The Emicon (Model S) – the name derived from that of the distributors, M.I. Conn in New York – was designed in Budapest, Hungary by electronics engineer Nicholas Langer and Hungarian instrument designer, John Halmágyi and later manufactured in the USA. The Emicon was a monophonic 32 note keyboard controlled instrument based on the same type of heterodyning vacuum tube oscillator technology first used in the Thereminvox a decade earlier. Langer designed the instrument to be able to create more complex tones than the standard vacuum tube sine wave and therefore used a single neon gas-discharge tubes to produce a type of sawtooth wave with richer harmonics; “In general, pure sinusoidal oscillations, when converted into sound, are not satisfactory from the musical point of view as they impress us as empty and meaningless” – Langer’s Emicon was said to be able to produce tones similar to a cello, saxophone, oboe, trumpet, mandolin, guitar and bagpipe and was said to be the instrument that inspired Harald Bode to start designing electronic musical instruments. Designed as a portable domestic instrument, The Emicon was housed in a shallow rectangular case small enough to sit on a tabletop and could be attached directly to a domestic radio receiver, public address system, amplifier, or any similar equipment. 1 Davies, Hugh,(2014) The Emicon, Electronic valve Instruments, Grove Online, 08 December 2014.
References
- 1Davies, Hugh,(2014) The Emicon, Electronic valve Instruments, Grove Online, 08 December 2014.