Joystick Journeys: The VCS3 Collection

Sample set via The Electronic Garden

"Welcome to the weird, whacky and wonderful world of the EMS VCS3. This unusual instrument was developed by EMS in the late Sixties and intended as a portable electronic music studio. Unlike more famous instruments of the day, the VCS3 was initially released without an accompanying keyboard. As such, it was embraced (often by those under the influence of certain mood enhancers) as a resource for special effects. It became an electronic voice for space rockers, psychedelic bands and sound designers. The VCS3 and its big brother the Synthi 100 were used by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to create effects for many programs, including of course, Doctor Who. With clever marketing ("every nun needs a Synthi"), the VCS3 and its electronically identical suitcased brother the Synthi A became mainstays of the European rock scene. EMS itself was a hot spot, visited by many musical stars of the day.

What made the VCS3 so endearing? Why does it claim ridiculously high secondhand prices to this day? Perhaps because, keyboard-free, it invited atonal experimentation. Or maybe because it looked like the flight deck from a Gallifreyan time machine. It certainly wasn't because it stayed in tune! In fact, when the keyboard was eventually released, many musicians quickly discovered that its oscillators were hopelessly undependable, drifting and wobbling like spec of cosmic dust in a solar storm. Maybe its appeal came courtesy of that crazy push-pin routing matrix (which took the place of patch cords, but traded 'em for some pretty nutty cross-talk). It's an awful lot of fun to blindly stab pins into that thing and see what happens!"