Zinovieff

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The other day I mentioned EMS synthesisers in my short note on The Radiophonic Workshop at the BBC. The man behind EMS was Peter Zinovieff, electronic and audio engineer, the son of emigré Russian parents who met in London after fleeing the Russian Revolution. Zinovieff was a collaborator with Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson from The Workshop in a short-lived outfit called Unit Delta Plus, whose stated aim was to promote electronic music; Derbyshire and Hodgson later forming the group 'White Noise" with David Vorhaus.

Zinovieff initially developed a hybrid digital/analogue synthesiser named MUSYS. This beast was controlled by two DEC PDP-8 minicomputers and a piano keyboard. At the time he built it, there were no computers in private hands and each of the DEC's cost the thick end of £120,000 a pop in today's money. All privately funded(!).

Zinovieff and EMS went on to produce synthesisers in Britain at a time when they were one of only four commercial producers of the devices worldwide. The company lasted until 1979 when it went bankrupt, but not before it had sealed its place in the history of electronic music alongside the big three; Moog, ARP and Buchla. The eighties would herald the development of fully digital sound synthesis, harking back to Zinovieff's monster instrument; and see the rise of Japan in the field of electronic music.

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