you are listening to electronic music, remember the electronic sackbut synthesizer. You can thank Hugh Le Caine for these now-familiar sounds!