The subharchord is a rare electronic instrument most closely related to the mixturtrautonium created by Oscar Sala. The Subharmonic Sound Generator SUBHARCHORD was developed during the 1960s in East Berlin (GDR) at the Radio and Television Technical-Centre (RFZ) of the German post office. A predecessor to the common synthesizer, the instrument was rediscovered some years ago, in 2000, by Manfred Miersch, an artist and musician from Berlin. This text introduces how it came to pass that such an instrument was created in East Germany, what its basic principles are (heavily oriented towards harmonic and subharmonic series) and discusses some of the instrument's usage, for example, for making sound tracks for DEFA (East German) science fiction films.
A photo of the instrument can be seen at:
http://www.subharchord.com/subframeset/fotosallgemein/Foto_01.html
Article is in 4 parts:
- I) Keyboards: No. 8: 112-114.
- II) Keyboards: No. 9: 120-121.
- III) Keyboards: No. 10: 118-120.
- IV) Keyboards: No. 11: 114-115.