Beyond those glass doors lies the electronic instrument room in the Deutsches Museum. Peter Forrest, author of the excellent A-Z Books, posted a question on the AH list asking if anyone heard of the "Siemens modular synth from around 1970, with a very large number of oscillators, a pin matrix, and an interesting triangular design?
This is later than their early (pretty magnificent) synthesiser / vocoder." Apparently The Deutsches Museum has one and it is most likely behind that door with more electronic goodness. I ran a quick search on flickr for The Deutsches Museum and found it. Update: Turns out this is not the synth Peter was referring to. The one he is referring to has a triangular design like a pyramid. If anyone has any more info on this unique synthesizer, please post a comment or contact me. My contact info is on the bottom right of this site.flickr by jacktastic. full size
"Siemens electronic music lab circa 1960ish. The highlight of any trip to Munich and star of the Deutches museum."
Synthesizer. flickr by thefoggiest. full size
I also found the following:
hofner guitar with Oberheim DX, Casio VLTone and? flickr by thefoggiest. full size
click here for the Musical Instruments page on the official Deutsches Museum website. BTW, if anyone has more info on the Siemens please comment. If you have more images send them my way. My contact info is at the bottom right of the site.
Update: also see this link (in Googlish here).
Update via swissdoc in the comments:
"Whenever you are in the Museum, make sure to visit the HighVoltage Show and the "Bergwerk".
The Siemens Studio is featured on 6 pages in issue 03/07 of the "Synthesizer-Magazin". You can still get a copy here (in German only).
What looks like a modular synth is indeed "just" a bank of oscillators built 1956. It features 1 Tieftongenerator (Dual) which is a Dual-LFO, 19 oscillators (sinus or sinus to square variable, AR Env) and a Noise Generator (takes static noise from an FM receiver). There is a patchpanel to interconnect the oscillators.
There is a CD available with music recorded in that studio:
link
link
There is a small booklet available "Siemens-Studio für Elektronische Musik / [Hrsg.: Siemens-Kulturprogramm]" which can be found in German libraries with a little luck.
Some further links on the topic:
link
link
Georg."
Link to the Synthesizer Magazin issues in Googlish
Wow. My family visited the Deutsches Museum decades ago when I was a kid, and the guide played some of the historic (acoustic) keyboards for us. Great museum in general, by the way.
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ReplyDeleteok...let's try this one more time....
ReplyDeletei had about 3 hours in this museum one morning before having to head to the airport - i could have easily spent 3 days there - at the time there was an outdoor gallery with a water driven kinetic sculpture - one of the great museums
Whenever you are in the Museum, make sure to visit the HighVoltage Show and the "Bergwerk".
ReplyDeleteThe Siemens Studio is featured on 6 pages in issue 03/07 of the "Synthesizer-Magazin". You can still get a copy here (in German only) http://www.synthesizermagazin.de
What looks like a modular synth is indeed "just" a bank of oscillators built 1956. It features 1 Tieftongenerator (Dual) which is a Dual-LFO, 19 oscillators (sinus or sinus to square variable, AR Env) and a Noise Generator (takes static noise from an FM receiver). There is a patchpanel to interconnect the oscillators.
There is a CD available with music recorded in that studio:
http://ssl.adhost.com/jazzloft/baskets/pos.cfm?CD=11126
http://www.johncage.info/cdlabels/siemens1.html
There is a small booklet available "Siemens-Studio für Elektronische Musik / [Hrsg.: Siemens-Kulturprogramm]" which can be found in German libraries with a little luck.
Some further links on the topic:
http://www.stelkens.de/bs/klforsch98/text.htm
http://www.computerjazz.ch/Pages/Doc1.html
Georg.
Thanks swissdoc. I updated the post with this information.
ReplyDeleteHere is even more Info in English available:
ReplyDeletehttp://web.archive.org/web/20061021181357/http://www.obsolete.com/120_years/machines/siemens/index.html
Georg.