The Forgotten Original Synthesizer
Published: 23 Dec 2023You might be familiar with the Theremin, considered by many to be the first electronic instrument. The Moog is often cited as the first synthesizer, and has a stellar amount of brand recognition. However, few have heard of what I believe to be the actual very first synthesizer ever commercially sold.
The Youtube algorithm works in mysterious ways, and it brought to my attention a short video essay with barely 3.6k views on it, which chronicles the history of an electronic instrument I had not heard of before, the Ondioline!
This mysterious instrument looks very much like a small piano or organ, consisting of a box at its base housing a speaker and the electronics, and a small keyboard above featuring keys just wide enough to fit a finger, and spanning about three octaves. The electronics are based on vacuum tubes and various early effect circuits which gives the Ondioline's sound a unique analog characteristic which in our current digital age is something many artists try to emulate (to varying degrees of success). In addition to the keyboard, the upper case features a row of toggle switches labelled A through M, as well as some additional switches and knobs. Here is where it gets interesting, depending on the configuration of the switches a keystroke can emulate a very wide range of sounds, which included "bagpipes from Scotland, American banjo, Gypsy violin, soprano voice, and the Indian sitar". This puts it far ahead of the contemporary Ondes Martenot, another electronic instrument which served as somewhat of an inspiration for the Ondioline, and this crucial fact is what I believe makes it the very first Synthesizer.
Originally designed in 1939 by Frenchman Georges Jenny, it was popularised primarily through Jean-Jacques Perrey, a prolific composer of music for the Ondioline, who has released over 25 studio albums between the years 1958 and 2015, essentially owing his initial success to his exotic mix of sounds never before heard by an audience that was for the most part used to traditional acoustic instruments, save the theremin and electric guitar.
One album that especially stands out to me is Perrey's very first commercially released album using the Ondioline: "Prelude au Sommeil" from 1958. Curiously this album was created as a collaboration between sleep researchers at a facility credited as "Institut Dormiphone" and Perrey to induce sleep in insomniacs. To what extent it actually achieves this is unknown, however the result is a thoroughly beautiful and tranquil album consisting of two tracks (simplistically titled A1 and B1) of approximately 25 minutes each, spanning each side of the record. Sound takes the shape of no discernable instrument, but rather showcasing in isolation the distinctly analog electronic sound of the Ondioline's oscillators. Furthermore it is evocative of the much later style of ambient electronic music proliferated by Brian Eno, underlining how far ahead of its time this album really was. So in addition to arguably being the first exclusively electronic album as well as being the first album featuring a synthesizer, it may also claim the title as being the first ambient album. Perrey's later releases however take a much more commercial approach, imitating a wide range of instruments and pre-existing styles alongside sci-fi themes, which understandably proved much more popular than a sleep-inducing ambient album with a limited audience of insomniacs on the cutting-edge of electronic music, ha!
Through the decades Jenny produced many versions of the Ondioline with various extended features up until 1970. Around this time the famous Moog synthesizer was gaining in popularity, and Perrey changed his focus to make primary use of this exciting new Synthesizer, releasing albums with titles such as "The Happy Moog!" (1969), "Moog Indigo" (1970), "Moog Sensations" (1971), "Moog Expressions" (1972), "Moog Generation" (1972), "Moog Mig Mag Moog" (1974), and so on and so on, I think you get the idea. Slowly the Ondioline faded from public consciousness. The actual instruments being somewhat fragile and maintenance heavy, they quickly fell into disrepair and silently witnessed the rise and fall of disco and krautrock, and the various legendary acts in electronic music like Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, later Daft Punk and of course Skrillex.
In 2016, Wouter André "Wally" De Backer aka Gotye ("Somebody That I Used to Know") used a restored Ondioline to perform live under his new act named the Ondioline Orchestra. Perrey himself was originally planning to attend, however on the 4th of November 2016 he sadly passed on at the age of 87, only two weeks before the concert was held.
When you search "first synthesizer ever made" on Google today, you will find references to the RCA Mark II, a one-off machine the size of a room installed in 1958 at Columbia University, as well as the original Moog, first commercially sold in 1964. However, let there be no mistake, the Ondioline did it first, it was more compact, it sold commercially, and most importantly: It created beautiful synthesizer music before anyone else did!