RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer
Encyclopedia
The RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer (nicknamed Victor) was the first programmable electronic music
synthesizer
and the flagship piece of equipment at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA
, it was installed at Columbia University
in 1957. Consisting of a room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components, much of the design of the machine was contributed by Vladimir Ussachevsky
and Peter Mauzey
. The synthesizer was funded with a large grant from the Rockefeller Foundation
.
Earlier 20th century electronic instruments such as the Telharmonium
or the theremin
were manually operated. The RCA combined diverse electronic sound generation with a music sequencer
. This provided a huge attraction to composer
s of the day, many of whom were growing tired of creating electronic works by splicing together individual sounds recorded on sections of magnetic tape
. The RCA Mark II featured a fully automated binary
sequencer using a paper tape reader analogous to a player piano
, that would send instructions to the synthesizer, automating playback of the machine. The synthesizer would then output sound to a synchronized shellac
record lathe next to the machine. The resulting recording would then be compared against the punch-tape score, and the process would be repeated until the desired results were obtained.
The sequencer features of the RCA were of particular attraction to modernist
composers of the time, especially those interested in writing dodecaphonic
music with a high degree of precision. In fact, the RCA is cited by composers of the day as a contributing factor to the rise of musical complexity
, insofar as it allowed composers the freedom to write music using rhythm
s and tempo
s that were impractical, if not impossible, to realize on acoustic instruments. This allure of precision as a mark of aesthetic progress (played out even today with contemporary computer
-based sequencers) generated high expectations for the Mark II, and contributed to the increased awareness of electronic music as a viable new art form.
The synthesizer had a four-note variable polyphony
(in addition to twelve fixed-tone oscillators and a white noise
source). The synthesizer was very difficult to set up, requiring extensive patch
ing of analog circuitry prior to running a score. Little attempt was made to teach composition on the synthesizer, and with few exceptions the only people proficient in the machine's usage were the designers at RCA and the engineering staff at Columbia who maintained it. Princeton University
composer Milton Babbitt
, though not by any means the only person to use the machine, is the composer most often associated with it, and was its biggest advocate (Igor Stravinsky
was rumored to have suffered a heart attack
upon hearing Babbitt's glowing description of the synthesizer's capabilities).
A number of important pieces in the electronic music repertoire
were composed and realized on the RCA. Babbitt's Vision and Prayer and Philomel
both feature the RCA, as does Charles Wuorinen
's 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Music
-winning piece Time's Encomium. After the RCA was vandalized by thieves in the 1970s it fell into disrepair, and remains only partly functional. The last composer to get any sound out of the synthesizer was R. Luke DuBois
, who used it for a thirty-second piece on the Freight Elevator Quartet
's Jungle Album in 1997.
Though part of the history of electronic music, the RCA was hardly ever used. Made to United States Air Force
construction specifications (and even sporting a USAF oscilloscope
), its operating electronics were constructed entirely out of vacuum tube
s, making the machine obsolete by its tenth birthday, having been surpassed by more reliable (and affordable) solid state
modular synthesizers such as the Buchla
and Moog modular synthesizer
systems. It was prohibitively expensive to replicate, and an RCA Mark III, though conceived of by Belar and Olsen, was never constructed. Nor was RCA long for the synthesizer business, prompting Columbia to purchase enough spare parts to build two duplicate synthesizers.
Much of the historical interest of the RCA, besides its association with the Electronic Music Center, comes from a number of amusing (and possibly apocryphal) stories told regarding the synthesizer. One common story is that Ussachevsky and Otto Luening
effectively con
ned RCA into building the machine, claiming that a synthesizer built to their specifications would "replace the symphony
orchestra," prompting RCA executives to gamble the cost of the synthesizer in the hopes of being able to eliminate their (union
ized) radio orchestra. The RCA is sometimes (falsely) attributed as the direct cause of the New York City Blackout of 1977
, having been powered on moments before the lights went out.
The RCA is still housed at the Columbia Computer Music Center
facility on 125th Street in New York City
, where it is bolted to the floor in the office of Professor Brad Garton
, taking up quite a bit of precious floor space.
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
synthesizer
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
and the flagship piece of equipment at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Designed by Herbert Belar and Harry Olson at RCA
RCA
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. The RCA trademark is currently owned by the French conglomerate Technicolor SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Technicolor...
, it was installed at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1957. Consisting of a room-sized array of interconnected sound synthesis components, much of the design of the machine was contributed by Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Ussachevsky
Vladimir Kirilovitch Ussachevsky was a composer, particularly known for his work in electronic music.-Biography:...
and Peter Mauzey
Peter Mauzey
Peter Mauzey is an electrical engineer associated with the development of electronic music in the 1950s and 1960s at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center...
. The synthesizer was funded with a large grant from the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...
.
Earlier 20th century electronic instruments such as the Telharmonium
Telharmonium
The Telharmonium was an early electronic musical instrument, developed by Thaddeus Cahill in 1897. The electrical signal from the Telharmonium was transmitted over wires; it was heard on the receiving end by means of 'horn' speakers.Like the later Hammond organ, the Telharmonium used tonewheels to...
or the theremin
Theremin
The theremin , originally known as the aetherphone/etherophone, thereminophone or termenvox/thereminvox is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without discernible physical contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Léon Theremin, who patented the device...
were manually operated. The RCA combined diverse electronic sound generation with a music sequencer
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
. This provided a huge attraction to composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
s of the day, many of whom were growing tired of creating electronic works by splicing together individual sounds recorded on sections of magnetic tape
Magnetic tape
Magnetic tape is a medium for magnetic recording, made of a thin magnetizable coating on a long, narrow strip of plastic. It was developed in Germany, based on magnetic wire recording. Devices that record and play back audio and video using magnetic tape are tape recorders and video tape recorders...
. The RCA Mark II featured a fully automated binary
Binary numeral system
The binary numeral system, or base-2 number system, represents numeric values using two symbols, 0 and 1. More specifically, the usual base-2 system is a positional notation with a radix of 2...
sequencer using a paper tape reader analogous to a player piano
Player piano
A player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...
, that would send instructions to the synthesizer, automating playback of the machine. The synthesizer would then output sound to a synchronized shellac
Shellac
Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes , which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish...
record lathe next to the machine. The resulting recording would then be compared against the punch-tape score, and the process would be repeated until the desired results were obtained.
The sequencer features of the RCA were of particular attraction to modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
composers of the time, especially those interested in writing dodecaphonic
Serialism
In music, serialism is a method or technique of composition that uses a series of values to manipulate different musical elements. Serialism began primarily with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, though his contemporaries were also working to establish serialism as one example of...
music with a high degree of precision. In fact, the RCA is cited by composers of the day as a contributing factor to the rise of musical complexity
Complexity
In general usage, complexity tends to be used to characterize something with many parts in intricate arrangement. The study of these complex linkages is the main goal of complex systems theory. In science there are at this time a number of approaches to characterizing complexity, many of which are...
, insofar as it allowed composers the freedom to write music using rhythm
Rhythm
Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...
s and tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
s that were impractical, if not impossible, to realize on acoustic instruments. This allure of precision as a mark of aesthetic progress (played out even today with contemporary computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
-based sequencers) generated high expectations for the Mark II, and contributed to the increased awareness of electronic music as a viable new art form.
The synthesizer had a four-note variable polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
(in addition to twelve fixed-tone oscillators and a white noise
White noise
White noise is a random signal with a flat power spectral density. In other words, the signal contains equal power within a fixed bandwidth at any center frequency...
source). The synthesizer was very difficult to set up, requiring extensive patch
Patch cable
A patch cable or patch cord is an electrical or optical cable used to connect one electronic or optical device to another for signal routing. Devices of different types are connected with patch cords...
ing of analog circuitry prior to running a score. Little attempt was made to teach composition on the synthesizer, and with few exceptions the only people proficient in the machine's usage were the designers at RCA and the engineering staff at Columbia who maintained it. Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
composer Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
, though not by any means the only person to use the machine, is the composer most often associated with it, and was its biggest advocate (Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
was rumored to have suffered a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
upon hearing Babbitt's glowing description of the synthesizer's capabilities).
A number of important pieces in the electronic music repertoire
Canon (music)
In music, a canon is a contrapuntal composition that employs a melody with one or more imitations of the melody played after a given duration . The initial melody is called the leader , while the imitative melody, which is played in a different voice, is called the follower...
were composed and realized on the RCA. Babbitt's Vision and Prayer and Philomel
Milton Babbitt's Philomel
Philomel, a serial composition composed in 1964, combines synthesizer with both live and recorded soprano voice. It is Milton Babbitt’s best-known work and was planned as a piece for performance at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, funded by the Ford Foundation and commissioned for soprano Bethany...
both feature the RCA, as does Charles Wuorinen
Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen is a prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. His catalog of more than 250 compositions includes works for orchestra, opera, chamber music, as well as solo instrumental and vocal works...
's 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Music
Pulitzer Prize for Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year...
-winning piece Time's Encomium. After the RCA was vandalized by thieves in the 1970s it fell into disrepair, and remains only partly functional. The last composer to get any sound out of the synthesizer was R. Luke DuBois
R. Luke DuBois
Roger Luke DuBois is an American composer, performer, conceptual new media artist, programmer, record producer and pedagogue based in New York City.-Biography:...
, who used it for a thirty-second piece on the Freight Elevator Quartet
Freight Elevator Quartet
The Freight Elevator Quartet were a music performance group specializing in improvised electronic music active in and around New York City...
's Jungle Album in 1997.
Though part of the history of electronic music, the RCA was hardly ever used. Made to United States Air Force
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
construction specifications (and even sporting a USAF oscilloscope
Oscilloscope
An oscilloscope is a type of electronic test instrument that allows observation of constantly varying signal voltages, usually as a two-dimensional graph of one or more electrical potential differences using the vertical or 'Y' axis, plotted as a function of time,...
), its operating electronics were constructed entirely out of vacuum tube
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
s, making the machine obsolete by its tenth birthday, having been surpassed by more reliable (and affordable) solid state
Solid state (electronics)
Solid-state electronics are those circuits or devices built entirely from solid materials and in which the electrons, or other charge carriers, are confined entirely within the solid material...
modular synthesizers such as the Buchla
Buchla
Buchla & Associates, Inc. is a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, notably synthesizers and unique MIDI controllers. The 200e Electric Music Box and Lightning III are currently in production.-Buchla Music Box :...
and Moog modular synthesizer
Moog modular synthesizer
Moog modular synthesizer refers to any of a number of monophonic analog modular synthesizers designed by the late electronic instrument pioneer Dr. Robert Moog and manufactured by R.A Moog Co...
systems. It was prohibitively expensive to replicate, and an RCA Mark III, though conceived of by Belar and Olsen, was never constructed. Nor was RCA long for the synthesizer business, prompting Columbia to purchase enough spare parts to build two duplicate synthesizers.
Much of the historical interest of the RCA, besides its association with the Electronic Music Center, comes from a number of amusing (and possibly apocryphal) stories told regarding the synthesizer. One common story is that Ussachevsky and Otto Luening
Otto Luening
Otto Clarence Luening was a German-American composer and conductor, and an early pioneer of tape music and electronic music....
effectively con
Confidence trick
A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. A confidence artist is an individual working alone or in concert with others who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty and honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility,...
ned RCA into building the machine, claiming that a synthesizer built to their specifications would "replace the symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
orchestra," prompting RCA executives to gamble the cost of the synthesizer in the hopes of being able to eliminate their (union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
ized) radio orchestra. The RCA is sometimes (falsely) attributed as the direct cause of the New York City Blackout of 1977
New York City blackout of 1977
The New York City blackout of 1977 was an electricity blackout affected most of New York City from July 13, 1977 to July 14, 1977. The only neighborhoods in New York City that were not affected were in southern Queens, and neighborhoods of the Rockaways, which are part of the Long Island Lighting...
, having been powered on moments before the lights went out.
The RCA is still housed at the Columbia Computer Music Center
Computer Music Center
The Computer Music Center at Columbia University is the oldest center for electronic and computer music research in the United States. The Center was founded in the 1950s as the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center....
facility on 125th Street in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where it is bolted to the floor in the office of Professor Brad Garton
Brad Garton
Brad Garton is an American composer and computer musician who is professor of music at Columbia University.He has written, or helped to write, a number of computer music applications, including Real-Time Cmix, music synthesis and signal processing language for real time composition. He received...
, taking up quite a bit of precious floor space.
External links
(PDF version is also available])- Wuorinen's story of Time's Encomium
- Babbitt on Philomel, Realized on the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer, 1968–1971