createdigitalmusic‘s Peter Kirn rifle retro to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of either the first medicine synthesizer or the first fail automatic lounge music generator .
Before the likes ofBob Moogmade electronic music accessible even to non - geeky rock - and - rollers , there was the RCA synthesist . RCA ’s Mark I was a three - gross ton behemoth the record chief at RCA Victor hoped would automatically moil out lounge music . It did n’t , so Columbia and Princeton grabbed a replacement and professor like Milton Babbit used it for electronic serial music . ( No big record hits ; sorry , RCA . ) Significantly , it also fired up Otto Luening , one of Moog ’s first customer .
In 1955 , spectacles like these were state of matter - of - the - art : 12 vacuum - vacuum tube oscillators , punch - report keyboard input for marking sound , and a establish - in lacquer disc cutter for recording . Real - clip was out — the first Moog was a decennium away — and digital would have to wait until Max Mathews ’ memorialise a 17 - second composition on the IBM 704 central processor in 1957 . But the RCA did herald the hereafter in 1955 . Babbit and experts on the synth ’s story will gather to reminisce and gyrate some of the old line Thursday in Princeton ; detail on that event and more on the RCA atcreatedigitalmusic .
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