The ‘Synthetic Tone’ was an electro-mechanical instrument similar but much smaller to the Choralcelo designed by the Brookline, Massachusetts electrical engineer Sewall Cabot. The instrument created complex tones by resonating metal bars with a tone-wheel generated electromagnetic charge.1Roads, Curtis,(1996) Early Electronic Music Instruments: Time Line 1899-1950, Computer Music Journal Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), MIT Press, 20-23.
“One object of my present invention is to provide an improved musical instrument of relatively small cost and small dimensions in comparison to those of a pipe-organ, but capable of attaining all the musically useful results of which a pipe-organ is capable. Another object is to provide an instrument that will produce desirable tonal effects not heretofore obtainable from a pipe-organ.”2 United States Patent Office,#1705395
Sewall Cabot was a U.S. electrical engineer and an early (1906) contributor to the development of vacuum tube detectors before lee de Forest’s ‘Audion’ patent of 1912. 3 Cabot, Sewall, (1927) Detection—Grid or Plate, QST 1927-03: Vol 11 Iss 3, 30 Cabot was responsible for the later (1916) re-design of the Choralcelo electronic instrument.
References:
- 1Roads, Curtis,(1996) Early Electronic Music Instruments: Time Line 1899-1950, Computer Music Journal Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), MIT Press, 20-23.
- 2United States Patent Office,#1705395
- 3Cabot, Sewall, (1927) Detection—Grid or Plate, QST 1927-03: Vol 11 Iss 3, 30
I think that you have the wrong Sewall Cabot. Quincy Sewall Cabot, 1901-1957 was a member of the US Diplomatic Service and went by the name Quincy Sewall.
Sewall Cabot 1875-1938 was an electrical engineer who patented several items.
Thanks. I’ll check and correct!